The Raymers

December 2009

Dear Praying Friends,

He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Romans 8:32

As I was reading this passage of Scripture the other day, it encouraged me to think what a wonderful and sacrificial gift our Father gave to us when He gave His best to us. It reminded me of the importance to give back our very best to our Father. This is a good reminder for us as we enter into this season of sharing and caring, to not forget about our Heavenly Father and to rededicate our lives (the best we can offer) to Him for His complete use.

The months of October and November were filled with travels. We enjoyed seeing many friends and family while we were reporting to many of our supporting churches and presenting our ministry in many other churches. We thank the Lord for His protection as we traveled 8,961 miles, visited 17 states, 3 countries, 13 churches and numerous homes during these two months. Please pray that the Lord will raise up some additional support from these travels.

We were able to spend Thanksgiving with Debbie’s family in Mission, TX, before we returned home. It was good to see the continued progress that her dad is making following his stroke in August. Please continue to pray for him that he will continue to gain his strength and parts of his memory. The doctors are very pleased with his recovery to date. They are still adjusting his medicine to his needs.

While we were away, Carena celebrated her 5^th birthday. We thank the Lord for this bundle of energy! We were surprised when the teens at Friendship Baptist Church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, threw a birthday party for her. It was a great blessing to our family. She will remember it for a long time.

We were excited to be back in our home the 29^th of November. We have been busy getting settled in and working on my immigration paperwork which was expiring the 4^th of December. All of the paperwork has been accepted for my visa, and I should be receiving it sometime next week. We also had our “adopted” daughters over to decorate gingerbread houses. They loved doing that in the midst of exams.

Since we returned we have been finishing some of the translation projects that we have been doing. Elizabet our main translator was very busy while I was gone and has a pile for me to catch up on. I have begun laying out for printing the books Biblical Leadership and Milk for New Christians. We hope to have these books going to press in February.

The university is finishing this week, but we are already working on many things for the upcoming semester. We will be beginning the semester with a modular class for the theology students and pastors. I will be recording this course so that we can use it in a diploma program we are developing. Please be in prayer for this class and for me as we are setting up some new equipment so that we can do live editing while we record the course to make it available more quickly.

If you would like a current prayer card, please e-mail your mailing address to us. You can also download the prayer card or see our current presentation at www.raymers.oremundo.org.

Merry Christmas!

Thank you for your prayers and support,

Russell, Debbie & Carena Raymer

November 2009

Dear Praying Friends,

The past few months have been difficult, exciting and rewarding.

At the beginning of August we headed 10 hours south of Monterrey to Debbie’s dad’s house for a family reunion. We spent a couple of days with many family members who we had not seen for many years. It was also a special blessing that we were able to minister as a whole family to a church nearby on a Sunday morning.

On the 16^th of August we received a phone call early in the morning telling us that Debbie’s dad had suffered a stroke and was in the hospital. We quickly packed our bags and headed to Mission, Texas where he was in the hospital. We are thankful for the friends who were hospitable providing meals while we were there and the ones who volunteered to watch Carena so we could be up at the hospital. A couple of days after the stroke the doctors found an aneurism on his brain and had to go in and do surgery. Through the faithfulness of God and the prayers of God’s people around the globe the surgery was a success and he is now recovering. He spent about 6 weeks in the hospital before being allowed to return home to his house in Mission, TX. We are grateful for the many prayers and phone calls we have received. We know that God still has a plan and purpose for Debbie’s dad’s life.

September brought the start of a new school year for us in Monterrey. Carena entered K5 this year. She continues to excel in both her English and her Spanish. She was excited to return to school even though it was only for a couple of weeks.

The Christian University of the Americas also began with the largest enrollment in our history. We are thankful to God for the many new students in school. We are excited about what God will do this year. We were assigned four campus daughters this year. Carena was so excited when she heard we had four adopted daughters because she thought that meant that they were moving in with us. We quickly corrected her and explained that they would be living in the girls dorm, but we would have them over as often as we could. We finished remodeling a new classroom for the theology classes right before classes began. We expanded the room so that it can now seat over 30 students and installed a computer and projector in the room. We are thankful for a couple of churches who helped provide the funds for this project. We also are thankful for a church in Ohio who sent us funds to be able to purchase a couple of projectors as we are wanting to put projectors in each classroom.

The end of September took our family to the city of Ciudad Madero, Tamaulipas, Mexico for a week. A church there asked me to come and preach for a week on the subject of Personal Finances. We had a wonderful time with many of our friends in the church, and the Lord worked greatly in the lives of many to dedicate their lives and their finances to God. Over the past few years God has continued to open doors for us to go into churches and teach on this subject. We have a burden to help God’s people with this very needy area. An accountant friend of ours in Monterrey and I are beginning to work on a program that we can take to pastors and leaders to help them understand basic finance and the responsibilities we have as leaders in regards to finances.

After the finance conference we returned home for two days and then departed again. This time we departed for the United States for a two month trip to visit many of our supporting churches and to visit several other churches with the desire to raise some additional support. We have to date driven over 6,000 miles and been through 17 states in the month of October. We have several more meetings scheduled for the month of November and then plan on returning to Monterrey the end of the month. We are enjoying the fall colors as we travel.

Please be in prayer for our family as we travel, and that the Lord will continue to bless our ministry in the churches.

Thank you for your faithful prayer and support over the years that we have been privileged to serve our Master here in Mexico.

In Christ,

Russell, Debbie & Carena Raymer

July 2009

Dear Praying Friends,

Psalm 121:1-2 “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.”

The past year has been one of many changes for our family. Last August we relocated from Mission, Texas to Monterrey, Mexico. This move had been in our plans for a couple of years. What we had not anticipated was moving the headquarters of OREMUNDO with us, but God saw fit in His perfect way that when we moved the bulk of the ministry moved with us. We are now continuing to minister with the different ministries of OREMUNDO Ministries, as well as, we are now working together with the Universidad Cristiana de Las Américas (Christian University of the Americas). We are excited about what God had done, and what we know He will be doing in the future through us in both these ministries.

We enrolled Carena in a Christian school here and are pleased with her Spanish acquisition. She will go back to school in late August. She just finished attending a music camp that was offered by the school and really enjoyed that.

We have just finished our summer mission team schedule for this year. We began January with eight groups signed up to come, but because of economics, reports of violence in Mexico and the swine flu, our group number dropped to two groups. We know this was God’s plan as we are in the midst of several new projects. God blessed mightily on these two trips and we were able to complete work projects and vacation bible schools for two churches and two church plants. We saw many children attend and hear the Word of the Lord in the VBS classes and many accepted the Lord as their personal Savior. God also worked in the lives of the groups who traveled with us confirming His working in their lives. Please pray for those who made decisions during the weeks. Debbie led three girls to the Lord during the VBS outreaches. Pray that these three girls will grow in the Lord.

Our first trip was to a church we have helped in the past. There we helped the church refurbish some pews and some other furniture around the church. Each evening we traveled to another area to help in vacation Bible school classes. We were not sure how many children would attend as school was still in session, but we were pleasantly surprised by over 70 in attendance. We are thankful that our co-workers Jonathan & Wendy Latham worked with us on this trip. It was a blessing to work together.

Our second trip was to another church here in Guadalupe where we undertook the project of designing and building a 12’ x 22’ stage for their new auditorium. We are thankful that the platform was completed and we were able to help with a vacation Bible school at a church plant from the same church.

Russell will be going to the state of Tabasco in August with Matt Bixby another one of our co-worker missionaries to give a three day intensive course. Matt will be teaching on Homiletics and Russell will teach on Church Administration to pastors from that region. These conferences have been well received at other locations and we look forward to a wonderful few days in Tabasco. Please pray for Russell as this will be his first time to present the classes in this format.

We are excited about the possibility of helping one of our co-workers in a church plant endeavor here in Guadalupe. Please pray with us as we look at this new opportunity of ministry.

Then at the end of September our family will be heading to the Tampico, Mexico area where Russell will be preaching a week long conference on finances. Please pray for our family as we will be traveling most of the fall both in Mexico and in the United States.

Thank you for your faithful prayer and support over the years that we have been privileged to serve our Master here in Mexico.

In Christ,

Russell, Debbie & Carena Raymer

May 2009

Dear Praying Friends,

Psalm 68:19 “Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up; God is our salvation.”

These past few months have be filled with lots of activities and visitors. We are thankful that God upholds us each day and gives us the strength to accomplish His will. This month marks 16 years that God has allowed me to serve here in Mexico.

We are thankful for the many friends and family that have been able to come visit us over the past couple of months. In February, Debbie’s folks were able to spend a few days with us on their way back to Mission, TX, after a pastor’s conference. At the end of the month Russell’s folks were able to come spend a week with us. Then a couple of weeks later in March, Debbie’s sister Ana and her two boys came for a few days. We so enjoyed having our family come visit us and see the wonderful things that God is doing here in Monterrey. We also were blessed to have visits from a couple of families who came to visit us from Reynosa. The first couple had been in our youth group when we were serving in Reynosa. They have since gotten married and are now faithful in church as a couple. The second visit from Reynosa was from a family who is planting a new church on the outskirts of the city. It was very encouraging to hear how God is blessing their ministry. Please be praying for the Ramos-Portugues family as they labor in this very needy and opportune area.

We are excited about many of the special ministry opportunities we have had over the past few months. In February, we were able to rejoice with one of our colaborers the Gibsons, as the mission they have been pastoring was organized as a local church. This is an exciting step to see the church form and now take on many responsibilities. We were also able to celebrate Easter Sunday with this church and see the wonderful work that God is doing outside of Guadalupe.

March was very busy with many activities. Russell was able to help with a special creation conference here at the Christian University of the Americas. It was wonderful to see the church’s auditorium filled the three days of the conference. Mid-March brought the annual Harvest Teen Rally to Monterrey. The rally in Monterrey saw over 5,000 people in attendance. There were several hundred salvation decisions. Please pray for the local churches as they now work with those who made decisions at the Rally.

In April we were involved with the Iglesia Bautista Genesaret in a special activity of distributing wheel chairs and walkers to those who had needs. This was done in conjunction with a ministry called “Wheels for the World” who collect wheelchairs around the United States and then take them into other countries to meet both physical and spiritual needs. Russell spent two days working as a mechanic on the wheelchairs to help make them fit the recipients. He also helped as a translator. Debbie worked in the sewing room helping to make cushions and bags for the wheelchairs. Each recipient and his family/friends that came with him was given a bag that contained a Bible, Gospel of John and a couple of other books. There was a group who shared the Gospel with each one of them. It was a true blessing to see the faces of those who received these gifts that for many are something they would never have been able to obtain.

Russell preached at two different church’s missions conference in the past couple of months. The first church was the church we were blessed to have been attending in Mission, TX, before our move. It was wonderful to be able to see many friends and share with them the ministry that we are involved in. Then two weeks ago, Russell preached on missions at a church here in Guadalupe. It is a blessing to see the churches here in Mexico looking beyond their “Jerusalems.” This next Sunday, Russell will be preaching the special Mother’s Day service at another church here in Guadalupe.

Carena continues to grow and loves all the visits. She is a real people person and has to be around people. She had two weeks off school for Easter break, then was back to school for one week before the schools were closed again due to the Swine Flu outbreak. She should return to school on the 11^th of May. We thank God for keeping us and the students here safe and healthy throughout this outbreak of sickness. She loves to help her mommy in the kitchen.

Please pray for us as we prepare for the summer. Due to concerns of the violence reports, economic conditions and the swine flu outbreak, our summer mission teams have been greatly reduced. We still have several groups who will be traveling with us and a couple of the other missionaries here at the school. We are excited about what we know God will do this summer.

Thank you for your faithful prayer and support over years that we have been privileged to serve our Master here in Mexico.

In Christ,

Russell, Debbie & Carena

Russell, Debbie & Carena Raymer

Welcome to our new page designed to inform you about our ministry here in Mexico. Thank you for taking the time to look at this page.