Tom Montgomery
To Mexico City, Mexico
Covenant Baptist Church
Broken Arrow, OK
Our mailing address
Mexico Missions
Covenant Baptist Church
P.O. Box 741
Broken Arrow, OK 74013
Websites
www.graciaaudio.com
www.spurgeonaudio.com
Dear Friends,
I flew to Denver, Colorado, on the 15th of April to be with my dad during the surgery to remove one of his kidneys. The initial operation went well, but we had quite a scare the next morning. They found him with no respiration, and when we arrived at the hospital he was in the ICU with his eyes rolled back, his body shaking uncontrollably, and breathing with a respirator. This made us think that he had suffered a stroke or perhaps something worse. Dad spent 3 days in intensive care undergoing tests and manifesting paranoia, confusion, and memory loss, the whole time moving in and out of consciousness, and with more of the shaking. After many tests, the doctors could not find the cause of this, but suspect that they gave him too many drugs and pain killers all at once. During the next 3 days he had a miraculous recovery. The tests for cancer in the kidney were negative and the doctors are optimistic that he may have a 'new lease' on life. He has been home now for a few weeks and is continuing to improve. It was very important for me to be with my parents during this difficult time.
Last month Pastor Omar made a preliminary trip to Honduras to meet with some of those who are asking us to begin a Pastor's Institute there. We will be traveling to Guatemala again next week for our monthly Institute in the capital. Our radio programs have received a good response in Guatemala. The time slots are being provided to us free of charge. The Institute in Mexico City is coming up again on the 17th of May. We have opened these monthly meetings to the public and are no longer focusing the studies on pastors. We continue to see an attendance of 60-70 for the Saturday sessions.
We are still working on important updates for our websites. The traffic continues to increase. The audio sermon downloads for March and April were over 11,000 MP3's. Please continue to pray for this important outreach.
The San Fernando mission (where I preach each week) has reached the point where they need to find a more affordable place to meet. The Sunday attendance has averaged 75 plus adults for the last 3-4 months. They are paying about $4.50 per person to meet at a beautiful old hacienda that is available to rent for multiple purposes. Because of the increased attendance, they are not able to save any money toward a permanent place. This mission is also helping with more than half of the monthly support of the Spurgeon translation project. We are praying for guidance in the decisions that need to be made.
Mexico is currently experiencing another wave of violence in the ongoing drug war. More than 10 important police officials have been murdered this month. These figures include the chief of Mexico?s federal police, along with more than 20 regular officers. This escalating war has resulted in over 1,000 deaths this year. President Calderon is now being accompanied by a helicopter gunship when he travels outside the city. There are some politicians who want the army to patrol the streets of Mexico City, in order to calm things down. A recent survey found that 50.5% of those between 18 and 29 years of age would prefer to live in the U.S.A. if they could do so legally. Another 30 percent of the population (that is 30 million out of 100 million) said that they would go to the U.S.A., even if they had to do so illegally.
We have a baptism service scheduled for early June. There will be 8-10 baptisms from the San Fernando mission and a number of others from the Cuautitlan mission. Our son, Luke, will also be baptized. We are very thankful for the Lord?s work in the hearts of many who attend these missions. We hope to baptize a larger group in the fall of this year.
We have begun the process of the renewal of our immigration papers. We always point out that this is a complicated and uncertain process that we must go through each year. We are grateful for your prayers and support.
Missionary Tom Montgomery and FamilyNewsletter - March 13, 2008
Dear Friends,
We made trips in January and February to Guatemala to teach in our Pastor's Instituto. I am scheduled to go again on the 27th of this month. Pastors Omar and Humberto have been giving the classes and conferences there for about a year and a half. These men have returned each month with alarming reports about the security situation and spiritual condition of the country. Guatemala (as you might suspect) has many problems. According to government statistics, in the past five years, some 25,700 Guatemalans have been murdered (the real figures are probably much higher). In 2007, there were 4,500 murders, with the average just over 17 murders a day. These sad statistics are from a country of between 13 and 15 million inhabitants. The economy is a mess. Many live in constant fear due to the lack of security and the presence of violent gangs that operate with impunity. The 'prosperity gospel' that has been imported on a massive scale by the charismatics, has had little or no impact on the true spiritual condition of the country. We rejoiced to see the hunger of the pastors and workers to learn more and effectively communicate the truth to others. These men come from poor backgrounds, and we are providing the studies and materials free of charge. We have been generously helped with the expenses by Pastor Sam Pitrone and the church in Denver, Colorado. Our Mexican churches and missions have also helped with this.
Most of the 30 plus men who attend the Instituto have little or no theological preparation. They have reacted positively to the doctrines of grace, and as we expected, are facing opposition both from within and without. Some of the men are being attacked and threatened by their denominations for preaching the truth and trying to implement sound methods of evangelism. Please pray that they will have the grace and courage to stand for the truth. We are trusting the Lord to raise up sound churches that will proclaim the biblical Gospel in Guatemala. We were recently able to obtain some free radio time via one of the pastors who has some connections with a cultural radio station. They will be airing for the next month an evangelistic series by Pastor Moises based on the Ten Commandments. We are still undecided about extending the Instituto to Nicaragua and Honduras.
We are working on some important updates for our websites. The traffic continues to be very good. The audio sermon downloads for January and February were over 9000, (the breakdown is: 6300 for spurgeonaudio.com and over 2700 for graciaaudio.com.). Please continue to pray for this outreach.
We have been distributing for about a year three small books of Spurgeon sermons titled: Gethsemane, The Trial, and The Crucifixion of our Lord. These sermons were translated by Bro. Allan and are great evangelistic tools as well as edifying and instructive for all Christians. We have seen a growing interest in these titles and are optimistic that we may soon see them distributed in the chain of bookstores operated by the Liga Biblica. Pastor Osuna, who lives in Sinaloa, has been able to get these titles into the hands of many pastors and workers in northwestern Mexico.
I continue with our regular preaching schedule and other responsibilities here in Mexico City. We began a new semester of our monthly Instituto conferences in January. We are centering this more on church members and less on pastors and workers from outside the city. We also have a new meeting place that is more centrally located. The Saturday sessions are shorter, so as to be less of a marathon and accessible to more people. The attendance has been 60-70 per session.
Our family is doing well. Luke has been taking the entrance exams for the UNAM and POLI. Mark is trying to manage working at Procter & Gamble with his university studies. Carolyn is learning to bake and continues with home schooling. Lissa, as always, is the one who keeps everything going. We are thankful for your prayers and support.
Missionary Tom Montgomery and FamilyNewsletter - Jan. 15, 2008
Dear Friends,
We send you greetings for the New Year. The holidays do not end in Mexico until January 6th with the 'Day of the Kings' (Reyes). For many they start around the 12th of December (Guadalupe Day), and the Guadalupe-Reyes vacations tend to drag on longer every year.
Many people find themselves unable to pay their bills in January, and so the New Year gets off to a bad start. This year there are price increases in all public services scheduled to go into effect this month. In Mexico, the water, gas, electricity and gasoline are all government owned and prices are already considered to be among the highest in the world. The increases will only complicate the growing inflation. There is also a 'crisis' in the price of tortillas in Mexico, due in part to so much corn being used for ethanol in States. This month NAFTA import duties on beans and corn are scheduled to end, which will aggravate the agricultural crisis that Mexico has suffered because the farmers are unable to compete with imports from the USA.
The political situation is still unsettled because of the increasing violence and corruption brought about by the drug trafficking cartels. In 2007 there were more than 2,500 drug related executions. Many of these were extremely violent, and now we are beginning to see beheadings and mass executions even in the Mexico City area. Some of you have probably seen news reports about how this violence is spreading in the northern part of the country and along the U.S. Mexico border.
The blessings of Common Grace that we enjoy in the USA do not exist in most of the third world because there are not enough Christians to serve as light and salt. An even greater tragedy is the fact that so many of the 'churches' in Mexico are plagued by doctrinal and moral corruption. Many so-called evangelicals live worse lives than the Roman Catholics, and the end result is that they are unable to bear any real testimony to their friends and neighbors.
The only 'good' news here is that the Gospel continues to be preached and we are trying to take advantage of every opportunity. We are in the process of preparing a Spurgeon audio sermon CD that we plan to distribute (free of charge) to a large number of national pastors and workers. There is also another audio project in the works that involves putting most of the materials from our Pastor's Institute on-line so that these studies can be downloaded freely. We are presently in the final stages of securing a new radio contract for 2008. The commercial station that airs our program was recently sold to new owners, but we are optimistic that we will be able to get a reasonable price for our Sunday morning time slot. We were recently contacted by the Logos software folks regarding the possibility of including over 250 Spurgeon sermons in their Spanish digital library for pastors. There is a Pilgrim's Progress audio project and study guide in the works that we hope to have finished sometime in 2008. Our missions and churches continue to have new visitors and opportunities to preach the gospel. I will be going to Guatemala this month to help with the teaching in our Pastor's Institute. These and other advances continue by God's grace, in spite of great opposition and many hindrances.
Our family is doing well. Our oldest son, Mark, was recently offered a scholarship by Procter and Gamble. He is in his third year at the University and will begin next month working 20 hrs. a week for Procter. Luke is scheduled to take entrance exams for the Polytechnic Institute and the UNAM soon. Carolyn continues with home schooling and piano studies. Lissa is always busy helping everyone. We are in need of your prayers and thankful for your support.
Missionary Tom Montgomery and FamilyNewsletter - November 19, 2007
Dear Friends,
We are a little late with this month's prayer letter because of an unexpected tragedy in our family. I spent seven days in Colorado grieving with my parents and my sister's family. On Nov. 10th I preached the funeral of my nephew, A.J. Brown, in Colorado Springs. A.J.'s tragic death at 17 years of age has shaken everyone in our family. The events surrounding this are very sad, but we trust that our Sovereign God will bring great spiritual good out of what appears (humanly speaking) to be a needless loss. Over 300 people attended the funeral and the Lord gave liberty to preach the Gospel. We continue to intercede for the 3 families involved in this tragedy. We pray that out of great darkness may come light.
I am still preaching every Sunday in San Fernando as well as teaching three weeknight Bible studies. I continue working each week in typesetting, translation, printing, web mastering our sites, recording Spurgeon audios with Bro. Allan, attending to radio programs, counseling those with problems and helping in our missions. We are considering making some changes in our weeknight studies before the end of the year. There is also a possibility of starting a new mission on the eastern side of Mexico City (closer to where we live) sometime early next year.
The traffic to our websites continues to increase. The audio sermon downloads for Sept. and Oct. were over 6500 for www.spurgeonaudio.com and 2500 for www.graciaaudio.com. The total is over 9000 MP3 downloads for two months. We pray that this may be a means that God is pleased to use to return many 'churches' in Latin America to the biblical Gospel. These sermons are being downloaded in every Spanish speaking country in the world. The bimonthly visitors to the Spurgeon text sermon site continue steady at about 45,000.
We continue with the two year training Institute for pastors in Guatemala. Until now, the teaching load has been handled by Pastors Omar and Humberto. We are thinking about possibly including others after the first of the year. We still have to make a decision about opening an Institute in Nicaragua. We have a partially open door there, but are waiting for some more contacts before deciding how to proceed. Please pray with us for wisdom and guidance in this important decision.
There are always problems and difficulties in different people's lives. Two ladies who attend the San Fernando mission almost went to jail in the month of October. Both cases were job-related with corrupt superiors trying to blame them for wrongdoing by higher ups. If we did not have a university law professor (who attends the mission in the south), plus the good hand of Providence, these cases might have turned out badly. It is incredible how innocent people can be framed here, with the co-operation of the authorities.
We are also praying for a well-known lady who attends infrequently at one of our week night Bible studies. La Seņora Wallace has waged a public campaign (via radio and television) to find and bring to justice those who kidnapped and killed her son. Her efforts have resulted in the apprehension of two of the killers, but sadly have put her own life in jeopardy as well as other family members. Only the Lord can preserve her life from the dangers that she is facing. Mrs. Wallace has a Catholic background, but after coming to an intellectual understanding of the Gospel, is still struggling with the issue of assurance of salvation.
Missionary Tom Montgomery and FamilyNewsletter - September 4, 2007
Dear Friends,
We had a safe and profitable visit to Gringolandia. We returned to Mexico on August 8th and have been busy with our normal activities. I am back into my regular preaching schedule of three weeknight Bible studies and Sunday services. We continue to have new visitors in our San Fernando mission.
The Izcalli and Toluca missions are enjoying a surge in attendance. They are both struggling with the need for more space in order to accommodate this increase. The Izcalli mission is still looking to purchase property to build on, but has not found something affordable. The San Fernando mission is hoping to have some clear direction about their need for a permanent place to meet in the near future.
The traffic to our graciaaudio.com site was down some over the summer, but the Spurgeon sermon site continued to increase. The figures were over 45,000 visitors to spurgeon.com.mx for July and August (this is the sermon text download site). The audio sermon downloads for two months were almost 5,000 for spurgeonaudio.com and a little over 1600 for graciaaudio.com. We purchased some more recording equipment that will enable us to increase the number of MP3's that we produce each week.
Bro. Allan got a clean bill of health at his first annual checkup since last year's cancer surgery. He needs to get through at least another year before the percentages of recurrence go down. Allan and his wife are moving this week in order to share an apartment with their son. This will help reduce some expenses and other pressures that they have faced.
The Guatemalan Pastor's Institute continues to progress. We hope to make a preliminary trip to Nicaragua in Sept. or Oct. regarding the possible start of a new training Institute. We are contemplating a temporary suspension of our Institute in Netza. We feel like everyone needs a break from the monthly sessions. This will give us the opportunity to spend more time right now helping our missions solidify their advances.
We were able to bring back an extra car on our border trip. We purchased a new Nissan with our personal funds. We got an exceptionally good deal through the help and kindness of a close friend in the States. This will help us with the complicated vehicle situation here in the city (the day without a car program) and other considerations. I plan to use the Nissan while visiting churches in the States next spring. The city government has just announced plans to extend the car restricting program to weekends. At present it only applies on weekdays. This new plan is based on license plate numbers and is facing great opposition from the public We have been having intense rains and the remnants of hurricanes crossing through central Mexico. Our churches in the Yucatan were spared the worst of Dean, but Felix is now threatening Central America and southern Mexico. The traffic mess here in Mexico City has been worse than normal. We still have two or three months to go before the end of the hurricane season. There is presently another storm off the Pacific coast. Since we are surrounded by mountains and at 8,000 ft elevation, we only get the rains, not the terrible winds.
Missionary Tom Montgomery and FamilyNewsletter - July 4, 2007
Friends,
We trust that you are doing well. We continue to be excited about the response to our new audio sites. The monthly MP3 totals for May and June were more than double the number of downloads for the two previous months (2250 downloads for www.graciaaudio.com and 4028 for spurgeonaudio.com during May and June). The Spurgeon sermon text site, www.spurgeon.com.mx, had over 42,000 visitors during these two months. You can see that this outreach is growing quickly and has the potential to reach many souls. We calculate that each Spurgeon audio sermon downloaded is listened to by at least 3-5 people. That adds up to six to ten thousand listeners per month. We are adding new sermons to these sites every week. Bro. Allan continues to work diligently in the translation ministry. We meet for recording sessions each week and distribute the sermons among our churches here in a regular CD format. We also print at least 250 copies in booklet form weekly.
During Spurgeon's lifetime his printed sermons had a weekly circulation of approximately 25,000. If the Lord gives us time, and preserves Bro. Allan's health, we may one day (perhaps in a few more years) see numbers similar to these, distributed via the Internet to the Spanish-speaking world. Please pray that we may see a real work of grace via this means.
We have had more trouble than usual trying to renew our Mexican immigration papers this year. There is so much fraud going on here with Central Americans and Mexicans falsifying documents, that the Mexican authorities are making things harder for everyone. The Central Americans are using the Mexican religious worker's visa to get into the USA under false pretences. There are also reported cases of Moslems getting into the USA via Mexico, using the same religious visa system. There are many suspicious cases that the government has tried to hush up.
We have followed closely the amnesty debate in the U.S. Senate. If the 12-20 million illegals already present were allowed to bring their wives and children, then our government would end up granting anywhere from 50-100 million people a legal status in the USA. This would potentially destroy the conservative voting base, import millions of future liberal voters, and change the cultural, religious and moral fabric of our nation forever. Of course my concern has nothing to do with politics, but rather the long term spiritual implications of this for America.
The first week of June, I preached the annual three day conference at Juan Calvino seminary to close out the school year. There were many visitors from different groups, and we made some contacts with new pastors. Attendance at the San Fernando mission continues to be good. We have had over 90 a couple of Sundays last month. We have seen more visitors from our radio programming. These visitors are attending in our Netza church and at different Bible studies and missions we have in the city. The Pastor's Institute in Guatemala will begin its second year next month. Pastor Omar continues to be encouraged with the progress of this outreach.
We will be making our short annual trip to Gringolandia this month. Please pray for our safety as we visit our families and attend to many details while in the States.
Missionary Tom Montgomery and FamilyNewsletter - March 9, 2007
Dear Friends,
The Pastor's Institute in Guatemala is progressing well. The attendance remains around 40 men. There has been some interest expressed about extending this to Honduras and Nicaragua, but we prefer to wait until the first year cycle is finished in Guatemala.
Besides the continuing labors in church planting, we are trying to take advantage of modern technology to extend our outreach in Latin America. The opportunities that this technology represents are perhaps without parallel in the history of Christianity. We need grace and wisdom to know how to use the means that providence has placed at our disposal. We also need your prayers that these means may be blessed for God?s glory and a harvest of souls.
We recently began a Spurgeon audio sermon project. We are putting these out on in a CD format and plan to upload a new mp3 website soon. There are approximately 200 sermons already translated and available in booklet form. We are going to contract a separate web host for the audio site as we are expecting it to get a lot of traffic. We have been airing the evangelistic audio sermons on our Friday night radio program in Mexico City and have had a good response.
The vast majority of 'evangelical' churches in Latin America do not preach the gospel because they do not know the gospel. There is very little sound literature available and almost no sermon materials that are accessible to the local church and pastor. Our strategy with the Spurgeon sermons is to get a hearing for the biblical gospel. Multitudes of pastors and workers know the name of Spurgeon but have no idea of the truths that he preached. Through the 'miracle' of the internet many are reading these sermons. The spurgeon.com.mx site (along with a duplicate site in the U.S.A.) receives between 5,000 - 7,000 visitors each month. Please pray for the Lord to open the eyes of many of these and bring them to a knowledge of the truth.
We are almost finished with a new audio website of my sermons and those of Pastor Moises. We have uploaded most of some 30 sermon series on different subjects to our graciaaudio.com site. We have also started recording free audio versions of many of the books that we have translated in Spanish and plan to make these available on the Internet.
Last week, we sent two smaller books of Spurgeon sermons on 'Gethsemane, the Trial and Crucifixion if our Lord' to our commercial printer. We hope to publish a lengthy series (96 page books) of sermons on various subjects. Titles of this size are easier to read and distribute in a culture where most people are not accustomed to reading anything beyond a comic book size. The cost of these sermon books is $1500 for 2,000 copies (sown binding with full color covers). We plan to publish the next in the series as soon as we can recover the initial costs for each book.
We have added two more weeknight Bible studies since the beginning of the year. These are held in homes and are a good way to introduce new people to the gospel.
Missionary Tom Montgomery and Family