The Bliffens

Hurricane Wilma

Subject: Hurricane Wilma

Hi Friends,

You may have seen the news recently about Hurricane Wilma.  We have been watching the news and the forecast tracks.  There still does not seem to be a good sense of where the hurricane is going or when.  Be assured that we will prepare our house and belongings and if we need to evacuate we will.  We also feel a need to be with our church people during this time.

Please pray for us that all will go well, and that the Lord's protection will be evident to us. 

For those of you who know that we are waiting for our permits for the West Kendall Church we got good news today.  Zoning department has apparently given us approval for the church meeting place at the warehouse we purchased!!! Now we just need about 8 more departments from the Building Dept. to give their approval.  But Zoning approval is a big one!!!
Thanks for your continued prayers. 

Please remember that if you reply to this e-mail your response will go out to everyone in the group. 
So if you just want to reply to us, please send an e-mail to jbliffen@teamexpansion.org

Thanks for your continued prayerful support! 

John & Becky 

Summer Mission Trips

Last night at about 9:30 pm I arrived at MIA from an 8 day trip to Cuba to visit our churches there, and tomorrow at 8:00 an, Lord willing, I will be on another plane to Ecuador for a weekend revival with Cesar Salinas in Cotacachi, Ecuador.  What a summer vacation! 

In Cuba we visited with the local preachers from our Christian churches in Havana and in the provinces of Sancti Spiritus and Villa Clara.  Please pray for our Cuban brothers because some of them are suffering hardships which I cannot detail here.  Others, however, are thriving and growing in spite of the difficult circumstances.  Look for more details later. 

The trip had several mishaps, including luggage arriving late, blackouts, car accidents, and planes leaving late.  But thanks be to God that all our contacts were made and we arrived safely to leave again on the next mission. 

Tomorrow my family will travel to Quito, Ecuador to meet with our friend and son in the faith, Cesar Salinas who is the minister of the Iglesia Cristiana en Cotachachi, Ecuador.  We will help him with an outdoor evangelistic meeting on Saturday and will hold services at the church on Friday and Sunday.  We plan to visit the center of the world monument in Quito before we leave. This will be quite a treat for my family since Cesar, lived with us and worked with us in West Kendall and is like part of our family.  Please be in prayers for our family on this trip, especially for Elizabeth who is insulin-dependent diabetic.

Thank you for your continued concern and prayerful support of our ministry. 

John

The Keys to the building

I have on my desk the keys to the new warehouse site which will serve for the office and meeting place for Iglesia Cristiana en West Kendall.  We had the closing today with the help of a loan from CDF and now we are the owners of a warehouse site.  We are in the process of getting permits for the use of this unit for the Church.  Please continue to pray for us as we go through this process.  We'll be letting you know when inaugurate this new site. 

Anniversary / Revival at West Kendall

We had a great weekend revival at West Kendall Christian Church.  Ray Bennet was our guest evangelist for this year's revival.  Our people enjoyed his energetic and forceful style of preaching.  I had to translate and that was quite a task to keep up with him.  But we had great results as three young people gave their lives to Christ and were baptized on Sunday.  Three weeks earlier we also baptized the owners of the house and pool where these baptisms took place.  Five new Christians in three weeks, Praise God! 

Sunday was also our 8th anniversary for Iglesia Cristiana en West Kendall.  Paul Roland preached and we read a letter of greeting from former team member Larry Griffin.  On this weekend we also learned that the warehouse which we are buying for our church facility has received its certificate of completion.  Now the work begins for us to obtain the use permit for our Church.  Please pray for us in this process. 

Thank you for your prayers for West Kendall Christian Church! 

See you next time. 

John

July Missions Trips

Thank you all for your prayers for Carol Marie on her mission trip to Costa Rica. She has had a great trip with amazing experiences and adventures. If you would like to read about their trip you may join the yahoo group named costaricamscc and you will find some great pictures and excellent reports of the trip led by Larry & Ruth Griffin. Marie returns on July 7 for a week and a half rest before going again to Mexico with the group from Western Hills Chruch of Christ, Cincinnati. She will return on July 24 just in time to participate in two weeks of summer camp at Iglesia Cristiana en West Kendall, here in Miami.

John will be travelling to Cuba on July 6-22 with a group of Pathways interns. We will have sports outreach in one of the churches, childrens programs in churches in Havana, Sagua and Sancti Spiritus, and one of the coaches, Rick Cherok will be teaching on the History of the Christian Church to the preachers and leaders in all those cities. Please pray for the safety and success of our trip, as well as for Becky and JT and Elizabeth as they continue here in Miami.

I'll talk to you again around the end of July.

Summer Mission Trips

We are very proud of all of our children. They have each expressed interest in the misison field, and we are trying to continue and encourage that interest by sending them on mission trips. This summer our oldest daughter Carol Marie will be making two mission trips. From June 20-July 7 she will be making a trip sponsored by Mid-South Christian College to the nation of Costa Rica. This will be an especially interesting trip for Marie because she was born there while we were enrolled in language school. She hopes to see the family that we lived with while we were there 17 years ago. The team will be leading a Vacation Bible School and will be doing some work projects.

Then from July 16-23 Marie will be returning to Monclova, Mexico. She is travelling with a group led by Ron Vance of the Western Hills Church of Christ, Cincinnati, OH. This team will also lead a Vacation Bible School and will start construction work on a clinic. Marie went there two years ago, and is looking forward to returning.

John will return to Cuba July 5-22 with a Pathways team from Team Expansion. We are excited to be able to continue our ministry there. On this trip John will be accompanied by a couple from our Church here in West Kendall, and with one of the students from Florida Christian College who went on the last trip along with other interns and coaches from Team Expansion. Please pray for Becky during this time when 2/5’s of the family will be out of the country, in three different countries during several weeks.

Welcome!

Welcome! We are glad you have stopped here and hope that enjoy reading about what God is doing in the Bliffen's ministry.