Well.. Another month gone by and only 3 months left! Time seems to be flying by a lot quicker these days, and i doubt it will be slowing down anytime soon. This past week was a great week of rest for both Kara and I, and a time of rest well served doing nothing! We were able to take things at a snail pace, and catch up on some deep sleep. As I reflect on this past week, I am beginning to see that it was more of God's doing than our own. It just so happened that we had only a few commitments. And when i think about the rest we had, i also think about the coming weeks ahead and how busy we are going to be! God knows, and He knew we needed it in order for us to make it through the marathon that is ahead of us.
So in saying all this, you are probably wondering what is ahead?? In a week a team comes from Canada which we are really excited about. Our great friend Troy is on that team, and we are excited to hang out with him and take him to all the nice restaurants we can't afford to eat at!! Haha.. mostly likely we will eat tacos the whole time he is here. (mmm.. we love tacos!!) After the team comes, Kara's parents are coming down for 2 weeks! sweet.. more expensive eating... and when i say expensive i only mean 20 canadian dollars for a whole meal for 2. During the time they are here we will hopefully get away for a night or so to Acapulco, as well as a youth retreat with a church we are involved in. After this another team is june and july.. and then my parents COME!!! sweet. And they will be coming when we are finished here. Soo we are going to do some traveling with them which will be awesome!

Ok.. thats a run down of the things ahead. Please pray for us, we are now entering a huge transitioning time in our ministries here. We finish spanish classes and are starting new ministries. We are going to be transitioning our english groups into the ALPHA course, so we are excited to see what will happen there. Please pray for our finances. We are trusting God, and are still in need of a chunk of fund raising in order to not go into debt when we return back home. So continue to pray for us and the ministries God has given us down here.

Awesome! We are praying for you back home, and pray that God will show himself in a new way these up coming weeks. Nuestro Dios es grande y todopoderoso. Ponen su fe in El.

Muchos Gracis para su todo oraciones! Que Dios los bendiga con muchos mas!

Nathan and Kara

Three Month Update... Sorry!

Hi All!

Sorry so long between updates, we actually lost the password to this account! But anyway, here we are. We've had a crazy three months. This is going to be rather short because I just wrote the entire newsletter, which will soon be heading your way. And if you're not getting our newsletters, please email me, and I'll add you to that list. So here's the rundown of what we've been doing: We spent January restarting our ministries, and getting set up for the long haul of our internship here. Our ministries picked up again in February. Our English group restarted, and has gone incredibly well! We've got over 10 people attending each week, and this past week, we had a really great talk about who God is, which is really amazing given that none of the students in our group are Christians. God is good! We also started the Worship seminars, which are also going well. Now that we've got a better grasp of the language, it is far easier to teach our students! In March, we headed off to Guatemala for our border trip. We had to renew our visas, so we took of for a week. It was a fantastic experience, although a little nerve wracking at times! Once we returned from Guatemala, we picked back up our various ministries, and our language studies. Our Spanish classes are going wonderfully, and we especially love our new teacher. We are actually done classes in three weeks, which will seriously free up some time. Other than these things, we are just doing our regular routine, and loving it! God is doing wonderful things in our lives, and ministries. We are currently learning about the Sabbath, and the Daily Office practice, which is a truly challenging experience! So, I think that's about it. Hopefully you've been getting our newsletters which are much more useful! Thanks for praying with us as we continue in this journey!

Happy new year!

So we are now back in Mexico after spending our Christmas holidays in Canada with Kara's side of the family. It was a great time to relax and reflect on our first three months spent it Mexico. Its amazing how much you can learn in three months in another country and not even realize it. We are excited to be back though, and it is shaping up to be a very busy year; more so than last year. We are going to be involved with a Mexican established church about 2 hours from where we live, and involved with a cell group in total about every other week. We will be under Mexican leadership working alongside Mexican pastors. We have been asked to start and help out with a worship training group for the particular church we are going to be involved with. Which means we need to learn spanish a whole lot more. Other than this we are still involved heavily with fusion ministry in Coyoacan area, and are equally excited about what God has in store for this ministry.
We started at a new spanish school which is turning out to be a really good challenge and just what we needed to learn spanish more quickly. Furthermore, of most recent changes we have also just moved into a new place where we have our own apartment, and a place which is considerably closer then our last home stay with a Mexican family.
So there is just a brief update for those of you who wanted to know, and is the first of many more to come. With such a busy schedule this new year, I am forced to become better with how I managed my time.
Kara and I are still sending out monthly newsletters, but from some feedback we have recieved we discovered that not everyone is getting our newsletters. So, we have decided to switch mail providers, and have signed up with GMAIL, and will no longer be using HOTMAIL. So if you can make a change in that, our new email is

rautenbergs@gmail.com (NEW EMAIL)

We would love to hear from you, and will be sending a mass email noting our change of email.

May God bless you all with his richest blessing. Would you continue to pray for us daily as we are making decision of what to include and exclude in our ministry here. Pray for clarity, and direction.
One last thing as well, Kara and I are still in need of more donations in order to continue to minister here in Mexico for the next 8 months we have left. If you can be in prayer, we still need roughly 14,000 dollars more to cover the expenses of our year here in Mexico. We trust in God and have seen his provision. He has placed on many of your hearts the desire to support Kara and I financially in Mexico this year, and we thank you all for your support in this way. We would not be here if it wasn't for Gods grace, your prayers, and your financially giving.

Please email us if you have any questions. We love hearing from you and all that God is doing in your lives and in your communities back home.

Dios de bendiga, Nathan and Kara

Hola amigos

Hey, i hope you are all doing well. Things down here in Mexico are going really well.. Keeping busy, always stuff to do; and being stretched continually. Kara and I had the chance to go to a PUMAS game ( UNAMS soccer team, really big down here). There were at least 5,000 at the game. Crazy fans, literally cheering the whole game.. Soon enough i will post a video of some highlights of the game for you all, and put some pictures up.
Other then our outings and getting to know the culture more and more, life here is the big city has been great. God has been opening doors, and we have been meeting random people and have been able to make connections with them. We are definitely learning a great deal about Mexican culture, and the differences and similarities between Canadian culture.
Overall, we are thoroughly enjoying our experience in Mexico, and feel God stirring a passion in us for Mexico in the future.

Please continue to pray for us as we finish up this year. We have our final spanish exam on Wednesday next week, and are then heading out on vacation for 5 days. God is doing a work in us and through us these days.

If you have questions or just wanting to email us please feel free to do so.

Dios de bendiga, adios amigos!