Please subscribe to our Prayer Letter List (http://davidcox.com.mx/prayerlist/) so that you will get our updates via email. We are seldom sending out paper and envelope prayer letters because of the cost (almost $1.50 dollars) to mail from here, and it takes sometimes months to get to the US.

Our church loses people and then grows some. As a pastor it is discouraging to see people leave. Usually when they have left us, it is because they do not like something I preached that offended them. I take all of those things very seriously. Some of the "issues" that people don't like me to preach on is Rock Music, the lack of Christian liberty among churches, HyperCalvinism, and other such things. These issues are things that I just won't change my position on, so we are sorry to see people leave, but there is nothing I can do in good conscience. Some come back in a year or so with horror stories of what happened in where they went to after being with us.

What I observe is that our generation is strongly into a designer church concept, where they want the church their way not God's way. Calvinists don't like pressure to go out and witness door to door, and they resent sermons where I mention our obligation before God to do so (at least those that were with us). Others want music like they want it (electric guitars and drums), and others don't think much of a church that has under 1000 members. Of course they came from such a church before us, and they had problems, but the problems are forgotten quickly, and they dislike our "smallness". The fact that these large churches don't minister to their own people, and they don't have good doctrine, and other such things just don't seem to enter into their minds. There is nothing biblical about the size of a church (small nor large) but every church has a responsibility to its people before the Lord no matter what their size, and size is not as important as fulfilling those spiritual responsibilities (at least in my book). I would like to see us grow, but the next step for us is to buy property and build, and these big church people resent us not being bigger, but they run off if you talk of building something. They are all for it as long as I get the money from the US and not from their pockets (which is how the big churches function on the mission field), but if I ask them to sacrifice, then they disappear quickly. I have mentioned our financial needs to our church family here and some say, "Go back to the USA and raise more money." They see that in other churches they were in before, and that is always the solution. When I talk about their tithes, and their financial sacrifices for their church, they balk at me like I am crazy. They could give more, but they see no moral obligation to do so because they have been taught by other missionaries that the USA churches should carry that burden, not the "poor people on the mission field". I honestly think American missionaries in many cases have done more harm than good. I preach that my people in my church in Mexico City have a financial obligation to me as pastor, and I do take their money when they give it to me.

We have had some new people come, and it is my observation as a pastor and missionary that those who church hop from place to place rarely do our church any good when they are with us. To listen to them, the sun rises and sets on their great talents in the other church where they came from, but with us, they are all talk and no show. To get busy doing God's work is not what they want. But those people who were with some other religion and get saved through presenting the plan of salvation to them, those are the best workers and most stable long term members that we have. We don't necessarily turn away "veteran Christians" from other churches, but our downs are usually always one of these "Veteran Christians" hoping out of our church and into another, and rarely do those who get saved under our ministry leave us.

I am pretty much completely recovered from my scrap with the cat. Just to clarify, the cat bite me and tried to tear a chunk of my arm out, and I pulled it away. The cat left scratches and 4 fang marks, no biggie, and although it bleed profusely that day, in an hour it stopped, and the actual bite and scratch marks never got infected. It was the bacteria in the cat's mouth that entered in the fat between my muscles and my skin that got infected and ran down my arm to my fingers, and up my arm to my shoulder leaving me with an arm twice as big as normal. My hand looked like a baseball glove. I was bitten on Tuesday, and I didn't eat or drink anything hardly through Friday when I finally went to the hospital for an analysis of the bacteria causing the infection. The idea was to go into the emergency room, they would take the sample with a needle, and then in 30 minutes tell me what it was, and we would go back to see our family doctor who would prescribe any antibiotic based on what the bacteria was. When we got to the emergency room my blood sugar was over 350, I was dehydrated, and amenic, and the doctor in the emergency room called in an infectologist and diabetiologist which both recommended I stay overnight. They put strong antibiotics in an IV and by Saturday night it was getting worse going up to my shoulder and no relief at all. That is when they decided to cut two chunks of flesh out of my arm above the elbow. Literally you could place a medium sized lime in either of the holes they cut into me. That operation was Sunday AM around 11AM. I had a cat scan of the arm at Sunday 8:30AM, and 15 minutes afterwards when the doctor reviewed the results they decided to operate. They did some tests and operated.

I did not go to the hospital because of a cat scratch. Some of our people didn't understand the situation at all. My two doctors pretty much said I would have gone into a coma or something worse if I had not gotten treatment as I did. The hospital we went to was the best hospital in southern Mexico City. That was not our first choice because of the cost of things there, and we have no health insurance any more because of my diabetes. (I had to put everything on my credit card.) The reason we went there was because our family doctor said that they had to take a sample of the bacteria, and analyze it quickly, and all the other hospitals in the south of the city take such samples to this lab that is part of the hospital we went to.

I did want to mention our website again. I now have 107 Spanish tracts on my website. I am translating them into English if you want to start checking that page. http://www.davidcox.com.mx/tracts/index.htm

On the Spanish web page, we had 20,000 people either visit and read one of these tract pages, or download the pdf file to print it out in October. Our whole website had 85 gigabytes of traffic in October, or about 2.3 gigabytes per day. I received an email in Spanish from a Jehovah's Witness. He pretty much chewed me out for what I had on my website about them. He accused me of having been with "the JW organization" and having been disgruntled, that I must have left, and now I am criticizing the organization. It was a pretty hot letter. What I got a chuckle from was that he thought I was an ex-JW. After thinking about it, apparently my JW tracts hit them exactly between the eyes as far as the truth is concerned, and assumed only an exJW could hit the spot like that. Apparently only ex-JWs know how these things work, and I must have captured that exactly like an ex-JW. It also tells me that this defection from their ranks to criticize them must be a commonplace thing. For those who don't know, my parents were independent fundamental Baptists, and I grew up in a Baptist church all my life.

From my Mailbox

Dear beloved Cox's in CHRIST, Greetings in the name of Jesus, our LORD and SAVIOUR I was blessed by my visit to your site today and I pray the holy spirit will be poured upon you as you touch the hearts of those who visit your site. YOUR SITE IS AN ANOINTING FROM GOD and I truly have been blessed by my visit here more than you will ever know. It is truly a blessing to visit sites that are such a blessing for a lost and dying world on the internet. We certainly need more sites as yours and others to reach the world for the Lord. God Bless you dear servant of God and I WILL BE PRAYING FOR YOU.... I need some books like good bible dictionary and bible for new convert. God Bless you Postal Address: P.O. Box 6828 Trans-Amadi Layout Port Harcourt, Nigeria Phone: 2348056737432.
Remain Blessed.
Pastor Peter N.Aliezi

Please write to me if you have specific questions about our ministry or want a personal update. I try to answer my emails when I receive them, and usually check 2-3 times a day. I don't mind giving updates to somebody who asks.

October 1, 2008 

Well I am recovering from my trip to the hospital. Paying the bills is taking a while, and will probably take until the end of 2009. My doctor said that my recovery was very fast, and he was very pleased. He said that most diabetics take a long time to heal from wounds. I healed faster than a non-diabetic would according to him. He has given me a clean bill of health, and I don't have to go back to see him any more. He wasn't charging for followup visits anyway. I preached the last two Sundays in church, and it is very taxing, but I had a lot of pent up I wanted to say and preach. I preached on Theodicy (why a good and loving God exists and also bad stuff like sickness and hardship are common in the lives of God's beloved children). On Sunday night I preached on "Does God want me Sick". I made tracts out of both sermons and will try to translate them and post them on my website. This past Sunday I preached on "Is their healing in the Cross?" (Yes there is, but no we cannot unilaterally claim it is an absolute right in every case. God chastises for our sins, and God is in a battle with Satan i.e. as in the case of Job, and we never know all that, but God offers us as examples of His confiding faithful children, and the only valid test is when we suffer). All of this goes on an undercurrent of suffering is the plan of God for all his children, just like Jesus suffered on the cross so that God can reward this suffering in eternity with glory. Last Sunday night I preached on, "My baby died", a tract for parents that have lost a child. It goes in with the same theme as what I am preaching on currently. If people would like to read the sermons, I will translate them and post them on my website if somebody asks me for a translation.

Our church is down a little over this past month but is picking back up. I think this Saturday I will be able to go on evangelism. Please pray for us as we work in evangelism and church planting here in Mexico City. Our financial situation of our people is critical. Most don't have jobs, or their jobs don't come anywhere close to covering their most basic expenses. This causes stress on everything from marriages, to families, to the church.

We would appreciate your continued prayers. It seems as though Satan constantly attacks us, and if it is not one thing it is another. We see people saved and really start growing in our church and something happens. Either somebody poisons them spiritually, and they get discouraged and leave, or because of the job situation they move or get a better job where they have to work on Sundays. Prayer for Mauricio and Laura who have 4 girls. Their primary prayer request is for a job with "English hours" (Monday through Friday). Most jobs here work half days on Saturday to 1 or 2 PM. Laura has been offered a supervisor's job which means more pay but working on Sundays. She is going to quit I think because they are going the other way, devote Sundays to the Lord. Pray for them. They barely make ends meet.

Also please pray for Jorge's father. He was hanging a flag out on Independence Day (Sept 16 here) and it arched to the high tension power lines outside his 3rd story window and exploded in a ball of sparks in his chest. He is in intensive care.

Please pray for some new members who are starting to come regularly.

September 18, 2008 

I wanted to update you about my condition. I am still weak at times, and sleep for a couple of hours during the day to recuperate, but I am recovering. I went to church Sunday morning for the first time since I got bit by the cat. It was difficult, but I made it through the day. (I didn't preach though.) I am planning on preaching this coming Sunday so pray for me. We went to the doctor Wednesday, and he said that my recovery was very good, and probably next week he will give me a clean bill of health. He said that when my antibiotics run out, that I am not to take any more of them. My wounds (that they made in my arm to drain the infection) were healing extremely rapidly even for a non-diabetic. He was very surprised. My blood sugar is between 80 and 100 these days which is very good, and I have lost about 22 pounds. I am eating according to the diabetic diet, and I am hungry a lot, but it is doing me a lot of good.

We are very pleased at my recovery overall. I am getting ansy to get back into preaching. We have several men who can stand in the pulpit and talk for an hour, but none of them are very good preachers. I have tried to teach them some things, but it is not getting through apparently from comments.

We would ask special prayer for our financial situation after all of this. We are having to pay off a large hospital bill, and would ask your prayers that God would provide for these special needs. We will probably be paying it off for a year or two at least.

Our church continues to grow slowly. It is amazing to see people who got mad over insignificant things leave our church, visit other churches (supposedly good churches) and then return to us. In the end, they find us a bastion for truth in a sea of darkness. I have recently heard horror stories of supposedly good churches that have a 10 minute sermon (if that) in which there is no exposition of the Bible, of churches with basically rock bands playing for the "praise service", women preachers, drunk pastors, and a long list of things most true Christians just cannot stomach at all. We stand for the truth, and we are not ashamed for it.

We go out witnessing door to door every Saturday morning, and it is amazing that so many churches in our day are in such a sad spiritual state, that the pastor himself cannot even clearly communicate the gospel to anybody. I recently asked a Southern Baptist church member (that preaches sometimes in his church) how he got saved, and he didn't have a clue. Our modern day churches are religious clubs, where if you are interested in religion, you qualify, and being born again has nothing to do with modern churches.

Please pray that we keep on keeping on, holding our presence for the Lord in our corner of the world.

September 11, 2008 

I am just getting to where I can do some work on the computer again. I will try to update you briefly on the whole year because some have written saying they haven't gotten anything from me this year when I have sent out about 4 updates.

This year has been difficult for us. We started the year off with around 40 people, and had 70 in the Christmas meal in December. Some families have left us because of various reasons ranging from getting mad at each other, to moving out of town. I am finding it more and more common in the ministry that people are immature, and as a church and pastor, either I can deal with none of their spiritual and personality problems and we all get along a little (they still have conflict and leave anyway), or I can challenge spiritual and maturity problems from the pulpit by exhorting and preaching to these problems (which is what I do). As a result many leave our church to go to other churches, but many come back apologizing because they realize my exhortation was sound. This causes a lot of fluctuating in our church.

We had several new adults come in the Spring, Citali and her 2 sons, Ana her mother, Adolfo and Denise her brother and sister-in-law. Also Mauricio and Laura started coming with their 4 girls. We have had several families not come regularly because of health problems, 2 brain cancers (Mercedes and Yolanda), Luisa Fernanda (leucemia), Scarlet fever (Maurice's girls), and Lili (a blood clot in her leg). We also had Jorge Piñon and Marta return after leaving us for a year.

Over the summer we have had many problems with my FM3 Immigration papers, and as such, I could not drive the car until they were fixed. That was from June through August. They are now all in order, renewed like they are supposed to be, but there is a new law about pollution that further restricts our use of the vehicle. By law, every car is limited one day from circulating (from taking it out of your house) according to the last number of your license plate. My day to not drive is Monday. Also the same thing applies to Saturdays, so I cannot drive the first Saturday of each month. Now there is another law for cars with foreign licenses tags (outside Mexico City area, or from another country) and I cannot drive from 5AM to 11AM Monday through Fridays. When pollution is high, we all get hit with a second day you cannot drive, and on weekends likewise there is another set of laws for when pollution is high and they declare a pollution emergency. So far I was hit with 2 Saturdays and 1 Sunday that I could not drive this year, and that was before the Saturday no drive plan where everybody is restricted 1 Saturday per month. I just about need a computer to figure out if I can pull the car out of the garage. I can get an exemption possibly for driving in the mornings, but it costs. We really need a newer vehicle (less than 6 years old) so that we can drive all days, but now with the hospital expenses, that seems very distant if even possible.

All this makes our use of public transportation essential, and every week of this summer I had to go across town to check on my FM3 Immigration papers. It is a 2 hour trip by public transportation each way to find out if my papers were ready. I returned every time with blisters on my feet. I could have taken a taxi for around $50 dollars, but we don't have money to burn to do that.

Our church continues to grow slowly, and I see spiritual growth in our people's lives. We have had up to four of our men preaching over this year, and even though they are not profession preachers by any means, they are growing in their ministries. We have seen more than a dozen accept the Lord since the beginning of the year, and some of those are now attending regularly our services. Most were baptized but some are still waiting our next baptisms. We have several I need to go through a discipleship program with them.

Our people are getting more involved in the literature ministry, and they are reading and growing on their own which is of great pleasure for me. I continue to get weekly emails from people all over the globe about my free books, tracts, and material on my website. July we saw 71 gigabytes downloaded, which is considerable for a website like mine. I do no promotion really, and most all of my visitors are by word of mouth. Some of my Spanish books are being downloaded 300+ per month, which is in format for mass reproduction, making their own copies and giving away in churches or individually. My condition is that they cannot sell my material, but they can reproduce it at will.

I am recovering from the cat bite. It still hurts some, and the bills hurt a lot worse. We will be paying on them for several years I believe. The actual bite never got infected, but cat's have a bacteria in their mouth that got in between my muscle and skin in the fat layer that is there, and my entire arm swoll to almost double. I had my own baseball glove built in for a while. I am still weak but am able to be up and about for about a half hour or so at a time now.

We were going really well on Saturday evangelism until the cat incident, and now that has been cancelled for a month. I also led a neighbor man to the Lord the day before the cat bit me, so to me Satan is trying to frustrate our ministry it seems.

Prayer Requests:

1. Healing for my arm.
2. Funds to pay for the hospital and medical expenses.
3. Various sick people in our church.
4. New converts that need to be baptized and discipled.
5. Freedom to work.
6. Our vehicle situation and transportation.