Youth Summer Camp

The report for our youth's summer camp is up on Amber's blog. Click here to see what happened...

Knee Injury

It was my first time back to the youth group with the Students. We normally have about an hour to hang out, play games, and talk. We were playing volleyball and I jumped up to hit the ball, fully extending my left leg. When I came down the leg was still fully extended and it twisted out of place, then right back into it's place. That hurt! It started to swell up minutes later so I had someone get some ice for me. After about 20 minutes, I started to feel light-headed, so I had Brad Pembleton who was visiting us, take me home. I rested the leg, put ice on it, and elevated it for a while. It continued to swell.

My first chance to see a Dr. was the following Friday. Great Doctor. He tested my knee twisting it around trying to bend it ways it shouldn't bend and found where the pain is (go figure). He immediately called it a Medial Meniscus Tear and wouldn't know how severe it was until he was able to look at it with an arthroscope.

I began to do some research on the internet and found a couple of sites about Knee Injuries and Meniscus Tears that supported what he had explained to me. I had pretty good confidence this guy knew what he was talking about. It is his specialty.

Twenty years ago when I blew out my right knee, I never got a "second opinion" and when the Dr. finally did the arthroscopic surgery, he found out that it wasn't just a sprain but an ACL tear, much more serious! I waited 9 months to have that surgery because of the original diagnosis.

So, I decided that I would have a "second opinion" this time and we went to see him last night. Great Doctor also. He took out of my knee over 50ml of water to take some of the pressure away--one reason I was unable to bend it very well. He found that the medial collateral ligament was slightly damaged, but nothing serious. He hesitated to say that it was the meniscus and asked me to come back in two weeks after taking some pain and anti inflammatory medication.

Is the first Dr. that good to know that it is the Meniscus and there is no need for a second visit, but surgery is needed to find out more?

Is the second Dr. taking wise precautions in case surgery is unneeded?

If I go with the first Dr., I could probably have surgery next Monday which would give great time for healing before all the Christmas and New Years events.

If I go with the second Dr. and later suggests that I need surgery, that's pushing surgery back to the first week of January...that's possibly another two months on crutches!

Podcast Interview

I was in Everett, WA recently with Mark Sandeno as he interviewed me about our ministry. Click here to hear the podcast.

Getting Ready to Return

We are in our last week in Washington; a bitter-sweet time. We are very blessed to have the family and friends we have and we absolutely enjoyed our time visiting those with whom we were able to connect. The only regret is not being able to see everyone we would have liked. It's always a busy time when we come up, but we enjoyed ourselves.

We head out on Sunday afternoon to Vancouver, Washington to stay with a High School friend, Jack Harroun. Then, the next morning we'll eat breakfast with my former Youth Pastor Ron McClung and see some more friends before we head towards Sacramento. We are not sure where we'll stay on Monday night (Southern Oregon or Northern California--depending on how far we can get).

Thank you for your prayers...we really appreciate them!!!

Blessings,

The Silbermans

Church Construction

Some of you have asked us to put the pictures up so here they are. We are hoping inaugurate the building by the end of next year. Here are some pics...

This is the room where the youth are meeting currently.

Santuary--basketball court/speed soccer court.

The HUGE roof.

Sanctuary facing the stage.

Park area; we'll have a kitchenette on the back wall eventually.

Park area.

"Crece y Deja Crecer" (Grow and Let Grow). This is the front of the church.

Southeast corner of the outside.

Northeast corner of outside.

Future Student Ministry Center--upstairs.

Future site for children's playground.

Looking down at the park area.

More park area.

The whole building (2 lots) from the North.

Thank you to all of you who have donated time and money towards this project. This is a very special project that not just the church will benefit from, but the community as well. As the Lord continues to make His presence known, peoples lives continue to be changed. Please continue to pray for Centro Cristiano Cofradía. If you are interested in getting a team together to come down to help, let us know.

Click here to donate online to this project. Find the "Cofradía, Mexico" location; click on "note" and designate the funds to "New Church Building Construction"; then choose the amount you'd like to donate and click on "add to gift cart." Once you've done that follow the instructions to "check out." It's very easy.

Trip to Spokane

We had a pretty good time in Spokane. After seeing my aunt and uncle Friday morning, we took off to Spokane, got situated in the hotel room my parents set us up in, and went out to dinner with Jeff and Kerry Kennedy--friends from college. It was great to see them after such a long time with their four awesome children.

From there we went to the Convention Center downtown to attend the Spiritual Hunger/Healing Rooms conference and the worship was wonderful! The message was good too, after attending meetings on Saturday morning and evening, I was pleased with how they spoke an down to earth topics such as identity in Christ and the problem of Obesity in our country. Very good stuff!

There was a group of people who waived banners during worship...it looked pretty cool.

There were some extra banners for those who wanted to join in...Rebecka couldn't wait!

Downtown Spokane...very nice!

Sunday morning we spoke at Fountain of Faith, a church that an old elementary school friend, Gordy Marson, is helping start. Pastor Sonny Weathers is a very nice guy and the people were very friendly. We enjoyed ourselves.

After having lunch with Gordy and his wife, we headed over to Coeur d'lane, Idaho to our hotel to rest a bit before heading down to the lake, a nice walk along the boardwalk and playing on the play structure with the kids. It was a nice relaxing time.

In front of the Coeur d' Lane Resort about to go on our boardwalk walk.

I thought I'd relax a bit as Emma drove the boat! lol.

Monday morning after breakfast, we hopped over to Haugan, Montana to the $50,000 Silver Dollar Bar/Gift Shop/Restaurant to look around. As kids, we stopped there every time we went to visit family in Montana. So, Geña and the girls have now been to Idaho AND Montana. :)

On our way back through Idaho, we stopped and had lunch with Kerry Kennedy's mom along the river just north of Kingston, Idaho. Then, we drove down to Mesa, Washington to visit a couple of guys from the Cofradía area who are up here on contract to work in the apple fields. It was good to see them, Juan Luis and Gabriel, as we ate dinner with them in their living quarters.

Having a good time at the river.

Our visit with Mrs. Neubauer.

The guys: Gabriel and Juan Luis are from Arrayanes (just north of Cofradía) and their roommate Saul.

Home by mid-night for school the next morning. Great trip, we got to see a lot and I absolutely love Northern Idaho!!

EL RETO 2009--WEEK FIVE, FINAL WEEK

You will enjoy reading the report of the final week of EL RETO 2009. There is even a video showing a part of the exciting worship service. I'm proud of our student leaders for the fine job of organizing and executing the event. Thanks to Amber for her involvement as well.

Click here to read the report...you will like it!

Online Donations

The new Alternative Missions website has allowed donors to have a direct link to the missionary of their choice. Here is the new link to donate to the Silbermans. It is easy and safe.

EL RETO 2009--WEEK FOUR

Week four is posted on Amber's blog, click here. Is sounds pretty exciting!!

EL RETO 2009--WEEK THREE

The third week's report has been posted. Click here to read about it.

SEPTEMBER UPDATE

Greetings everyone! We are in Washington and we’ve been pretty busy. The weather is such a breath of fresh air compared to Cofradía right now—we’re happy about that! Thank you to all of you who have been praying for us, things are going very well.

Last month, we asked you to pray for…

• Visit to Washington We have been visiting a lot of people, churches, and even Rebecka’s classroom. The first couple of weeks we took some time to go camping and had a birthday party for Rebecka. Last week was Rebecka’s first week of school as she will be attending 2nd grade at Christ The King Academy in Poulsbo until we leave in late October. The great thing about that is that it’s the same curriculum we use for home school! We are staying at my parents’ house and enjoying our time with them. Rebecka and Emma both will be taking swimming lessons starting next week. You can see some of the things we’ve been doing—even our camping trips right here on our blog.
• RETO planning The RETO is in it’s third week and everything is going pretty smooth. The youth leaders and staff are doing a really good job. You can see reports of the first two weeks at Amber’s blog..
  
  • WEEK ONE.
  • WEEK TWO.

Vacationing in Mexico? We would love to see you as Mazatlán, Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara are all 3 to 4 hours from here. If you are coming to any of those locations, let us know!! We would love to have you come and visit us in Cofradía to see first hand what God is doing and meet the people we get to spend time with!! We will be back in Cofradía by mid-November.

Links to something extra...
Facebook—if you’re on Facebook, I’d love to get in touch with you!.
Baptisms in Cofradía—four of our youth and our sister-in-law were baptized last Sunday. See the report and pictures at Amber’s blog here.

This month, would you please pray for...

• EL RETO Everyone is doing well. We have 8 teams and each team has a captain learning about life and leadership. The Student Leaders in charge are getting a taste of planning and executing events. Thank you for praying for the Lord’s guidance in their decision making and how they can apply the things all the students are learning to every day life as each circumstance points to Christ.
• Speaking We have been and will be speaking a lot. We give thanks that every weekend we’re going to be able to share what God is doing in Mexico. You can see an itinerary here:
• Rebecka’s schooling She is really good about making friends, but we pray that her experience is positive as she is exposed to the American system. She has a great class and so far is doing very well.
• Finances for House We would like to raise money for adding a couple of bedrooms and a bathroom on our house (upstairs). We will not start this until we have $10,000 saved so we can advance quickly. Total cost including some landscaping issues shouldn’t be more than $30,000 usdollars. We have visitors come to our house and we’d love to have a bedroom for them (where we are right now), and the girls’ room will be an extra room will be office space for Geña. We also have a student from another town living with us during the week so she can attend High School in Cofradía. If you can help with this, please do.

Thank you very much for your prayers and continued support.
See how to partner with us and donate here.

Blessings,

Steve, Geña, Rebecka and Emma Rose Silberman
Missionaries to Mexico
US Cell: 360-265-4545
SKYPE: “srsilberman”

Speaking Itinerary

Sept 18-20--Hansville Church Campout at Fort Flagler, WA

Sept 27--Fountain of Faith in Spokane, WA

Oct 4--Youth church at Canyon Hills in Bothell, WA

Oct 9--Hosana Asamblea in Bellevue, WA

Oct 10 and 11--we'll be with the Eilertsons in Lynwood and the Rowlands in Poulsbo

Oct 18pm--Living Waters in Bremerton, WA

EL RETO 2009--WEEK TWO

EL RETO week two's report is up on Amber's blog right here.

EL RETO 2009--WEEK ONE

EL RETO 2009 has begun. This year, the student leaders are in charge and are doing a great job. Check out the report from WEEK #1 here on Amber's blog.

Click here to see how you can donate towards the Student Ministry in Cofradía.

Eastern Washington Camping

We took off again; this time to Eastern Washington and we had a really good time. The first night we stayed at Diablo Lake which is on the North Cascades Highway and a beautiful place. We tried fishing and Geña got a couple nibbles, but that's all. We had a nice campfire, but it was cold!

The next day we headed towards Winthrop, and stayed at Pearrygen Lake State Park. As a kid, we used to stay there all the time and had lots of fun on the kids' toys and swimming out to the dock. Well, since the state bought the resort, they took all of that out. We ended up staying at the East Campground right on the water so that was nice. The girls got to go swimming in the cold water and we also did some fishing. We caught three the first day (Emma caught her first fish) and we caught 12 the next day (Rebecka and Emma both caught their first fish!). We also got to ride our bikes. A friend gave me a bike he was going to sell and I found a child seat on craigslist for $5; it works excellent.

We all had a great time...except for Pony--he was really cold and spent a lot of time in the tent.

Diablo Lake--fishing

Diablo Lake--Colonial Creek Campground Campsite

Bike riding

Diablo Lake--breakfast (Rebecka made pancakes)

Pearrygen Lake--fishing

Pearrygen Lake--East Campground Campsite

Kopachuck State Park

For some time now we have all been dying to go camping. It was a highlight for me as I grew up and wanted to be able to take the girls camping during the summer before school started. We spent three days at Kopachuck, just outside of Gig Harbor, WA along the water and we had a great time. Rebecka made a friend and had a great time with her at the beach, the playground, and running into her every once in a while at the campground. It's a small campground surrounded by huge Evergreens and it's nice a quiet. We had a VERY RELAXING time! Can't wait to do that again!

Rebecka and Emma at the end of the trail.

Kenneth and Rebecka on the way to the beach.

Madelyn, Rebecka, Kenneth

Mom & Dad coming up from the beach.

Pony...freezing!

Campsite

Goin' for a walk.

mmmm good.

Rebecka and her new friend with her brother.

See more pics on Facebook.

Rebecka's Birthday

Rebecka turned 7 years old on Aug. 13th. We invited some little girls she has known in the past to come over and also had some of the CMC short term missions' team come from this summer come over. It was a great time of fellowship and destroying a piñata! Felicidades Rebecka!

Final Stop--Silverdale, WA (Dad & Mom's)

After 15 days and 3,040 miles, we are glad to be home with my Dad and Mom!

Seventh Stop--Gaston, OR (The Meeuwsen's)

It was great to see Roxanne (college friend) again and meet her husband and family. What a blessing they all are! We had a great time chatting with them and checkin' out the farm! Thank you guys for your hospitality!

Sixth Stop--Lincoln, CA (The Gonzlez')

On Friday, we arrived at Geña's sister's place. She and her daughters work at Panera's and they brought home a doughnut cake, put candles on it, and sang happy birthday to me. We had a nice three days with them.

Sunday I shared a little at the spanish service of Harvest Time Church just down the road and we left on Monday morning...16 hours to Portland.

We didn't get a picture of them! :(

Underage Driving!

I got a little tired so I let Pony take the wheel on I-5!

Fifth Stop--Tracy, CA (the Diaz's)

We spent Thursday night with Geña's brother Luis' family. They had to leave early the next morning for a church function, but let us stay and rest until taking off for Lincoln in the afternoon.

Fourth Stop--Oxnard, CA (the Jimenez's)

Francisco and Teresa Jimenez are always a blessing to us. We stayed Tuesday and Wednesday nights and I shared at their church "La Casa Del Alarero" (The Potter's House). We had a great time with them.

Third Stop--Perris, CA (the Rivera's)

We spent Friday-Monday nights with Geña's sister, Julia and her four daughters. Running around, shopping, spending time with Abuela Rufina (Geña and Julia's mom) and speaking at Julia's church on Sunday. It was a good time!

JULY UPDATE

Greetings everyone! July was HOT/HUMID and busy! We pray that all are doing well wherever you may be this month! Thank you for your prayers. God is moving in the hearts of many!

Last month, we asked you to pray for…

• Short-term Missions...Christ Memorial Church from Poulsbo, Washington was with us at the beginning of the month and their ministry time was divided into two phases: a youth volleyball tournament and a children’s VBS in a nearby town. We had a great time with the team and they were a real blessing to us. One of the neatest times came when the Holy Spirit’s presence was felt in the Sunday Service as the team prayed over people and we were able to pray over a team member with Leukemia. Click here to read about it.
• Student Leadership Retreat Thank you sooo much for your prayers during our Leadership Retreat. This is where we start to build in the youth group. We focused on edifying one another learned that as we humble ourselves, we’ll be able to work together as we look out for one another. Here is a report on how the time went.
• Speed Soccer Tournament Opportunity Time! This year’s summer tournament turned into a time of great opportunities for developing leadership skills and making new friends. It was a fun three days and the Lord was glorified! Here is a report about the tournament.
• Youth Summer Camp What an awesome time! Geña and I were not there for the whole thing, but we’ve heard some great reports that the students returned fired up and ready to be Warriors for Jesus! Here is a picture of the first night’s service.
• Visit to Washington We are on our way to Washington and will be there until late October. If we are in your area, give us a call: 360-265-4545—we’ll have a cell phone while we’re in the states. You can see a basic itinerary for the three months here. Also, you can see where we are currently as we are traveling. Again, let us know if we can see you! Here is our travel itinerary.

Vacationing in Mexico? We would love to see you as Mazatlán, Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara are all 3 to 4 hours from here. If you are coming to any of those locations, let us know!! We would love to have you come and visit us in Cofradía to see first hand what God is doing and meet the people we get to spend time with!!

Links to something extra...
Facebook; if you’re on Facebook, I’d love to get in touch with you!

This month, would you please pray for...

• Visit to Washington Please continue to pray for us as we travel to Washington. Also, we’ll be doing some traveling while we’re there and speaking in different places. If you would like us to speak at your church, small group, Sunday School class, or gather some friends for a barbecue we’d love to share with you God’s goodness in Cofradía.
• RETO planning We’ve been planning for the past couple of months our biggest youth event of the year. This year, Geña and I are leaving everything in the hands of the Student Leaders and Youth Staff. It should be a great time of stepping out and learning. Please pray for clarity in the teachings and well thought-out organization in the games/events (starts August 29 and continues every Saturday in September). If you could help with donating towards this event we would really appreciate it. We need $2000 usdollars to fund it. Here is a flyer sharing a little more about the event.

Thank you very much for your prayers and continued support.
See how to partner with us and donate here.

Blessings,
Steve, Geña, Rebecka and Emma Rose Silberman
Missionaries to Mexico
US Cell: 360-265-4545
SKYPE: “srsilberman”

EL RETO 2009

Click on this link to see details of the biggest youth event of the year in Cofradía. You will click on "Free User" and then "Download."

Pray for the event and consider how you may give.

Second Night on the Road--The Michers

We stayed in Tucson, Arizona for the next couple of nights at the Micher's house. Some really great friends and very nice people!

First Night on the Road--Youth Camp

We spent our first night in La Cruz, Sinaloa as we took 19 students with three staff leaders to summer camp. I talked to one of the leaders on Saturday as they were headed back to Cofradía and he said everything went really well and that the Lord touched the lives of our students. I didn't get many details, but I know that God did some great things!