MISSIONARY PROFILE
Clint
& Rhonda
Rardin
Missionary Update 12/02/2016
Dear Praying Friends, I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving weekend. We had a good Sunday maintaining an attendance of more than 200. We had 69 kids, which is a lot for us. Lucia and Sofia, two retired Army nurses (one who was saved in the campaign) were baptized, as well as Luis, the nineteen-year old son of one of the nurses. Also Alfonso, the brother-in-law of Gabriel, one of our soldiers, was baptized. Gabriel lead him to the Lord earlier in the year. Since we were having baptisms, I taught in Sunday School about baptism. Afterward, Alfonso's teen-age daughter, Marina, asked to be baptized (she was already saved) as well as Irma, a lady that was reached through our VBS this summer. They as well as a young woman and her mother, Jessica and Guadalupe, who made decisions for Christ this campaign, all plan be baptized next week. Thank you for your prayers, Clint
Missionary Update 11/18/2016
Dear Praying Friends, Thank you for praying for our Anniversary Sunday. We even had more in attendance than last week with 280. Our routes brought in 170. We had 129 children! What I was really excited about was how our people worked to get the lost out to church. We saw five women trust Christ as their Savior. All came from the routes. Some were neighbors of our people whom they had invited. In the evening we had our business meeting and a woman named Rosa; a man named Jaime; and Joselyn, wife of Juan, who was saved and became a member last year, also became a member. Please prayer for the 8 adults that were saved in services this campaign that we may see them baptized, grow, and added to the church. For His Cause, Clint Rardin
Missionary Update 11/14/2016
Dear Praying Friends, We were pleasantly surprised with a great attendance on Sunday with 261. We had 162 teens and adults in church, so you can imagine how packed our auditorium must have been. We have only had so many adults on three of our Kid's Days (our biggest days of the year.) We had a few first time visitors, but most were an accumulation of a lot of new folks who have been coming the last couple of months and I guess decided to all come at once, We have so many new people coming lately that I still haven't been able to visit and get to know many of them. It was good to see Nicol, whose husband was saved and baptized along with herself last spring campaign, bring out her landlord to church. The routes did really well with 137. We didn't have anyone come forward, but we had a some raise their hand for salvation. We had five children saved in junior church. Three of them are children of parents who were saved in the last couple of years. I visited on Saturday a lady that was saved in our services three weeks ago. Lucia was brought by Sofia, her friend, a month ago. Sofia had been saved in Tennessee just a few months ago and has been attending with us about six weeks. Both Sofia and Lucia are recently retired army nurses: Sofia, a lieutenant colonel and Lucia, a captain. Both plan to be baptized with Sofia's college-aged son, Antonio, this month. Angy, the major and army doctor, who married an army engineer, another major, last December; had her baby yesterday, Just last Saturday, she was visiting kids on our bus route. She and Nancy, our school teacher, saw a mother of one of the bus kids saved during bus visitation. Please pray for our 12th anniversary this Sunday. Thank you for your prayers, Clint Rardin
Missionary Update 09/16/2016
The church was full last Sunday with 192 (12 over our average). Our Christian school is bigger than ever. The summer of last year I almost thought we were going to have to shut the school down and was content to do so with the problems we had the year before. I thought we would only have a couple of families back then, but we ended up having fourteen students and the school continued. This year our school doubled in attendance with 28 students in every grade from Kindergarten to 11th grade, except for fourth grade. We really need another elementary teacher and our secondary teacher is teaching algebra and physics and I'm teaching trigonometry. Next year we are going to need to teach chemistry. We really need a math and science teacher. I'm also teaching English and doing cross-country training this month. I combine the Bible class with the secondary students and the Bible Institutes students on Mondays. I'm teaching them Life of Christ. Also on Monday, I teach the Institute students: History of Mexico, Great Preachers, and Homiletics. Next semester, I will also be teaching the Institute students Music & Song Leading as well as Philosophy of Missions in preparation for our furlough. With Homiletics, I'm preparing them to preach in my absence; with Song Leading, they can rotate in leading singing; and with Philosophy of Missions, I am preparing them to understand why I will need to be gone for a year reporting to churches and establishing myself again in my home church. We have four men and one woman in the Bible Institute this year. Joel Pichardo, the chief of a 19,000-police division of the Mexico City police force, is taking the Life of Christ class on his lunch hour, as if he is not busy enough. Joel has been knocking doors on my van route on Saturdays with Lazaro, the newly-married young man whom I have mentioned who has really grown in the Lord with his wife, Abigail, this year. Lazaro is faithful to all the church services and soul winning activities, when he is not working. He works as security, 24-hours on, 24-hours off. While soul winning, Joel offered Lazaro to train in his police division so that her can work Monday-Friday with the weekends off. That way he can also enter the Bible Institute next semester. He can't do the training yet because his wife is about to have a baby in a couple of weeks and those who are in training live in the training facility for a month. In January, he will be trained and can enter in February in our Institute just in time for the next semester. I would not be surprised if Oscar, who would do most of the preaching during our furlough, and Nancy, our elementary teacher, are married before next fall when we go on furlough. Nancy was reached by the old church's bus route 22 years ago. She is now 29-year old and there are few in Mexico that have as strong convictions as she does. She would make a great wife for him. She just recently changed her membership to our church with the hearty approval of the present pastor of the old church. He actually approached me with the idea. In a few years, Oscar could end up being the pastor of the church so that I may still work out of the church to start other churches in the Mexico City area with the future Institute graduates, who may be the present students coming up through our Christian school. We'll see what the future holds. Thank you for your prayers, Clint
Missionary Update 08/12/2016
Dear Praying Friends, Thank you for praying for our VBS. Our people really worked hard to get kids out. We normally have on a Sunday morning about 50 kids ages 3-12. On our first day we had 90 children and it went up from there with a high day of 125 children and 18 parents on Friday besides over 20 workers. Almost all the parents that came with their children were brand new people. Eleven children and teens were saved during the week. We always have a closing day on Sunday, when the kids do a program of what they learned and receive diplomas. It is a way to get them in church and get their parents to come see them in the program. My hope was that we would see some of them come back. We were surprised how many came. We had 95 children in church and 143 adults for a total of 238! Many of the adults that came were Christians already. Our prayer is always that we may reach a new family. We may have a few new families that will continue to come, especially from Gaspar's route from where 50 came. Altogether, the routes brought out 124; more came out from the routes than the drive-in crowd. We may have even started an unofficial new route from a new area as a lady in our church brought out several kids and adults from a new area and we already have a couple families that have been coming from there for quite a while. We have been paying for their transportation even though we do not have workers to run it. As long as Maribel continues to bring people out, we will continue to help her with transportation. It has been great to see our Mexican people work so hard to reach their own people. It was good to see a man named Hector come out to church this Sunday. He is a brother of one of our military men. His family is involved in witchcraft, but I was able to lead him to the Lord when he was in the hospital a few weeks ago. It looks like our Christian school could almost double this year. On Monday I had a meeting with five families and I already have had two other families come and talk to me about our school. We could potentially have as many as 30 students. Thank you for your prayers,
Missionary Update 07/01/2016
Dear Praying Friends, This Sunday, we had a very good day of 201 in church as the routes did very well and the auditorium was full with 134 adults attending. We have a new family that was saved on Kid's Day: Julio Cesar; Nicol, his wife; and Yareli, their teenage daughter. All three have now been baptized and have been bringing out family several times since. This Sunday, they brought out seven adults family members. Yareli has a couple of cousins she wants to take to teen camp this summer. Esteban, a recently retired thirty-year veteran, also saved and baptized this last spring campaign, continues to attend with his unsaved wife. Pray for Antonia's salvation. Esteban is talking to me about having his grandchildren come to our school. Rosa and Elizabeth, an older lady and her teenage granddaughter, both saved in the campaign, also continue to attend. Pablo, a soldier that was saved last year, has been attending on and off with his unsaved wife, Martina, and his kids since then, but lately has been more faithful. After church, I was talking to Pablo about his leaving for a month on an anti-narco traffic operation and said to the wife that I hoped she would attend during his absence. She said that she was wanting to talk to me about that and I thought she has going to say that she wouldn't be able to come and bring her little kids by herself while he was gone. Instead, she told me about a pastor's wife in Vera Cruz who pulled her aside and talked about salvation and proclaimed that she had "led her to the Lord", but that she hadn't understood the gospel. She said that through the preaching here, she now understands and that she wanted to accept the Lord. We praise God as we have been praying for her for quite some time. Pablo had invited a Christian lieutenant in his battalion to our church a few months back and Raul and his wife have been a attending now for over a month. Both Pablo and Raul are leaving on the same operation this week. These operations can be quite dangerous. I visited Raul and his wife for the first time this last Saturday. He is quite intelligent and is an Army engineer. We teach a lot of classes in the army from tactics to military history. He met his wife who attended a Baptist in the north of Mexico and was saved in that church. He and his wife want to get more involved in our church and invited the people under him. Raul was telling me a story when he was on an operation in the mountains, and he was carrying the radio on his back and another soldier kept on insisting that he carry the radio. Finally, he yielded and let him carry it and soon after, the soldier with the radio was suddenly shot right between the eyes by a sniper and it was the beginning of an ambush by the narco cartel. Another soldier was shot, and he went over to give his first aid, but he was already dead. Another soldier was wounded, but they killed three of the cartel. That is what I mean by the operations can be dangerous. Two other men of our church leave this week on a different operation as they both also are in another battalion. A couple of soldier's wives have told me that they have called their husbands on their cellphones in the middle of a firefight and have heard the firing of small arms in the background. This month we received a young couple in our church membership. Lazaro and Abigail were married last summer. Abigail is the sister of one of the soldier's wives in our church. Her niece was saved at the youth conference we attended this last spring. Lazaro and his wife go visiting on Tuesdays and Saturdays when he is not working as a security guard. I see a lot of potential for the future in their lives. Thank you for prayers for our church. Good things are happening. For His Cause, Clint Rardin
Missionary Update 05/20/2016
Pastor Praying Friends, We had a great final week of the campaign, Friend Day. Seven people made decisions for Christ -- two men and five women: one teenager from one of the routes; a woman named Clara that has visited before on our military route and the three people she brought to church; a woman named Irene, also from the military route; and a man named Humberto from another route. Julio Cesar, his wife Nicol, and teenage daughter, Yareli, who were saved on Kid's Day, have continued to come and brought out Nicol's sister and kids. They plan to be baptized a week from Sunday. Esteban, also saved on Kid's Day, brought his wife again. Pray for Antonia that she be saved soon. Sandra, a teenager of our church, was baptized after having been saved a couple of weeks ago. Thank you praying for our campaign, Clint