Faith Boyce, widow of Everett Boyce who co founded InterFACE Ministries, is again serving in Chapala, Mexico.
(719) 641-4858
9/8/07
We got here yesterday at around 2 p.m. your time. It took us an hour to rent a car and get on the road to Chapala. I shopped while Bryan went to get the keys to the gates. We put up items from 8 suitcases last night and it took us 1 1/2 hours. We watched an old Loretta Young video. Today we have done a million things: Laundry, lessons on the computer, new wheels on some of the broken desks, fooled with the barrels, got electric parts for burned out light, put away clothes, on and on and on. We're going out for pizza tonight. We will go to church tomorrow and then for Chinese and then Bryan will leave for the airport. Boo Hoo! I wish he could just drop in every 10 weeks. I had two flowers waiting in the living area. And some cards. My good friend and her missionary husband are moving to the states. Another great loss for me.
God bless all.
Love, Faith
Mom and I just arrived back in Chapala a few hours ago. 8 suitcases unpacked and we're ready to relax. Rocky is gald to be "home" and mom is acting similarly.
We're still in rainy season, so it just rained enough to raise the humidity to 100%. Luckily I brought other shirts to wear this weekend. We'll get her cable, etc. reestablished tomorrow, and after church Sunday I'll fly back to CO. Mom's friends had her house ready, several cards and plants, and she felt very welcome.
Bryan
Read 1 of Ev's Amazing Bus Adventures:
6/11/07
Dr. Everett Boyce, co-founder of InterFACE Ministries, died Saturday night, June 9th. Ev took many bus trips with "Uncle" Bob and was the featured speaker at the Florida Christmas Conference during the 1990s. He had just returned from Mexico on Friday, June 8, with his wife, Faith. Ev had a good spring in Mexico teaching with Faith and preached his final sermon on Sunday last week. But on Monday the symptoms of the cancer's movement was so pronounced that Faith knew it was time to get back to Colorado. God answered Ev’s prayer to take him home to heaven quickly. What a man of faith! A memorial service for Dr. Boyce will be held Saturday, June 16, in Colorado Springs at Roswell Community Church at 10 a.m. where Ev served as pastor until returning to his love for missions in 2006.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that gifts be sent to the Boyce Student Scholarship Fund at InterFACE Ministries: http://www.iface.org/contrib.htm
Cards may be sent to:
Mrs. Faith Boyce
1615 Lenmar Dr
Colorado Springs, CO 80906-2378
5/16/07
I know that some of you have been anxiously waiting for news about my visit with the oncologist. We met today. He was an hour and a half late for our appointment, but I guess that is better than driving to Guadalajara and trying to find his office and a place to park there. Besides, he speaks very little English, so my regular doctor served as interpreter. He spent almost an hour with me: going over my records, reviewing my x-rays, studying the complete blood work I just had done, listening to my heart and lungs, checking lymph nodes, etc. I was impressed by his thorough examination. His conclusions were generally good. He sees no evidence of current activity in my tumor. Most of my complaints seem to be a normal reaction to the radiation and chime. He said that if I was feeling a steady going down in my condition, that would indicate renewed cancer activity. But since I frequently feel poor one day and OK the next, he doesn't think this is the case. He is a little concerned by evidence of liver trouble, and some spinal deterioration. Both may be the result of my previous treatment, or may be the beginning of trouble ahead, but neither are critical at this time. He wants me to have both checked out when we return to CS. If I want to get an x-ray before returning to the Springs, he would recommend we look at the liver and lower back--but he didn't really feel that was necessary at this time. He wants me to eat five times a day, but smaller portions. I should not have any 'big' meals. He said cold meals are better for me than hot! He wants me to take a moderate walk daily, even if I feel short of breath. He did not see any reason why I should not expect to finish out this school year, and even considered our return in August a good possibility. All things considered, I think it is a wonderful answer to prayer! Praise the Lord!
5/7/07
Here it is Sunday evening again. We are rejoicing in the Lord. I taught the Adult SS class at the English language church, and then took a nap. I was pretty wiped out the rest of the afternoon (I did watch the final round of the golf tournament though), then took another nap. It is now late evening and I am feeling better. The last few days have been rather tough. No energy, and some increase in neck pain. I am coughing more, too. I find that I spend much of my time just sitting. When I do decide to try to do something, my energy is gone before I can get going! I have a meeting with an oncologist this week. Pray that I can hang in there for another month! Faith has also not been feeling very well. She is on medication for ankle swelling, and something is triggering her allergies. As per the Dr. she is trying to eliminate either her meds or something new in her diet. The weather is warming up significantly. Neither one of us has slept very well the last couple of nights. We have three grandsons graduating from HS this month! Wish we could take time off to attend those ceremonies, but with the time we missed last winter we are hard pressed to finish a school year. Your prayers and gifts are deeply appreciated!
4/23/07
I am sure that all of us are reeling from the events of the past week. Faith and I have been led to pray for the family of the young gunman at Virginia Tech. I took a Chinese group of GT to visit that school one time. A beautiful, peaceful campus. How tragic. How terrible for his family! Faith and I have finished the third quarter of our school year. From now until June 15 will be the last quarter. The kids are doing fine. We decided to join the local Baptist Church. They have dual membership, since most folks around here spend a good part of the year back 'home' somewhere. I am now the regular teacher for the adult SS class, and as soon as we joined they also asked me to serve as a Deacon. With that exception, I am trying to limit my activities to the things I really need to do. My energy level seems to be less than it was, and I am foregoing extra projects to save what energy I have. This week I have taken two naps a day (morning and afternoon). At this point in time our yard is suffering from lack of attention. I thought I had hired a yard man, but he hasn't showed up. I am trying to ignore it, and not do it myself. I feel I am not helping Faith around the house as much as I should, but she has found a Mexican lady she trusts. Faith has that lady come in for a couple hours once or twice a week to help with household tasks, since class preparation takes a lot of time.
Faith: I'll add my two cents worth. Today we are going to take Sondra home and then see if we can find an Outlet Mall that is supposed to be somewhere between Jocotepec and Guadalajara. The vendors come on Saturday en mass. I am also dehydrating some vegetables and fruits for snacks today. Sondra helped by cutting them and I put them on the shelves. Hope it works! We bought this dehydrator years ago, but have used it very little!
3/23/07
Faith went to a Ladies' Conference at noon today where she is one of the speakers. We are doing great. The days fly by when you are busy. Our regular classes are from 8:30 to 2:00 PM five days a week. We divide up some most of that time, and during some other times I have three kids while Faith does rhythmic writing with the other one. In addition Faith does LD therapy from 7:30-8:30 two mornings (Mon & Fri.) before school, and 2:00-3:00 two days after school (Tues. & Thurs.) When you factor in class prep time, it doesn't leave much time for anything else (running errands, fixing meals, cleaning etc.). Our big hallelujah is that I feel great! I haven't noticed too much weariness, and the other symptoms the doctor told me to watch for have not returned. Due to the time the kids lost while we were in Colorado, we have to push pretty steadily from now until June 15 to finish a respectable school year. We have scheduled only one holiday (Good Friday) during that time, and it 'happens' to fall on the week-end that Mary will be visiting us! Please pray that our strength will hold up, as well as the kid's patience with us.
3/5/07
We arrived in Chapala around noon today. This afternoon we unpacked the car and began getting settled. We plan to resume school tomorrow morning. We are adding an hour to each day to help make up for time lost. By the grace of God we hope to finish the school year by June 15. The trip down took three and a half days. We could have made it in three, but we missed a turn onto a toll road, found ourselves behind three big 18 wheelers crawling over a mountain pass! It took over an hour to go ten miles! We had dozens of cars behind us, too. There was no way to pass them or anywhere else to go. And this was in the dark on the narrowest, twisting climb I have ever driven on. After that we decided we had enough for that day, so we stopped in a motel and drove on in this morning. Rocky was overjoyed to get here. He raced around the house when we arrived like he wanted to be sure it was just as he remembered it. But he sure is a great traveler. Everything was basically as we left it. I need to touch my hand to a few areas. I've got enough papers to grade and record that would choke a horse. I got them all separated this afternoon. Tomorrow we'll find out where the kids really are in their books. Raul was taking his niece to the airport today and all the kids were with him. Emmanuel said he saw our car. That was amazing. Another amazing thing happened! As we were pulling up to the motel last night, our cell phone rang. It was Dale Garland calling from Amarillo. We were 1400 miles from him, and 700 miles beyond where that phone is supposed to work. That was a miracle. He's the one whose wife died and we missed him in Amarillo. I say - a miracle!
2/27/07
Bryan Boyce reports: I just talked to mom. She reported that now she has some health questions that will prevent them from leaving tomorrow as planned. She is unhappy about that, and I would ask that we all lift them up to you today and tomorrow as they consider their options. I told her (not claiming any wisdom, but maybe God can give her a word through me), that we often look at the things that seem to affect our progress down the path God has us on as the Devil's obstacles, instead of sensing the gentle guiding and steering of our Heavenly Father. Please lift them up as they seek to understand God's will for them.
2/9/07
2/1/07
1/29/07
1/22/07
Faith said Ev was facing more reaction to his chemo this last go around, more weakness and tiredness. Nevertheless, they're all up in Cripple Creek so he is at least feeling well enough to be out and about. And he's coming over for dinner tonight!
1/9/07
Ev and Faith received a little poor news yesterday when his next round of chemo was postponed due to low white cell count, but overall he is looking pretty good and talking well. Faith is pumping something into him that she thinks will turn that count around in time to start the next round of chemo next week. But they also got some good news - that the tumor in his lungs is smaller than it was in November.
1/3/07
12/28
12/12/06
Today was my
tenth day of radiation, and my weekly meeting with the radiation therapy
doctor. He surprised me by saying that although he had originally
planned to do 25 sessions, he decided to stop at ten. When I asked him
why he made the change he said, "It is my job to balance the good the
radiation is doing against your cancer, and the harm it is doing to
other parts of your body; such as the lungs and throat. It is my
opinion that we should discontinue the radiation at this time. We may
come back to further treatments after we see the effects of the chemo."
So there it is. After thinking it over, I'm not sure whether to
consider it good news, or not! But he also said I should be able to
swallow again in about a week. That is great news, since I have now
lost 17 pounds in two weeks!
This was a busy day, getting Faith to the airport at 4 AM, and running
around doing errands the rest of the day! And I still feel pretty
good. Praise the Lord!
Everett
12/2/06
I wanted to share with you some encouraging news. Today, Saturday, 12/2, is the best day I've had in two weeks! Praise the Lord!
You are never too old to obey!
When Faith and I “retired” from missionary work in 1999, and I became the Pastor of the Roswell Community Church in Colorado Springs, we never dreamed that we would return to the mission field one day.
For seven great years I have shepherded a wonderful congregation. I love the pastoral ministry. I have found great satisfaction in preaching, teaching the Word, and doing visitation. We have stimulated interest in missions, added outstanding missionaries to the church budget, and conducted a major mission trip to help turn an old pottery factory into a child care center for the very poor. But the day has come when teaching about missions, and aiding missionary efforts from a comfortable distance is not enough. The Lord has been reminding Faith and I that our original call to missions came through being made aware of the educational needs of American missionaries’ children.
On our church’s ministry trip to Chapala last year we came to realize that the missionary family that the Lord is using to carry on the wonderful ministry to children at the Love in Action Center there have four children who need help with their education in English. Although they are bilingual, the local educational system cannot equip them for their eventual return to the US and higher education. And there are other MK’s in the area facing the same problem.
Chapala is in central Mexico, over 900 miles south of El Paso! It is a semiarid mountainous area, over 5,000 feet above sea level. It is also on the shore of Mexico’s largest lake, giving the area the advantages of pleasant dry air, but with adequate water resources available. It is only about 25 miles from Guadalajara, which has all the advantages (and disadvantages) of a big modern city, including; Hospitals, McDonalds, a Wal-Mart and a Home Depot!
The Lord has clearly called us to leave our church and take up the responsibility for teaching missionaries’ children in Chapala. We have rejoined InterFACE Ministries in order to be under the oversight of a missionary agency.
We would love to have your prayer support for this venture. Only the Lord knows how long we will have the strength and energy for this task, but we know your prayers will make a big difference. Please let us know if you would like to receive our prayer updates regularly.
Faith and I
have now been in Christian service for 48 years. Needless to say, most of our
original supporters are no longer able to be a part of our support team! We
will have to look to the younger generation of those who know us to build a new
support team after seven years in the pastorate. Here are some of the questions
that have come up:
Why did you leave your church? I have been
pastoring my home church, Roswell Community Church here in Colorado Springs. We
have been members there for over 25 years. I loved being their pastor, and had
anticipated staying until I could no longer carry on, but the Lord has clearly
burdened us for missionaries' kids! So I resigned, effective the end of
September.
Are you going to Mexico to retire? No. Our church
supports a wonderful orphanage work in Chapala, Mexico, but the two American
families doing that work cannot find adequate educational opportunities for
their children. There are also other missionary families in the area in the
same situation. In addition to our experience at FA, we started a school in
Atlanta in 1996, and we believe we can meet the needs of these children.
Can't you live on your retirement income? Most of
our years in missions we were with agencies that did not have retirement
programs, so we will be primarily dependent on our Social Security. This does
not meet the Mexican government's minimum income requirement for a long term
visa (for the present we will have to leave the country every six months), and
we do not believe we can live on our Social Security income alone, and run a
school, too. We feel we must raise and additional $1,000 to $1,500 per month to
be able to carry on this ministry for any length of time.
Aren't you too old to start a new ministry?
Apparently God does not think so! Abraham and Sarah started in his mid
70s. We are both in our early 70s, in good health, and our desire for
"family planning" awaits the Promise of the Father in Chapala where we hope to serve for at least five
years.
Sincerely,
Everett and Faith Boyce
Donations may be mailed to:
InterFACE Ministries, Inc.
Atlanta, GA 31145-0816
click on this link to online giving to support our ministry.