January 2013 Newsletter

Greetings from Guatemala!  Happy New Year!  We are excited to see how the Lord is going to work in our lives, our ministry, and our family this year.  We experienced a lot of change in the year 2012.  One of those was leaving the comfort of the Kekchi work and moving seven hours away to a new area and people group.  Overall it has been an easy adjustment for our family.   We are happy to be serving the Lord here among the Chorti people, and are praying to see many of them come to know the Lord this year.    We are continuing to lead a Bible study on Sunday mornings in the village of Nearar.  It is slow going, but steady.  Due to some pressure from a few village leaders we were asked to not continue the separate study we were doing there on Sunday afternoons.  The family feels it is best if we do not come on a regular basis.  We will continue to drop by from time to time to encourage them.  Please pray for this family of new believers we were trying to disciple.  Pray that they could overcome this persecution and feel free to invite us back to continue studying the Bible together.   The agricultural project we were assisting with for the village of Lagunetas went very well.  The six week training ended mid-December with a graduation service for the students.  We have already made one follow-up visit to the village and were excited to learn that the village leader who attended the training has been teaching the Bible stories that David taught them to his kids.  That made us happy!  We feel good about how this training helped further open the door there for us to work.  Pray that we would have an open door to teach God's Word in this village this year.  There is no evangelical work in this village and we have a strong desire to start one.      We will be completing our second term at the end of November.  As we look to the year ahead we want to keep that in mind as we make goals and plans for reaching our people.  Would you join us in praying that we would be focused on the task of evangelism and discipleship.  Pray that we would have a heart for the Chorti people and seeing them saved.  Pray that the love of Christ would shine brightly through us.  Pray that we would have a "whatever it takes" attitude in sharing the gospel with those who need to hear it.  Pray that 2013 would be our best ministry year yet!