November 2015 Newsletter

Greetings from Guatemala!  I failed to send out an update last month and it was only the third time in nine years that I have done so.  I felt bad but the truth is I was just too busy to stop and do it.  David was away on a nine day work trip to Mexico and I was home alone with the boys.  At times it was a little more than I could handle.  He had a great trip and I am glad he had the opportunity to go.  So this month I will be updating for September and October.

We are continuing to do our weekly Bible studies in the villages of Nearar and Muyurco.  Those are the only two we are currently doing on a regular weekly basis and they are both going great.  There has recently been two baptismal services in that area.  Several have accepted Christ and nine have been baptized.  We are praising the Lord for these new believers and look forward to helping disciple them in the weeks and months ahead.  One of the ones baptized was our helper and friend from the village of Chanco.  It was a big step for him to follow through with baptism and we have seen a lot of growth in his life recently.  We are excited to see how the Lord is going to use him to help us reach the lost in this area.  Our leader from the village of Nearar did one of the services.  It was his first time to baptize someone and he did a great job.  We are also excited about the growth that is taking place in his life and how God is raising him up to lead.

Thanks to our partner churches we were able to do a food distribution project in the village of Chanco back in mid-September.  We did it village-wide for each family in the village.  Each family received a 100 pound bag of corn, a bag of beans, a bag of rice, and some cooking oil.  The people were very appreciative.  Hunger needs in this part of the country are great because of the lack of rain to grow their crops.  I am thankful that we were able to meet a physical need while also getting to share the gospel with a whole village at the same time.  Our partner from that village led out in the distribution and for the first time he shared the gospel in a public setting.  He did an excellent job and it blessed our hearts to see him be so bold for Christ in his own village.  God is working!  We are excited about the little glimpses of light we are seeing all over our work area. 

We recently hosted a team from one of our partner churches First Baptist Church Mt. Pleasant, SC.  We were targeting the villages of Chanco and Corral de Piedras.  The team made door to door visits, prayed, encouraged, and shared the gospel in homes during the day.  Two of the evenings we showed the film "The Hope" in the villages.  We had good turnouts both nights.  They also joined us for our weekly Bible study in Muyurco.  It was a great week of partnering together and working alongside each other to make disciples for Christ.  Our next team arrives on the 16th of November.  This team will be from our other partner church LifePark in Mt. Pleasant, SC.  We plan to spend that week doing encouragement/ evangelism visits in all of the villages we are currently targeting.  We are looking forward to another great week together with them!

On the 24th of October we celebrated our 9 year anniversary with the IMB.  It is hard to believe that it has been that long since we left our home country!  Many of you have been our prayer partners from the start and many of you we have picked up along the way.  Some of you have been down to work with us and others of you will possibly do that in the future.  Our time on the field would not have been near as successful without you all back home giving and praying.  You are the most vital part of all we do.  We have never taken lightly the power of prayer and your role in our ministry and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the many times you have stopped to pray for us over the years.  We may never know until we get to heaven the dangers your prayers have kept us from and the doors that your prayers have opened. THANK YOU!  As we begin to approach the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering season we would like to share with you the promotional video for this year's offering.  If you look closely you will notice a few familiar faces.  May our family be a face to your giving this year.  Know that your giving is what is helping us be here to evangelize and make disciples for Christ.  Again, we say thanks!