Sunday, March 30, 2014

Ministry Update (Finally!)

Hi everyone! We want to share with you what Fernando has been up to the past few months:

Garifuna Bible School Happenings

Fernando has been meeting regularly with several pastors who serve on the Garifuna Bible school leadership team as they plan how to support pastors who have started discipleship schools in their local church congregations. Fernando and the other leaders make arrangements to provide these pastors with BILD International materials and help them as they train others. The leadership team has also been laying the groundwork for a new training group for pastors that will start in a nearby Garifuna community next month.
  • Pray for each pastor who has started a discipleship school in his church and for the church members to attend, for God's Word to be firmly established in their hearts and for godly leaders to be raised up.
  • Pray also for the pastors who will form the new training group next month, for a strong commitment, for excellence, and for the Holy Spirit to work in their hearts.

Discipleship at Church

Fernando has been teaching a discipleship class at church. While the lead pastor continues to work with a group of adults he was teaching last year, Fernando meets with youth, many of whom are seekers or new believers, learning biblical truth for the first time. Using the discipleship materials that were translated into Garífuna last year has been a great help.
  • Pray for these youth to understand, receive, and live out the Word of God as they discover who Jesus is and how to follow Him.

Discipleship and Translation Training

God has bridged two needs to form a wonderful opportunity for Fernando. One need is for another series of training materials to be translated into Garífuna. The other is that many youth are unable to find employment. We praise God for an office behind the house where we are living, where Fernando has invited two young men to come during the week. They read the Scripture in Garífuna, study the discipleship training materials in Garífuna (same as mentioned above), write in Garífuna in response to what they learn, and also do some translation of texts. By strengthening their reading and writing skills in Garífuna, not only are they becoming prepared to translate, but they also are learning more about Jesus and His Word. We hope this is just the start to including even more youth in the Lord's work as He allows.
  • Pray for both of these young men to grow in their faith in this process, for them to do excellent translation work, and for the materials they translate to be a great blessing to Garífuna pastors in their studies and as they teach those in their churches.

House Construction Update

As we've shared with you, we feel God leading our family to a Garífuna community, *Wageira, for pastor training and church planting in that region. Fernando traveled to Wageira in January to get the building process started. Before building, sand is collected from the nearby river to make cement. We thank God for the start of this project!
  • Pray that as this house is built, God will prepare a home where our family can share the good news of Jesus with others.

Two Months Old

Today Baby J turns two months old! I'll share more about him in the next post, but here's a picture of our sweet baby boy:



Thank you for your prayers!


*pseudonym

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Welcoming Our Baby

Hi everyone! It's been awhile since our last post... because we had a baby! Our little boy, Baby J , was born on January 30 at 10:00 A.M. weighing 7 lb. 6 oz. and measuring 21 in. long. He is a very healthy baby, and we are enjoying him so much!

As some of you know, my mom was planning to come for the birth. However, in January she was hospitalized for a week due to the flu with double pneumonia. Thank you to everyone who prayed for her health. She has been slowly but steadily recovering and will come to Honduras later this month. Although we were very disappointed she couldn't be here, we are grateful to Fernando's mother, who spent four weeks with us helping me care for the baby during recovery. What a blessing to have a mother-in-law who loves the Lord and her family, an example to me of someone who finds joy in serving others. Baby J loved being held by her!

February is the "start up" month here in Honduras: schools resume classes after the December-January vacation, people look for employment, and projects begin. Fernando has been busy with the beginning of ministry activities for this year. I will try to post about that soon... but if it takes me awhile, you all will know why. :)

Here are a few pictures of Baby J. For more details, you can email me (I promise I will reply... someday!), and you can find more pictures on Facebook. We want to thank each of you who has prayed for Baby J since during my pregnancy and for those who have so generously given him and us gifts. It is encouraging to know how many people care about our baby boy!