Mini Vacation

While I was able to visit my family last December when I came to help out with my mom's surgery, It was hard to be in the states so long and not get to see them. Thankfully we arrived to our US home on Monday of last week. It was so great to get to see family and have a little time to relax.

The Lord really blessed us and provided our needs wonderfully since we have been here. One of these blessings was in the providing beds for the kids. We had a bunk bed donated, but it didn't have mattresses. I started looking on Craigslist and found two mattresses for $15.00 each. They were actually in good shape. YEAH!!! I had to buy some sheets for the beds so I went to Target (I had a gift card) and found them on sale for $5.00 a set. I needed to buy sheets to take back to Honduras anyway so we were excited to find such a good deal on them. The kids are loving having beds to sleep on.

This week my mom and dad gave Jason and I a mini vacation. They took the three oldest kids to the beach in their motor home. It has been just Jason, Matthew, and me at home. We have had a wonderful time. Matthew has thoroughly enjoyed his time alone with Mom and Dad. We have gone to the library twice and even got to go out and buy a pumpkin. We have had a great time and are very thankful for our mini vacation.

Stubbornness Can Be A Blessing

I tend to be stubborn at times, but today, my persistence was a hero for one little boy.

We were given a gift basket last night from the church. Inside was a lot of wonderful things for us. One of the things that was given was a small green train for Matthew. He wanted to sleep with it, but we wouldn't let him. This morning, when he woke up we couldn't find it. He slept in late this morning as he fell off the bed in the middle of the night and took a little while to calm down. When he finally got up, the maid was already here. The maid and I looked everywhere, but to no avail. After she left I continued to look and still couldn't find it. I finally went down the hall and asked the maid if I could look in our trash. I found the train under several layers of trash. It was covered with leftover cereal and milk. I was so excited that I had finally found it. I made me remember the story of the woman in the New Testament who hunted for a lost coin and finally found it.

Matthew's reaction when I came back in the room with the train was priceless. He was so excited. In case you were wondering; yes, I cleaned it before I gave it back to him. :-) Today I am thankful for my "persistent" tendencies.

Many miles travelled

The last few weeks have been anything but boring. We are thankful for the good times that God has given us in many new churches. It has been great to meet and get to know many more precious Christians. We are praising the Lord for the one new church's support that has come in since my last post. We enjoyed spending time in a few supporting churches. We were able to report back to them what God has done with their investment into His work.

While we are travelling we have many hours in the van, but when we stop at some place for a few days we try to get out and do fun things with the kids. We were able to spend almost two weeks at a supporting church in the Baltimore area. We got to spend three days doing the tourist stuff. We spent two days in Washington DC. One of those days we had a shaking experience. We were in the Museum of American History when the 5.9 earthquake hit. Being the observant person that I am I didn't notice the swaying of the items on display until the big jolt came. At the beginning we weren't sure if the jolt was an earthquake or a bomb. It was so short. Thankfully there were no problems. We spent the rest of the day outside and walked to see the White House, Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam War Memorial, Korean War Memorial, and WWII Memorial. The White House and Lincoln Memorial were closed, but we got to see them from a distance. It just made me more eager to go back to DC someday and see things again.

Last Monday we left Ohio to head west again. At the time of this posting we are in Utah. It is a blessing to see how God is moving in this town. God is moving. We were able to talk to a hispanic man in Del Taco. We spoke in Spanish and felt great freedom to say what we wanted. When we left we gave him a tract and pray that he will read it and will accept Christ as his personal saviour.

We will be in Utah until Tuesday and then we start a road trip for Billings, Montana. We will then be coming back to Utah and then on to Arizona. In the many miles travelled, God has been so good to us. Please pray with us that our support level will continue to increase.

Travelling

The motels have been many and the months few, yet we have been blessed beyond measure. As I think about the time that we have traveled and the things that God has done, my mind constantly goes back to the song "He Giveth More Grace". Jason and I sang that song on Sunday morning as we were in Iglesia Bautista South Haven. It is a Spanish ministry and it was a huge blessing to be with them.

We haven't been around many Spanish speaking people since we left Honduras. I was not nervous though. We try to speak in Spanish as much as possible when out and about and we speak frequently with the kids. I thought I was prepared so I wouldn't have much of a problem. I was not prepared, however, for Mrs. Gonzales. The Gonzales family was so kind to put us up in their home. Mrs. Gonzales talked a little bit when we got there, but I couldn't understand much of what she was saying. It may be because of my tiredness as we have been travelling all day, or it may have been the rate at which she rattled off Spanish. I am not sure what the problem was, but my first though was how was I going to live in this family's house for the weekend. The feelings of despair I had upon moving to Costa Rica for language school all came rushing back to me. I took some time that night to pray and ask the Lord to help me. Thankfully all went well the next day and we had some great time talking and rejoicing in the Lord. I was able to learn much about her and her family. I pray that I was as much an encouragement to her as she was to me.

God always knows what we will need even before we need it and provides help for any situation. There are so many things that have gone "wrong" past few weeks of travelling, but each time we were able to see God step in and give us an even better outcome than what we could have hoped for. Now as I sit here in a hotel room, I am overwhelmed at all of the blessings God has bestowed upon us. While I know that as I use this verse here, it is taken out of context, but II Corinthians 9:15 keeps running through my mind. "Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift" We have the greatest gift of all, salvation. With that it should be enough, but God keep on blessing us with gifts of his goodness and grace along the way.

Please continue to pray for us. We are travelling many miles and presenting our work in many new churches. Our desire is to return to the field in February, but to do so means getting new supporters. Please pray for the hearts of those who hear of our burden to unite with us in reaching Honduras. We have every faith that God will provide for our need of more support, but we don't want to neglect to pray for it every day.

New Blog

My blog has been updated with a new design and new pictures. I will be striving to update my blogs more frequently while in the states and then, hopefully with our new android phones, I can keep up while in Honduras.