Seasons are changing

There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under heaven...

Ecclesiastes 3:1

We have been so blessed with 6 months of beautiful weather.   The seasons are changing and I am finding more of God's beauty as the rain refreshes the jungles.   It seems like things are coming alive in front of our eyes.   It is such an amazing experience.   The colors are so vivid and the wild life so prevelaint that you can't help, but be in awe of God's creation.

The people here have so many fears related to animals, rain, and the land.   It breaks my heart that they are living in fear of something that is so magnificantly created.

God saw all that he had made, 

and it was very good.   

Genesis 1:31

Even the Christians we work with, when asked will admitt to still being in bondage to these fears and falsehoods.   They have not truly found their freedom in Christ.  My heart breaks for these people.   I pray that their eyes will be opened and their hearts opened to the truth!

As the season changes here and rainy season begins to settle in the lagoon in front of our house at times turns a bright red/orange color.   We have heard so many reasons for this that are so far from the truth.   The children are terrified of it.   They fear birdhouses because they could house a dwarf that steals the children.   Owls are feared as well.   It is so sad to live in a fear based culture where they can not enjoy the pleasant things that God has given us.

Please join me in praying for these people held in a bondange that only true faith in Christ can save them from.   Pray that those that already have the knowledge of Christ will come to completly understand what a relationship with Christ means. 

  

The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear?  

The Lord is the defense of my life. Whom shall I dread?

When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh,

My adversaries and my enemies, they stumbled and fell.

Though a host encamp against me, My heart will not fear;

Though war arise against me, In spite of this I shall be confident.

One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek:

That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,

To behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple.

For in the day of trouble, He will hide me in His tabernacle;

In the secret place of His tent He will hide me;

He will lift me up on a rock.

And now my head will be lifted up above my enemies around me,

And I will offer in His tent sacrafices with shouts of joy;

I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the Lord.

Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice, And be gracious to me and answer me.

When You said "Seek My face," my heart said to You 

"Your face, O Lord, I shall seek." ...

Psalms 27: 1-8

God At Work

I have been wanting to give everyone an update on how things are going and I struggle finding the time to get on here and write when I can focus.  You see, my laptop is dead right now.  It has to get shipped back to the states for warranty repairs.  Another one is being shipped to me right now, but until that happens I can only use the computer when the generator is on, 2 hours during daylight hours, of which 1 1/2 I am teaching.  Today it is raining so I filled the generator up so we could update everyone on life.  Today, I am going to tell a story about how God works.

Our first trip out we were riding in the truck about to get on the beach for the final 1 hour ride to Palacios when we came across a broken down truck.  There are about 15 trucks (Toyota Hilux, Nissan Frontiers, etc.) that drive back and forth everyday from the city to Batalla, the village across the lagoon from Palacios.  The truck drivers are all like family to one another even though they compete for business daily.  One of our regular drivers, Palulo, pulls over to check on the broken down truck and we all get out to stretch after 8 hours.  Walker is watching the guys pull the back end out from under this truck to do a major repair (one that would take 2 weeks and thousands of $$$$ in the states) on this dirt "road" and a guy notices his Texas hat and asks in English where he is from.  Now, we are in the middle of Honduras a long way from nowhere and there are not a lot of people that speak English.  Walker and I talk to him for a while and find out he lived in NC and worked for a long time in Spring Hill, TN.  We thought that was cool, and figured we would never see the guy again.

Fast forward 2 1/2 months and it was time for me to go to town for groceries.  I am at the truck stop in Batalla, waiting to ride in with our driver and I recognize him standing beside me.  I begin to talk to him in broken Spanish and he replied in English.  My driver didn't have a full truck that day and was only going to take me so he told me to ride with Noel, my new friend.  I bring my Bible and storying tracks with me everywhere I go b/c you have a lot of free time in a truck for 9 hours with no one to communicate.  This trip was different!  I had the opportunity to witness to Noel the entire trip.  He had such a desire to learn more about Jesus and what it meant to follow Him.  He grew up Catholic but told me he became Christian while in NC.  He was deported for driving without ID shortly after, leaving his American wife and daughter behind.  He mentioned since his arrival back in Honduras, he has not found a church in the city he lives that felt like his church in the states.  I talked to him about the house church planting model.  I spent the last 3 hours of our ride explaining everything to him, showing him the story model, and teaching him how to implement it in his own network of friends.  I was teaching him, thinking that I would be able to get him my Spanish training notes the next day in Palacios, and he told me he prefers to read the Bible and comprehends at a higher level what he reads in English.  WOW!!!!  I had the entire kit with me and I left it with him to begin teaching a house church in Tocoa.  There was no doubt in my mind that God crossed our paths that first day out with His greater good in mind.  Who would think that the first person I taught in Honduras would speak English fluently and would have lived and worked 10 miles from my "home" in the states?

Please pray for the continued growth of Noel and that he will be a light for those around him in Tocoa and his family both in Honduras and the States.

And the word of the Lord was being spread through the whole region...Acts 14:49

God Bless,

Ryan

The countdown begins

I am so excited. It seems like just a few days ago I was fearful and weary, but God has taken those things from me and replaced them with excitement and peace. God is good like that. We have been so blessed and humbled by the love and support of everyone. God has been doing some amazing things in our family and I just want to share some of it with you.

Each child has had their own moment of frustration and fear of the upcoming move. Each one's has manifested in a way unique to the child. A few weeks ago Mari-Madeline was upset and Walker was comforting her and this was all he said "Mar, we have to trust mom and dad, because dad knows what God wants for our family." This settled her and she was fine after that. I was brought to tears and felt God wrapping me in His arms and saying I have taken care of it all, trust me. I fully trust God and to see my son trusting us and God just takes my breath away.

We got to spend a wonderful few hours with another couple that will be living with us in Honduras. Ryan and Chuck got to spend some guy time talking and Katie and I got to spend girl time talking. God has taken care of the details of personalities and friendship. We love Chuck and Katie and could not be more blessed than to be working with them in the field. Chuck and Katie volunteered to come to Tennessee and get all our things for the shipping crate; again this is God's provision alone.

Something that I will never be able to fully put into words is how humbled I am by all of our partners. We have had so many people join our prayer team and our financial team. God alone is in control of this and I am so grateful that our partners are with us. It is such a blessing to know that someone is praying for your family and ministry daily. We also could not be fulfilling our call to international missions without our financial partners. Thank you to all of you. We are at 31% of our monthly budget and have almost all of our one-time expenses covered.

I know this was long and thank you for reading it. God is good.....

School Clothing Ministry

What a blessing this week has been. This is our third year to give school clothes to the children of Maury County, however it was our first annual "give-away." Now, if I told you things went great from the beginning of planning until the last family was served I would not be honest, so bear with me as I share how BIG our God is!

When we began planning for this year we had a few items left over from last year in our possession. We began asking for donations of clothes to be brought to the church, but every time I took stock things were the same. I began to panic and ask God "Okay Lord, what next?" I began talking to other churches about asking their congregations to help collect clothes and all said they would. Wow, one more hurdle down, but still there were no clothes. Ryan and I went to camp with the kids just 2 weeks before the Big Day and I prayed even more. "God, what are we doing, did I miss something?" When we returned from camp-NOTHING had changed! I thought okay, we will help the first 20 people, but that is all we can do.

Four days before the Youth Mission week was to begin a few items began to drift in, but still not enough. I just thought God is going to have to make this one happen. I kept praying, reading scripture and relying on God to handle it. On Sunday, I gathered my first team of youth and we headed to the mission closet where the clothes are stored, I was scared! I open the door and almost fell over all the clothes! Our God is BIG! It took about an hour to gather all the clothes, I was speechless. God is so great! As the day went on I realized that even though we had a lot of clothes it was still not enough. Again, I went to God with it. The next morning my phone rings and it was a local church, they had a "ton" of clothes for us to come pick up. As I went to get the clothes I could not imagine what was waiting for me. When they showed me to the office that held the clothes I broke into tears. Again, our God was faithful! I now felt that we could actually do this, because they really had a "ton" of clothes. As Walker and I loaded up my van I sang praises to our mighty God and cried tears of joy. We still had two days before the big day and God never stopped working. It seemed like evertime the phone rang or a door opened it was more clothes! I mean what man could do this? NONE, only God!

The BIG DAY arrives and I will admit I was scared to death. I mean this was a huge deal. Again, our God is full of grace and mercy and he showered this ministry in both. The staff at church, the youth, senior adults, parents and others came out to help and help they did. People began lining up at 9 am, the give-away did not start until 4 pm, again, I panic. I stopped, went to God and said "God, you know what we have, you know the needs, you know who is here, You are going to have to make it happen." Clothes continue to come in up until moments before we open the doors. About one hour before we opened the door everything was done! We were completely ready for what was out the door. I again hit the floor, face to the ground and asked my Father to handle it all. At 4 pm we opened the door and the first group came in, the gospel was shares, they were registered and they got their clothes. This was a process repeat so many times over the next 4 hours. After the first several goups, I began to check on how our supplies were holding out and I could not believe my eyes, they were multiplying on the racks! I could only think of the loaves and fishes and how Jesus fed everyone with leftovers to boot. Our God is Big! Every time I looked at the clothes it seemed like nothing was changing, we still had clothes! Now, if you were in Columbia you would know how hot it was. People were hot, so we gathered bottles of water, but again it was not enough. A man helping gathered some money and sent some one to the store for more, they returned with 15 cases of water. God, was again meeting every need we had.

About 7 pm things began to slow down and people were only coming in every so often, but we still had clothes. Just before 8 pm as we were cleaning up and putting things away, our last family arrived. The family had 2 very small children entering kindergarten and I felt over whelmed. I did not see a lot of small items left. As I began looking, one of the people helping came out with 2 bags of brand new clothes! Someone had brought clothes while the give-away was going on we never saw them. What was there was a shirt for the girl and boy! Our God is GREAT! When they left I realized not only were the people blessed, but so was I. I saw a miracle from God that day and I will never forget it. Guess, what remember the bible story? We have left overs! Yes, we can continue to help others with school clothes as the new year gets under way. God, isn't he Amazing!