A LOOK BACK AT APRIL (through Lorenda's eyes)...
This month has been busy, but super blessed!!!!
Usually I talk mainly about all the major ministry stuff that goes on here in Honduras. To explain what I mean, I need to explain "major ministry" stuff. Major ministry stuff are things like teaching the Bible throughout the week at the rehab and running the new Celebrate Recovery here on the island. Recently the rehab has been doing a lot of reconstruction, so the teaching has been only a few times this past month (which allowed more time for the day to day dischipleship I am going to share about in just a little bit)...but we look forward to getting back there to teach once they finish construction. As for Celebrate Recovery, it has been going great! We have anywhere between 15-30 people attending each Monday night and it is going really well. It has been up and running for 11 weeks now and it has been a blessing to us and others. Lives are being changed by the power of Jesus Christ!!
So that was a short recap about the "major ministry" activities, but for this blog I want to give you a peek into the day to day discipleship and service that takes place here in Honduras. God is in the seconds, minutes and hours of each and every day. He has plans for them if we let Him uses our time for his glory. The day to day discipleship and service are what I like to call the "divine appointments" that the Lord has for us throughout the day. It means that our spirtual eyes must be open as our hearts seek to follow the command in Matthew 28:19-20 "(as you) go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." You may be asking, what does it mean to have your spiritual eyes open. Here is the easiest way I can understand it. When my physical eyes are the only thing open, I worry about my schedule and move task to task not paying attention to the spiritual details or inbetween times. When my spiritual eyes are open, I am looking to be intentional with EVERY person I come in contact with and looking for God's direction on each conversation and event for the day...my schedule also tends to be a little more flexible when I am focused on the spiritual aspects of life.
This blog space is not big enough to cover every "divine appointment", but I will highlight a few of those for you. My saying is "everyone is my friend, they just don't know it yet" and my family can confirm this to be true. I talk to EVERYONE! One major thing I try really, really hard to do is remember names and call that person by name next time I see them. The first divine appointment I want to share involved having to rescue a dear friend of ours here on the island who feel back into addiction. I don't want to mention names or give to many details, because it is his story to tell...but I can share that my heart was filled with compassion for our friend as I saw him in a vunerable, fallen state needing the love of his brothers and sisters in Christ to encourage him to get back up and keep running the race. The sweaty embrace and tears flowing down all of our faces was just the beginning of his fresh start. He is doing much better and is working his recovery. A second divine appiontment was chatting and befriending a female security guard near the coffee shop our friend's bought. Usually people do their security check, say hi and move on...but remember what I said earlier "everyone is my friend, they just don't know it yet". She was super kind and we befriended each other. I look forward to all God is going to do in this new relationship. The last divine appointments I want to talk about happen on a daily basis. Where we live is a blessing from the Lord and we are able to share about Jesus all day long. Those we get to talk to about Jesus includes our Landlord (amazing sweet friend who loves Jesus...who wants us to start a Bible study and prayer meeting with her extended family of the beach every Sunday night), our amazing neighbors (too many to list) and some workers at a local beach resturant that come on their lunch break to our neighbors in house resturant/store. Those are just a few of the many amazing opportunities the Lord has given us to get to know people here and glorify His great name.
We just want to say THANK YOU.
Thank you for supporting us in prayer!!!
Thank you for supporting us financially!!!
Prayer Requests
*continued prayers as I figure out travel to the US this summer (plan flights, etc) to see all of y'all and to drop Messiah off at college.
*prayers for the weekly Bible study/prayer meeting with our Landlord and her extended family
*prayers for the Celebrate Recovery ministry here to be a blessing to many
We love y'all and miss y'all bunches...but hopefully we'll see you soon (end of July/beginning of August). Dios te bendiga...God bless you!