April - Ministry, Marriage and Mothering

Hello Everyone!!! Hope y'all are doing well. For April's blog update I want to focus on three things: ministry, marriage and mothering. There's so much to cover that happens in a month, but God placed it on my heart to speak about these three areas this month.

Ministry (specifically Celebrate Recovery)

Celebrate Recovery is now running at 2 locations on the island of Roatan: east side of the island in Oak Ridge and mid island in Mudhole!!!

On the east side of the island on Wednesdays a mission organization is teaching the kids CR Program and the youth CR Program. They are doing great and see it as a major benefit for those they are serving in their community, Praise God! They are even in the works of looking into starting an adult CR program soon. Yay!!! We love when all ages have the tools of recovery and that the Bible is used to help heal the entire family unit. I can't wait to hear more amazing stories of the healing of Jesus Christ though CR on the east side! All glory and honor to God!

Then mid island on Saturdays all three Celebrate Recovery programs are up and running. The youth is from 12-2pm and the adults/kids are from 3-5pm. We are so encouraged by all the youth that come out and tell us how much this program means to them and how they don't want to miss it no matter what. They are high energy and so excited to learn about the Biblical tools to help deal with the hurts that happen in life. Then the adult program and the kids program run from 3-5pm and both of those are going well.

This month both Tyler and I gave our testimony at CR and those that came were grateful to be able to hear how God has worked in our lives and they were encouraged that God could work in their lives too.

Please pray that Celebrate Recovery will help many families heal from their hurts, hang-ups and habits all over the island, to God be the glory!

**Here are a few pictures of the room set up without people. We try not to share pictures of the people in the meetings to respect their privacy.

Marriage (making sure my hubby knows he is LOVED)

We are on year 14 of being married and we are growing closer and closer as the years go on, praise the LORD! But it takes intentionality and work for that to happen. After a conversation about strengthening our marriage, Tyler and I decided to go on a super early morning date before Guenther woke up for coffee and breakfast at least once a week. It has been such a great time of connecting. During this time we do work on ministry stuff, but what we do that I love the most is we go on a prayer walk together for our marriage, kids, ministry work, family, church and whatever else is needing prayer at the time. It is such a sweet time together and I'm grateful that we both love being with each other and making our marriage a priority. He's my best friend and I couldn't imagine doing life with anyone else.

Mothering (raising up an honest man for God)

Guenther is 16 years old now...wow, time has flown by. He is growing and is getting close to my height, his hands are just about the same size as mine and his feet have outgrown mine for sure. It's an exciting age for him and a time of pouring into him, loving him and training him to be an honest man for God. These next 2 years will fly by for sure. I still can't believe I have an almost 20 year old son in the states, wow. This month has been a month of trial and error for Guenther. Guenther took on two different opportunities to see if that would be something he enjoyed doing. He started volunteering at the preschool and quickly learned he doesn't want to be a teacher anymore. He said the kids don't listen and he just wants to play with them. Then he tried to care for our friends dogs an hour each day and quickly found out dogs don't listen that well either, especially when they're a young dog. I am proud of him for trying and learning. He had to have tough conversations with the preschool teacher he was working with and the owner of the dogs to let them know that it wasn't working out for him. He asked me to be there so that his people pleasing didn't kick in to where he felt bad and just kept doing these two things because he felt bad. I was so proud of him for pressing through these tough conversation and for putting himself out there to try new things. He has verbalized that he wants a routine job that doesn't involve mananging people or animals....and has shown interest in possibly being a post office man that has the same route ever day driving the little mail truck. We'll see what the Lord has planned for him. Our prayer is that he puts God first in whatever he does. (To read more details about Guenther's experiences this past month, check out his blog.). As for homeschool, we have 6 classes left and he will complete High School. I can't believe we're almost done. I've been homeschooling him since he was in 2nd grade. It's been a joy to be his teacher, even on the challenging days. I'm looking forward to loving on him as much as I can while he's here...he wants to transition back to the states for work when he is 18, so I'll need to get as much G time as I can now!

Thank y'all for your prayers and financial support. We couldn't do this without you. Together we are the body of Christ!