Recent happenings

Hi Everyone,

Clowning around with the WV team

We are now in the US and starting the bi annual deputation journey which will take us from San Diego to West Virginia.  We look forward to seeing friends, family and making new friends at each church that we have the privilege of sharing with.   We are now in the great city of Manchester, Iowa after having 2 services in Cedar Rapids yesterday am and an afternoon service in the Iowa City Hispanic Church of the Nazarene (and yes, they were very kind to their Cyclone brethren:). 

This is a little embarrassing (ok maybe a lot embarrassing) but I realize that I have not done a very good job helping Shelley with the blog over the last couple of months--especially as I reflect all that God has been doing where we serve. Here are some highlights over the past 2 1/2 months.

On March 17, another great team arrived from the US.  They were from Pierpont Church of the Nazarene in Morgantown, WV.  Our former pastor, Casey Shorr and his wife Rhonda, were on this team.  This team worked in 4 different communities where we are planting new works and received invitations to minister in 3 public schools thru VBSs and crafts. 

All in all over 1,000 primary age children heard the gospel---praise God.  One of the crafts that is always big is the salvation bracelets.  This craft allows us to present the plan of salvation using different colored beads.  This team blessed us in many ways including the donation of many clown outfits which we are distributing to other church planters in Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama.

Our son Joshua and daughter Kayley have been a blessing in many ways.  One Saturday in April, Josh decided that he would accompany me to the city of Liberia in northern Costa Rica for evangelism trainings.  This was a labor of love as it was a 3 1/2 to 4 hour drive each way from San Jose.  The pastor of the church is Pastor Alvaro.  He is serving as a church planter and has been involved with the opening of 16 new cell groups in the Guanacaste area since the end of 2009.  These new groups almost total 300 people in attendance--praise the Lord.  Here is a picture of Pastor Alvaro and a map that shows some of these new works.  There is a possibility that 2 or 3 of these new missions will be organized churches soon. The blue thumbtacks represent some of the 16 new missions that have started. 

I took a 10 day trip to Nicaragua which covered the last week of April and part of the first week of May.  I met with leaders in 3 of the 4 districts and Nicaragua.  Through this time, I participated in evangelism workshops, translated for Pastor Greg McNichols who did special workshops for the pastors in the Nicaragua North district, worked with local leaders on the development of 3 new missional zones (these are areas where we are having a special focus in church planting thru the use of the Jesus Film and local church planters), and made a special trip to Puerto Cabezas on the northeast coast of Nicaragua.  Puerto Cabezas is the home of an indigenous people called the Miskitu (and yes, praise God, we have the Jesus Film in the Miskitu language).  Here are a few pictures from there.

Getting water from the well for morning bucket shower--very refreshing

Enjoying a snack while waiting to cross a bridge in NE Nicaragua

May was a blur as we tried to finish up several ministry tasks in preparation for our time in deputation for the US.  During this time we had special regional evangelism meetings, had evangelism trainings for church planters in Costa Rica, visited missional zone church planters in Costa Rica and visited a missional zone church planter in Panama.  We praise God as we have seen over 90 new cell groups planted in Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama over the last 17 months in 9 missional zone projects in the 3 countries.  To God be the glory, great things He has done.