Conference, Container, & Conversing

The past few day have been filled with a lot of activity in our house and at MEDA.  

Henry Tolopilo was at MEDA teaching a conference on Biblical leadership. It was great to see people from all over come to hear the Word of God taught. There were 200 in attendance, including two bus loads from Nicaragua. Our facility is not equipped to handle this many people so some had to stay in a nearby hotel. One of the highlights was seeing a pastor that Mark met on a trip to Honduras in April. He lives about an hour from MEDA up in the mountains. When we met him in April, he stated he had not had any Bible training and the only book he had was a dictionary. We were able to provide him with a Spanish MacArthur Study Bible, and a church from Florida offered to pay for him to attend one year of conferences. During one of the breaks in the conference, Mark was able to talk with him and found out that he has attended four MEDA conferences since April and is using the things he is learning in his preaching at church. It was such a delight to hear how he is learning the Scripture and maturing in ministry. 

On Wednesday, Mark and Carlos Nunez will be going to the port to open our container. We hope everything will be processed on the same day and that we can get our things by Thursday. Please pray that no other problems occur while processing the container and for the safety of the men while we unload it at MEDA.  

We continue to learn more Spanish each day. Our tutors have been very helpful in teaching us the language. Mark is meeting with the tutor four days a week and Christy is meeting three days a week. Please continue to pray that we will learn the language quickly so that we can be more effective in ministry.  

We appreciate the emails, phone calls, and cards we have received over the last few weeks. It’s great to hear from our family and friends back in the States.

 

An Article About MEDA

The following article about MEDA appeared in the The Worldview, which is a publication of The Master’s Academy International.

“How do you reach a nation for Christ? You equip its pastors to rightly divide the Word. You provide sound training in church ministry and Bible exposition, and then you invite pastors to take advantage of it.

In other words, you follow the pattern set forth by Ministerios Evangelicos de las Americas (MEDA), a TMAI-supported training center that is training church leaders throughout Honduras.

MEDA is located in Siguatepeque, but its reach extends much further. Perhaps nowhere was the fact more evident than in a Bible teaching Conference MEDA held July 26-28. Attendees journeyed to MEDA from all over Honduras.

Alex Granados, who came to teach on Galatians, may have traveled the most. Granados, a native of Columbia, lives in Los Angeles, CA, where he serves as Director of Church Ministries at The Master’s College. Granados also serves as a Pastor of Christian Education at L.A. Community Bible Church.

“I love going into Latin America and seeing the hunger that men have for the Word of God,” he says. “It was wonderful to finally get to MEDA – to be a part of the ministry there. People traveled there from different parts of Honduras. Many traveled long distances, saving cents to be able to come.”

Those men make the journey, says Granados, because what they receive at MEDA is unlike anything they can find anywhere else in Honduras. They come because of MEDA’s commitment to Scripture.

They come because they are hungry for truth. They come because they are shepherding churches filled with believers who are as hungry as they are.

For those men, MEDA is a source of spiritual nourishment. They are eager to come.

“They make whatever sacrifice they need to be there,” Granados says. “It’s pretty tough to be a bi-vocational pastor. They don’t have a lot of money to burn. You can see the priority they put on their training.”

The conference focused on the book of Galatians, bringing foundational truths to bear on the biblical ministry Honduran pastors are pursuing across the country. “They’re looking to be watered with the Word,” Granados says. “They see that MEDA is doing that, and they can’t get enough.

“We live in an age where people want to reinvent everything – they think the Word of God is not adequate. They want a new way. They want a sure thing. But it is as simple and as difficult as faithfully preaching the Word. MEDA is doing that. There is no fluff – no gimmicks. They promise, ‘We will walk you through Scripture,’ and they deliver.

“It’s a testimony to what God is doing there.”

For Granados, who received his training at The Master’s Seminary in Los Angeles, the opportunity to help bring the same kind of equipping to Latin American pastors right where they live is especially rewarding.

“Being an immigrant and knowing how valuable it is to have the Word of God, then to be able to go back and utilize what I learned is a blessing,” he says. “I’m blessed to see the hunger, to see how much the men want to learn.”

For the men who come, meanwhile, the conference also offers a special time of fellowship. Most serve in small villages where opportunities to sharpen themselves against like-minded pastors are rare. For that reason, the fellowship is rich. The men share ideas and resources. More importantly, they share their burdens. They lift one another in prayer.

Through MEDA, God is answering those prayers. He is equipping church leaders, and those leaders are building a spiritual foundation to bless generations.”

We are grateful for the Lord’s blessing here at MEDA and continue to pray that He would be pleased to use this ministry for His honor and glory. Our family is humbled to be a part of this effort to equip men in Central America to be faithful steward’s of God’s Word.

 

Our First Week in Honduras

We have now been in Honduras for one week! We are feeling right at home, except for the language barrier. But praise the Lord we are learning more Spanish each day.  

Honduras is in the middle of its rainy season. It rained almost the entire first five days we have been here. Not only is it raining outside, but due to the poor condition of the roof, it is raining inside also. MEDA will be replacing the roof soon, but it will take awhile. We are staying dry for the most part, however.  We just leave someone behind on “rain duty” if we go anywhere so they can place buckets and move beds.  The leaks are always in different places!  When our container arrives we will use our tarps to cover as much of the roof as possible.  

The other night we also experienced our first power outage. The power goes out at least once a week here. We had a lot of lightning and the power was out for a few hours. It felt like we were back at The Master’s Mission again with no electricity.  Thankfully, we came prepared with flashlights and candles. 

Our container will be arriving at the port this week Lord willing, but we will most likely not be able to receive it here at MEDA until early next week. Mark will need to go down to the port to help clear the container. Since we arrived we learned that Honduras charges a hefty tax on items coming into the country. Our Lord is Sovereign and knew this would happen; we are trusting in Him to supply what is needed. Please continue to pray for the safe arrival of our belongings.  

The boys are making friends quickly, especially Isaiah and Elijah, with their friendly smiles and talkative nature.  Isaiah is a favorite among some of the seminary students at MEDA, and when he cut open his head the other day, word traveled fast, and they all came to the door to make sure “Monkey Boy” was alright. Neither Isaiah nor Elijah seem to understand there is a language barrier and will talk to anyone who stops to listen.  When Isaiah heard that his Sunday School class in the States was learning a song in Spanish, he grew sad and told us, “But, I want to learn a song in Spanish too!”  When we asked him if he sang songs in his Sunday School here in Honduras, he replied, “Yes, but not in Spanish!” 

The older boys are playing soccer everyday and keep Christy busy with their muddy clothes.  They were a little nervous about attending church for the first time, but now are eager to return.  They each went to various classes and a few had help from children who spoke English.  One way they are learning to adapt is getting used to their new names.  While we were out at the store today, a gentleman asked Noah his name.  He quickly replied without hesitating, “Noe (No-ay)”.   

The other families serving at MEDA (Montoyas, Donatos, and Nunez’) have been very hospitable and gracious to our family. We are blessed to be part of a great team of families ministering here in Siguatepeque. We have also enjoyed getting to know some of the workers at MEDA. Roman, one of the maintenance men, has been particularly helpful to Mark in learning Spanish. He speaks very little English and Mark very little Spanish, but they communicate everyday about work projects and tools. Roman’s father, Agustin, works at MEDA also. He has been working on drying and separating the beans the last few days next to our house. Isaiah has been out there several times watching and talking with him.  

It’s a girl! The Patterson family now has a baby girl.  Well, actually a girl puppy. The Nunez family’s dog had puppies about 8 weeks ago and they gave our family one of them.  The boys have wanted a dog for a long time and are really excited.  Chiquita is keeping us occupied until our container arrives. 

Please pray for our family as our bodies get adjusted to living in a new place and eating new foods. We have been experiencing some stomach troubles the last few days, but seem to be on the tail end of it (literally!).

We pray you are growing and delighting in the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

We’re Home

Praise the Lord that we are now in Honduras.  We left the Orlando airport yesterday at 8:30am. Our friends, the Jaebs and Yates took us to the airport to see us off. It was a sad good bye, filled with many tears and hugs.  

We had a connecting flight in Atlanta, Georgia, and had no problems in the airport and took off right on time. We arrived in San Pedro Sula, Honduras around 12:25pm (2:25pm ET). As we landed, Elijah started clapping and saying “Yay!  We are in Honduras!” The whole plane started clapping with him. Again the Lord was gracious and we didn’t have problems getting through customs or obtaining our luggage. We then headed up the mountains to Siguatepeque and arrived at MEDA around 4:00pm. 

 

The other missionary families, along with the seminary students were all outside waiting for us and gave us a warm greeting. It started raining as we were pulling into the MEDA property. All the students helped unload our luggage and placed it in our house. It ended up being one of the biggest rain storms they had in the last few months. Elijah was running around our house joyfully telling everyone, “It’s raining in our house!” Needless to say the roof will be the first priority in getting repaired. The Montoya family is living on the other side of the duplex and has the same problems. Within 15 minutes of arriving at MEDA the boys were playing soccer in the garage with their new friends. 

Pastor Melvin and his family brought us a fruit basket to welcome us to Honduras. Pastor Melvin has been to our church in Florida a few times. One of the missionary families here at MEDA, the Donatos, had an amazing Honduran feast at their home last night to welcome us. The boys enjoyed their first taste of Honduran cuisine. 

Our shipping container should arrive on September 28^th; please pray for a safe arrival of our belongings.  We made our first trip into town alone today to pick up groceries and other items.  It was a great opportunity to practice our Spanish!  We were pleasantly surprised at the variety of food available and found almost everything on our list.  American brands are much more expensive, however, so we will be getting used to the local brands. 

We will spend the next few days settling in and getting our house and the MEDA storage shed ready for our belongings.  On Monday, we will jump right in with our Spanish studies.  Christy and I each have our own tutor.  The boys have already picked up quite a bit just playing with their friends. 

Our family is extremely thankful to everyone who has made it possible for us to be here. Many of you have helped us in tremendous ways – may the Lord bless you for your service to Him.

 

Countdown Begins

A lot has happened in the last two weeks; we had a garage sale, completed our State side processing of our visas, booked our tickets to Honduras, and completed more packing. 

Saturday, August 4^th we had our last garage sale at church. Many people from church donated items to sell and helped by sorting, pricing, cashiering, and much more. We have been so blessed by the love people at our church have shown. 

Last Tuesday, we traveled to Miami to visit the Honduran Consulate.  It was a long day, but well worth it. Our friends the Diaz’s, who live in Miami, watched our boys while Christy and I went to the Consulate office. Here is a picture of Christy and me with the gentleman who processed our paperwork.  

With the visa process complete, we were able to book our plane tickets. We are excited to announce that we will be leaving for Honduras on Wednesday, September 19^th!!!!! We are thankful to the Lord for getting us to this point and for all his provisions.  

This past week we started building special size crates for our appliances. Three other men from church helped on Thursday and Friday evening. While the men were building these crates, the boys were assembling some of the standard crates, and of course playing with their friends when their work was done.  

The Lord has been so good to our family and blessed us in many ways. We are thankful that our tickets have been purchased and that we will arrive in Honduras in 5 ½ weeks. Now for the crunch time to begin!

 

We are Getting Closer

Since we returned from our trip to New York and North Carolina we have been moving at full speed. We had Vacation Bible School at our church last week and this week we are getting ready for our last garage sale before we move. In the midst of all this we have been finalizing our requirements for visas.  

Vacation Bible School went well at church and the word of God was clearly taught to the children. We pray that Christ would indeed be treasured by the kids and that the seed that was sown would be firmly planted in their hearts and lives. We are thankful to the Lord for the children that attended and that our family was able to serve in a small way.  

This past Sunday we visited Grace Bible Church of Tampa, where Mark was asked to preach. It was a great time of fellowship with the believers there and we are thankful to the Lord for His work in that new church.  

This Saturday will be our final yard sale at church to help raise money for our traveling and shipping expenses to Honduras. We have been clearing out all our belongings that we are not taking with us, and people have been donating things to sell. Please pray for good weather on Saturday, as we are in our rainy season.  

We praise the Lord that this week we completed the last document we need to obtain our visas. Next Tuesday we will be taking a trip to Miami to meet with the Honduran Consulate to file our paperwork. Please pray for a good trip and that all will go well. We are thankful to the Lord for getting us to this point; our family is getting more excited as we see things moving along and the departure is getting closer. 

The other day as we were going through our boxes, we found our wedding video. It was fun watching part of it and remembering that special day in our lives. While watching the pastor’s sermon, I wondered about the man who married us, Pastor Mark Lauterbach. I wondered where he was and what he was doing now. One nice thing about living in a time like this is that you can get on your computer and run a search on people. I was very happy to find that he is still a faithful servant of Christ and serving in a church in California. I found he also has a blog where he discusses the Bible.  After reading several of his posts I found one post very helpful and thought provoking. The title of the post is The Gospel Must be Everything; here is part of the article: “The Gospel is about God and what he has done in order that we will be saved from wrath. It is not about our sense of purpose in life or our sense of meaning. It is not about our psychological problems – our “issues” as we say. It is about something far deeper – it is called sin. It is not about our needs – it is about our standing before the God who is the Creator and Judge of all. It is not a therapy, it is a blood sacrifice. It is not moral advice for the well meaning, it is resurrection of the dead.” 

“The Gospel is stunning because our sin was great. Our sin is great because it is against a glorious God. It did not take the death of the Son of God to give us good feelings or purpose in life. The issue was sin, and the everlasting ruin that lay before us in judgment of sin. If God wanted to make us feel better about ourselves he would not have wasted his Son’s life for that. But sin is such a great evil that it required such a One to be our Savior.”   

I know that some people reading this blog don’t know Christ and have not understood your sin in the presence of a Holy God; I pray that you would see your sin against Him and understand that Jesus bore the wrath and punishment that you deserve. The only way to escape eternal wrath is to embrace Christ as your Savior and find safety in Him. Do you treasure Him today or are you treasuring your sin and the things of this world?

 

Travels, Packing, and More

What a great God we serve! The last two weeks we had the opportunity to travel to New York to visit Mark’s mom and to North Carolina to spend a week at The Master’s Mission. Josiah and Caleb joined up with our youth group from church for summer camp at TMM . We had a great time in both states. 

While visiting Mark’s mom we took a trip to Canada to see Niagara Falls. What an amazing site of God’s handiwork. We were able to walk down behind and to the side of the falls. We also enjoyed staying at her place on Conesus Lake. On Sunday, we visited Clarkson Community Church where Mark was asked to speak about our ministry in Honduras. We had a great time with the believers there and really appreciated their generosity and hospitality.  

We had a great time with our Youth Group in North Carolina.  There were 45 kids participating from two different churches. The boys had a blast and enjoyed the teaching of God’s Word, work projects, and games.  

We are continuing to prepare for Honduras. This past week we have had eye appointments, doctor appointments, built and packed more crates, contacted shipping companies, and much more.  As you can imagine there is much work involved in moving overseas. In the next few weeks we will be involved in a church wide garage sale and Vacation Bible School. We pray that the Lord will use this ministry to draw children to Himself.   

We are thankful to the Lord for His many provisions in our lives and allowing us to serve Him in Honduras. We are hoping to leave in early September, depending on when we obtain visas. 

New on the Blog 

We have added a few new items to our website.

• Current weather in Siguatepeque Honduras
• Satellite image of our location in Honduras
• New family picture on the About Us page
• Support Form

 

Preparations Have Begun

Greetings in the great name of our Lord Jesus Christ! What an awesome privilege to be able to know and serve the King of Heaven.  We are looking forward to moving to Honduras soon and being able to proclaim Christ and teach His Word. 

Once we received the invitation to join MEDA in Honduras, we began the busy task of preparation. As you can imagine there is lot to do to move a family to another country. We are thankful to the Lord that we were able to purchase a vehicle to take with us to Honduras. Based on Honduran law a vehicle cannot be shipped into the country if it is 7 years or older; our Yukon was 1 year too old. After much prayer and searching, we found a 2005 Ford Excursion in Texas that was $4,000 cheaper than the ones in Florida. Mark and Caleb flew to Texas and drove it back home last week.

We have also been busy packing our belongings. We will be packing most of our things in wooden crates that will be put in a shipping container, along with our vehicle. We are thankful that some of our friends at church (Ron Wikert, Kendall Yates, and David Puebla) cut all the wood for us. Josiah, Caleb, Noah, and Levi have been busy helping Mark pack the crates, while Christy plays the part of record keeper. Every item in each crate needs to be accounted for, so Christy is inputting on an excel spreadsheet all the items that are placed in each crate.

  

This is just the tip of the iceberg, as we have also been busy with shopping for appliances, tools, searching for health insurance, getting paperwork ready to apply for residency in Honduras, etc.  

We are thankful to everyone who continues to faithfully support our family each month and for praying for us as we make the transition. May our God bless you for your partnership in this ministry for His Kingdom!

 

It’s Official

As you know, our family has been praying about moving to Siguatepeque, Honduras as full-time missionaries at MEDA (Ministerios Evangélicos De las Américas), a ministry in Honduras that is committed to training men. They hold Biblical conferences throughout the year and also run a seminary. The ministry has been very effective in training men throughout Central American in the study of God’s Word. As you know, Christy and I were able to visit MEDA in January. We were able to meet the other missionaries and learn about the ministry. I also returned in April with other men from our church. Both trips were very profitable and I was able to learn about their needs and how our family can minister in Honduras.  

We have received an official invitation from MEDA to join their ministry as the Facility Manager. The training that I received at The Master’s Mission will be very valuable in taking care of the facilities and grounds. I will be overseeing the current Honduran men, working with them and training them in various processes. We will also be involved in serving in a local church. In the future we hope to also be involved in some of the remote villages that currently do not have a church. 

Since we will be serving in Honduras, this means we will need to change the mission organization we will be serving under. We will be serving under the same mission board as our fellow missionaries at MEDA, Cornerstone Ministries International. We are thankful to The Master’s Mission for the valuable training we received from them. For those of you who have supported us financially, we will be contacting you when this change has been completed.  Until then, you can continue sending your contributions to The Master’s Mission.  

There are many factors involved in the timing of moving, but as for now we are tentatively shooting for August.  Please pray for our family as we make preparations for our move to Honduras.

 

Proclaiming the Gospel in Honduras

Greetings in the great name of the Lord Jesus Christ!

I had the great privilege of going on a mission trip to Honduras from April 9th through the 16th.  During the trip we were able to join up with a church in Honduras to preach the gospel in several schools and homes. 

Each day we went to a different village and were able to go into the schools to tell the children about Christ.  The teachers would cancel classes and gather the children together to listen to us.  I still can’t believe that they were so open to the gospel coming into the schools and even asked us to come back. We were able to preach the gospel to well over 1,200 children. We are not sure how many received the Lord, but we do know that they all heard the gospel and pray that Christ was glorified in the preaching of His Word.

After we spoke in the schools we were able to walk around the villages and visit people in their homes.  The Lord provided some amazing opportunities to talk to Christians and non-Christians. One in particular was when a local pastor took us to a Christian lady’s house to pray for her and encourage her as her husband had recently left her for another woman. We prayed for her and her husband, and as we were leaving her property, we met her husband walking down the road. After agreeing to speak with us, we sat back down and had the opportunity to open up God’s Word to him for about 45 minutes.  It’s always great to see the Lord answer prayer – while were we praying for the man, the Lord was in the process of granting our request by orchestrating it so the man was on his way to meet us.  To read more about our trip check out a blog my friend from Jacksonville put together while in Honduras http://web.mac.com/schristmas.

As you know our family is praying about joining a ministry (MEDA) in Honduras that equips men in the study of God’s Word. They hold conferences throughout the year and are in their 3rd year of seminary classes. They are making a huge impact in Central America training pastors and men who aspire to teach God’s word faithfully. We were able to have several meetings with the staff at MEDA to discuss joining the ministry. They were very encouraging, and we would appreciate you continuing to pray for God’s direction. A conference call is being planed in the next few weeks for the leaders in our church and the board of MEDA to further discuss this opportunity for our family.

Be sure to see the Pictures tab to view photos taken during my trip.