Hey Everyone,
Thanks, as always, for your many faithful prayers. I just returned from my family reunion in Colorado and it was GREAT!!! I am so blessed to have such a heritage of Christian family. There were over 100 of us and hopefully in two years for the next one, there will be double that. It was a little hard because of the obvious absence of my older sister, but my family is holding on to the Father through the grief and He is faithful to sustain from day to day.
We are getting ready for school now and are interviewing about 10 people this week. Please pray for us to KNOW who God wants at the school this year. Please pray especially for the sponsors we need for the 50 kids that will enter for the first time this year. I am a little nervous about that because Zac told me that we only had 2 new sponsors thus far — BUT God has never failed us yet. I also wanted to mention that if some of you cannot support the full $40 a month per student, then you could support half a student. That only works for the better for that student because instead of one person or family praying for them, they would have TWO. Thanks for praying for this great need for us!!!
Please pray for the three new Americans that will be coming in on August 16th. They come from three different cultures, although they are all Americans — California, Connecticut and Georgia!!! Pray for their unity and enjoyment of one another since they will be living in a house together and have never laid eyes on one another. God picked them though so He has done it right, I’m sure.
It looks like the Lord is giving us a music and band teacher a year earlier than we had prayed. We need instruments immediately though, so if anyone has an old band instrument in their garage and would like to donate one or if you find one at a garage sale or pawn shop, please ship it to my father at: 1698 Johns Road Extension, Augusta, Georgia 30904. I will arrange to have my father send them all to me by Rapid Transport here in Honduras. Please get the word out immediately. The teacher that is coming to us will serve as an assistant part-time and band and chorus the other half of a day. We really need about 30 instruments right away. I know God will do this. What a unique opportunity to have a school with MUSIC!!! That is greatly lacking in this country and I am soooo excited that God is providing this for Destino students. He is SOOOO AMAZING!!
Keep praying for us personally — Carlos and I, as I said before, tend to get soooo busy and our time alone with the Lord is lacking at times. It takes a big toll on us and we get discouraged easily. I told him today that if we spent 10 hours with the Lord and only 2 hours “working” for Him, instead of 11 1/2 hours working for him and half hour in His presence, we would find that the two hours would be more effective than the 11 1/2 hours on days without more time with Him. If we could just get that in our stubborn heads!!! ha. Please pray for us to have discipline. Satan is after us all the time and we are not prepared for the battles if we have not spent time in God’s presence each day.
Pray for Wendy as she will be the new director of the school. She is absolutely capable but is timid about the things she has never done before. I told her, like Carlos and I, God will just get more glory when HE DOES IT and we will give Him all the credit because He does things through us that we could never do in our own strength.
Our final money is coming in this next week or so for the land. As we prayed (and you did too) the company contacted US and we just waited on the Lord. They had Carlos come in and write up the proposal and they will be getting back to us soon. Please pray for the head man in Guatemala that wants to talk to Carlos, that he will show us favor and not delay this transaction in any way. As I mentioned in the last email, we found out that there are 20 more acres than we thought in the parcel we are buying, but the price is not higher. YEAH — This whole thing is sooooo amazing and we look forward to seeing all God has planned for the land.
We are excited about our group coming next week (9th – 16th) from Tomball, Texas. They will provide dental work for all our kids and staff and staff kids and neighbors and church people. This is a HUGE blessing to us. They will also help us finish up the painting and preparation in the school — building the final desks, setting up library, etc. etc. Thanks for your prayers for this team.
Pray for Carlos and I as we pray and strategize in the next few months concerning future groups. I have been told in the past that our groups “run us” and we need to “run our groups”. The missionary told me that we should decide WHEN we need groups and WHAT we need them to do and then put that word out on the web site and let the groups fit into our needs and plans. I think I have finally gotten desperate enough to heed this wisdom and we are going to put on the web site in the next few months our needs and our times and see what God does through that. We have been finding places to let groups do medical and evangelism, etc. but we have so many priorities at Destino that we need to fit those groups into the priorities that God has given us. We will most likely have more discipleship teaching of our own people and still have construction projects (like the new campground — that will take several years, most likely) and we would like to
continue VBS in the villages that have already been reached but have not been discipled. Please be praying for this new plan — I really believe that God has confirmed this is HIS will for Destino — we have been worn out with groups and yet we know that God has called us to host these groups — we just need to fit them into the priorities God has for Destino del Reino.
Thanks for all your faithful prayers. I sure do count on you all and praise God for putting such a team of pray-ers together for Destino del Reino.
Love in His grace,
Rhonda
