Hey Everyone,
I can’t thank you enough for your prayers for us. I know it has been traumatic for all of us but I know that also made everyone pray for us more, some of you even waking up in the night to pray some more. Thank you soooooo much.
I found out yesterday that the same gangs are doing even more damage to the Menonites in the next village. They have had more robberies and damage done to them than we can complain about. They know the people are coming from El Socorro where we know the people that are robbing us are coming from. Only God can stop this action so please continue to pray. We are absolutely that the police came so quickly to our aid at the last robbery. The police here are pretty corrupt but they came within 30 minutes of the call. I believe that is what has stopped the problem at Destino (other than God, of course) because the thieves knew when they saw the police that the police would just as soon kill them as arrest them. No one would ever expect the police to really show up so I am sure that took them completely off guard. Keep praying.
We have been under every kind of attack you can imagine lately — lies and slander against us and every car and bus, except one has broken down in the last two weeks. We were already struggling financially and now we are really behind. The other thing that has hurt us is that during the 3 or 4 robberies, we lost lots of school shoes, all our food for 200 kids for two weeks, which is a bundle of money, and we had to repair all the doors and other things damaged to be able to lock up the school and then we had to by several thousands of dollars of steel to make the bars on the windows to keep the place safe. We are just trusting the Lord to lay it on hearts of people to help us out right now. He will do it. Thanks for praying for this — I know the Americans are all hurting and kind of nervous about their own finances right now so just pray that God will provide in some way for us too.
The land deal is still in the works. The company wanted to take our cashier check to them (really that is like cash) and put it in their bank for 15 days to make sure it was good and THEN they would sign the papers. Our attorney, thank the Lord, did not trust them so he had us take the check back to the US and change it to the Honduran Destino del Reino name and we put it in the bank the day after we returned. Now it wil take about 25 days to clear and then we will meet the company in Tegucigalpa and at the bank together, they will see us transfer the money into their account and sign the papers at the same time. No one trusts anyone down here, but rightfully so.
In spite of all the terror and struggle and emotional trauma we have been through, things are wonderful at the school. The teachers are excellent and so determined to do a g reat job for the glory of God and to build these little upcoming missionaries. The children’s home is doing great and we are finding the right people to help us here. The church is growing and everyone is growing up spiritually, mostly through the battles, so we are grateful that God never has lost a beat in all he is doing here. I know that through all these conflicts and attacks we can only become stronger in faith and so God always wins no matter what Satan sends against us. Thanks for praying for us — these battles are not easy. I was amazed at Carlos this week though. He was very stressed through all the struggles and then he preached a powerful message in church on Friday night about the weapons of our warfare. He woke up in the morning Saturday morning
and just realized that we have been operating in fear and not faith. He said that he decided that he cannot stay up all night and guard the school because he is worn out and sick (like all of us right now) and he was reminded in the Word that God has THE NATIONS in his hand – – so why can’t we trust him to sleep at night knowing that certainly he has Destino del Reino in his hands. We are growing up finally to handle more of the battles and we need prayer to mature and be strong in faith.
As I mentioned we are all a little sick from the cold wet air. We don’t have heat in the houses and everything is cold and damp so we are sick with flu and colds. Thanks for your prayers to cover us and that God will heal us all quickly. Especially in the school, almost every teacher and half the kids are sick.
Thanks for praying for the American teachers. They are shining like gold in the middle of this fire. They are moving today into a beautiful home that is more secure than any other house I have ever seen in town. It has electrical high voltage wires above the serpentine razor wires and also is in a great neighborhood with lots of Americans and Christian Hondurans nearby. God will protect them. They are so excited because the house is sooooo beautiful. That is another struggle for us though because we had to use almost a $1,000 to pay the rent, fix up some stuff and pay the deposit. We know that we had no other option so God will be sure to pay us back and help us through the change in our financial needs. After this move-in though it will just be about $500 a month including lights and water.
I wanted to let you know that our friend Clay Sandoz did a wonderful professional video for Destino del Reino and it is posted on www.youtube.com — you just go under “search” and type in Destino del Reino. A few others will come up by JD Russel who worked here last summer, but on the right side where you see by Clay Sandoz, that is the 4 minute one that you might want to download and use to present the ministry. It covers all the different ministries of Destino in a short video.
I believe we have all our sponsors now but still could use a couple more for just prayer, so let me know if you can cover a few more kids with just more prayer. I think Zac will be writing you an email soon about sponsors sending in pictures to their student so that the prayer will be both ways this year — you praying for the student and the student, also praying for you. I am really excited about this. Our kids are learning about the power of praying for others. The 4th graders have a student in kindergarten that they pray for daily like big brothers and sisters for them, and the 3rd graders are picking a 4-K student to pray for each day as well. My kids in our home are starting to visit regularly a home for the elderly and they are adopting one of these elderly people to pray for by name each day. I want kids to learn at a very young age that the most powerful tool we have is prayer and it really does change lives and
situations. That is why we praise God for giving us such a huge prayer team through all of you.
Keep praying for the future plans here. We have lots of dreams and visions for the new land and also hopes that the money will come in to finish up the medical and dental clinic and we have to re-roof the second house before we can find the houseparents we need to live here once we have the clinic finished and second house ready. I know God is up to great things here, but even if he never finished another building or any project materially, we have MANY MANY lives to build up in truth and prepare for leadership so we are grateful for such a huge opportunity and assignment from the Lord.
We love all of you praise God for each one of you who remember us continually in prayer.
In His grace,
Rhonda
