Hey Everyone,
I really don’t have a lot of news to share but didn’t want to go too long without letting you hear from me.
The big thing we have been waiting on is the well (Abundant Waters) but we have been held up by the drill breaking a few weeks ago. The part cost about $1,300 so the engineer went to another community that was interested in having a well drilled and offered a well if they would buy the part for the drill. They agreed and the money has been collected and this week they are buying the part and fixing the drill. I believe we will finish up our well next week if this goes well from here on out. Our well at this point is already 300 feet and they believe that there is a lot of water down there so we may not have to go any deeper but the drill is stuck down there so we have to wait anyway to know. I still praise God so much for the opportunity to get a well for about $700 when others paid between $8,000 and $10,000 for theirs. So it is definitely worth the waiting time to save all the money. This is what God provided for us miraculously, so I guess I can at least trust Him with the timing!! Now that I realize that I am not to open the home until after I return in January, anyway, this doesn’t seem like such a long wait. There are only a few more things that really have to be completed while I am away in the USA — the protective railing around the house (we are actually on the second level), the septic system, and the water tower and a few cabinets in the kitchen. Anything else that needs to be finished up (molding around the ceilings, more doors, etc.) we can finish after we are in the house as we gradually have the funds come in. We are still up in the air about the flooring because the labor will cost so much to have the ceramic installed even though God has provided the money completely for the ceramic itself. I’ve asked the Lord to show me how simply we are to live and maybe we are to live on cement floors like most of the village people do (actually most of them are on dirt floors so cement is a privilage). I am willing either way and am seeking God’s wisdom about what He wants. I realize that many times He just wants to do extra nice things for His children but also know that I don’t want the house to be so comfortable that the children grow up and are unwilling to return to the more primitive lifestyle and teach their families. All of these decisions take wisdom and I ask your prayers for me.
I believe God showed me what to do in another situation this week. We really want to start having services for church or at least a regular Friday night praise and worship meeting. It will cost almost nothing for us to enclose under the house and make a church and we are planning to do that soon. We have so many extra concrete blocks and we will only need to buy cement and pay for a few days of Honduran labor. Once we have the real chapel built on our property in the next few years, we can use the underground building for school until we built our school house. I am so exccited about this because there are so many people ready to have church and we haven’t been able to start meeting. Our Sunday School is going great though and then some of the adults come on Mondays for Bible study, but we want to all meet together once a week for church —
We are also going to dig a hole and pour cement for a small pool that we can use for baptisms and for the kids to cool off in the hot afternoons. Again this will be very little expense but very much needed. We will have a HUGE baptism service afterwards (probably in February) because more than 100 people have accepted Christ and want to be baptized soon.
The children are learning all of their memory verses so quickly in Sunday School. I am so proud of them and they are so hungry to know more about God. I went to Jocon last week to see my “family” there and brought my guitar back. We had such a good time singing with MUSIC this week. The kids love learning new songs (of course, all songs are new to THEM) and we had about 30 this week in Sunday School. There are a few more houses along the highway that I noticed this week and am going to see if children in those houses want to come to Sunday School because we could pick them up on the way each week. There are SO many unreached people here that it can be overwhelming at times, but we are doing the part that God has given us right now.
I still have such a sadness when I go back to the mountain villages near Jocon. Even though I am going to be living here in Sigua and caring for children from that area, I still would like to take some evangelistic teams back there in the near future. Please pray for me for direction and that God will send some groups that would like to do this. It is much more rugged to stay in their “hotel” (if you can call it that) and we would have to bring translators from the cities because no one in that area speaks English to help us, but this is such a hopeless unreached area and it is heavy on my heart.
I have been personally encouraged so much recently. I attended a missionary ladies’ retreat, and a missionary conference here in Siguatepeque for evangelical missionaries to Honduras and we had about 150 of us there. IT was so great to talk with others who have been working here for years and have such a heart for Honduras. God has provided so many new friendships for me through that and also these people are so willing to share their resources with me. In fact, a big crate was just shipped into the AWANA missionaries and they don’t need all the supplies and they are willing to give me Sunday School materials, discipleship books and even an OVERHEAD PROJECTOR (which we need to teach the songs at church). God has been so faithful (as always) and I am so excited for all the new contacts that I have made for personal encouragement and spiritual counsel. It is such a joy to have this in my life. I realize that God intended me to be here for 3 years “alone” on the field because He wanted me to become truly Honduran and not lean on other Americans. I have lived with the Hondurans and worshiped with them, but now it is fun to have a few other “gringos” in my life too.
Please pray for a young man named “Edray” who accepted Jesus as his Savior when I was in Jocon. He was just led to our house by the Holy Spirit and came to the window and asked if anyone could pray for him because he wanted to accept Jesus Christ. He is so happy but has some difficult things in his life — his parents were vehemently opposed to him accepting Jesus and he went to live with a grandmother in another part of Honduras who is a believer. Pray that God will surround him with encouragement and that he can make things right with his parents also.
Thank you all for the prayers and encouragement. Please write me once in a while and let me know that you are still out there. I realize though that the American lifestyle is very demanding and so I thank you for reading my letters and for praying for me. I am so blessed that you are all praying for these precious people and for the ministry of Destino del Reino.
I love you all,
Rhonda
