Hey Everyone,
As always, I want to start out by thanking you for your prayers. Please don’t ever think that we take that for granted. We know that God is working according to the prayers of His people and we are so grateful for your support in prayer of Destino del Reino continually.
We had a really scary weekend. Alexander, age 2, went into convulsions this weekend during his naptime. He had had convulsions over a year ago (before he came to live with us) and both times were because he spiked a high fever. I spent one night in the hospital with him and he would have recovered quickly but the medicine the doctor put him on caused him not to be able to use his muscles and he was basically drunk and sleeping for 2 days. Gary Billingsley, pediatrician on our board, is working with us to get a medicine for us to administer to stop convulsions in the future, should that happen again, so that we don’t need to keep him on the medicine to prevent the convulsions. In the future, when he is sick, we will be checking him every 30 minutes tokeep his fever down. Please pray though that God will just completely heal him of any problems. We are so grateful that he is back to his normal self again. He is a precious little boy and is very
slow to walk and talk because he was born to an alcoholic mother. Thanks for your prayers for little Alex.
We had a great two days at the first Olympics between the bilingual and private schools in Siguatepeque. You would have been so proud of our students. Most of the children participating come from wealthier families because only they can afford to send their children to the private schools. As you know, we only accept the poorest children and so our children were racing barefoot or in their socks — but they WON a lot of the competitions. They were so cute and worked so hard. I was proud of them and they didn’t seem to be bothered that they were among the rich. ha. It was GREAT!! Next year, though I sure want to see if we can get them some t-shirts alike to represent their school. It is not a necessity but it would be better than racing in their uniforms.
Little by little (poco a poco) our land money is coming in. We are just praying that we can get it all in in the next month. I haven’t heard back from the chicken company man about the exact deadline, but God knows and He will do it!!! Thanks for praying continually for this. I think we may have got a little more confirmation as to the fact that God is going to do this. We went to another camp nearby a few weeks ago and a guy that has worked with them from Canada is leaving in a couple of months. We had a dinner with he and his wife last night and we are praying (and they are too) that maybe the Lord would have him come to Destino del Reino and build the camp grounds and help in al lthe construction. As you know, we have LONG needed some more help at Destino and this may be our answer. Please be praying about this with us. His wife teaches at another Christian bilingual school in Siguatepeque and she loves her work so maybe the husband can
come to help us here and she can continue where she is.
We are planning a trip to California the end of May to share in some churches, interview a prospective teacher, see one of the young women that I raised for several years in Texas, visit my aunt and uncle, cousins and nephew and niece. Please be praying for us to be exactly where God would have us each day. We have several opportunities in homes or in churches or small groups. Be praying for wisdom. Another thing that came up last night, in talking to this teacher from the ot her bilingual school, is that the best way to recruit teachers is to go to college campuses and sit in the student lounges with posters, etc. and talk to them about the ministry and the need for teachers. We are going to try to set a couple of these up in California as well so please pray for God to open the right doors for us. Someone is graciously providing buddy seats for us so this will be a very inexpensive trip for us but hopefully very productive in many ways. Thanks
for praying.
Please be praying for safety in Siguatepeque. During the days we are safe and we don’t go at nights to town so there is no danger to us personally. Even in the city near the hotel, the groups will be safe, b ut along the neighborhood roads at night there have been a lot of murders, sometimes just to rob someone of their cell phones. Some cousins of Carlos have been involved in quite a few murders, kidnappings, and robberies and have a big drug business, traveling to and from the US. They seem to think they are invincible. They murdered 5 men at a car wash about 4 months ago and paid the police off when they came to arrest them. Siguatepeque has always been a pretty safe place and we really pray that God will take care of this situation. Carlos said it feels strange to be tempted to pray your own cousins will be assasinated, but they are endangering so many others. Thanks for your prayers for this situation.
We are working on the curriculum for the coming year(s). Regina, a missionary here, is helping us with lots of ideas and once we decide, we will be asking you to pray for us to find a discount or even donations for the curriculum we need for the coming school year. This will be a really big expense if we have to buy all those books, Spanish and English, but our Father owns the cattle on a thousand hills and everything else so I know he will provide for these children. We just need to be praying.
A group of friends are starting to work on sending a container from Texas once again, to arrive here in late July or early August. Please be praying for this to go smoothly. There are a lot of things coming on the container that we need to start the school year in late August so it is so important that we receive the container in time. Pray God’s blessing on all those that work so hard to put this together and pay the expenses of the container and shipment. They are so faithful to help us continually and we are so grateful for so many faithful friends for Destino.
The kids are all doing well. We had some puppies born under our container out back and so we have two new puppies at Destino. They are solid white and really precious. Ours is “Clifford” and Carlos’ kids’ is named “Lola”. Everyone is thrilled except Emily — she is terrrified of animals. It looks like we may not get the new baby boy we had planned on. His mom gave two children away (both girls) and now that she has a boy, she is thinking of keeping him. God has all of this in HIS control though and it is HE who decides who needs to live at Destino del Reino and be trained for leadership and missions. We will continue to pray for HIM to make each choice and rest in that plan.
Thanks for your prayers for the teachers and all the workers here at the home. Every day we need to be using our time and energy to encourage and build up these children in the Lord. Pray for patience and love that only comes from the Spirit flowing through us.
Pray for two young men who will be with us for the summer. They will be coming on June 8th and will help in whatever Carlos needs around the projects as well as helping with the groups, etc. JD Russell is just graduating from UGA and plans to go into the Peace Corp this time next year. We are praying he will stay past the summer and help in the school with English until he leaves for the Peace Corp. He isn’t sure about that part yet. God will provide the right English teachers for us though so I will try not to pressure him, ha. Hayden is just graduating from Georgia Southern and plans to go to seminary in New Orleans in August. Please pray for these young men as they come to serve the Lord at Destino. We are grateful for their help.
Pray for the group from Trinity on the Hill Methodist in Augusta who will arrive on May 18th. They will do 5 days of medical in various villages. Pray for us as we seek the Lord for exactly where he would have this group minister. There are so many needs and we want to try to go to the villages that have been less evangelized. Also pray for us to find enough translators — that is always a problem here. Hopefully in a few more years though, we will have hundreds of them at the Destino del Reino school —
We love you all and praise God for putting this incredible team of prayer warriors together for His work in Honduras. Let us know how to be praying for you as well. I love to hear from y’all and b e a part of your lives as well.
Love in His GRACE,
Rhonda
