Hey Everyone,
Thank you for faithfully praying for us. We are expecting a GREAT week this week with the beginning of school. We are soooo excited about the staff that God has sent to us and they have done a great job of decorating and preparing for the kids. Friday was our parents information day and we tried to finally register all the children but I am sure tomorrow will still be quite a day of chaos as more parents come at the last minute to enter their children. We have now 176 registered and have places for four more — 30 in each of the 6 grade levels (Kindergarten, 4-K and 1-4 grades.)
Speaking of having 180 kids — we desperately need another bus. We were so blessed with the first bus 3 years ago which was donated as a part of a inheritance. Then last year we received the funds for another bigger bus through a donation from an inheritance and now we are already in need of the third bus. Please be praying fervently for this need. We realized this last week that we were going to need the third bus for all that is going on and so many children, and to prove that we were on the right track in our thinking, our biggest bus broke down yesterday and tomorrow we are going to do multiple routes with one bus while we franticially try to fix the other bus before Tuesday. This means that our very first day will already be “Honduran style” with no classes starting on time. After all our work to be really regulated this year, that was quite disappointing but I need to remember the Honduran rule of FLEXIBILITY!!! Thanks for praying
for us this week — that the bus will get repaired quickly and we can find the right part near Siguatepeque, and that God will start putting the need for the other bus on people’s hearts for more transportation. I wish I had thought to have you praying a few months ago, ha. But God knows all our needs and he is absolutely faithful ALWAYS.
Our American teachers are doing very well in adjusting. I wasn’t criticizing their struggle to adjust in my last email, but you just can’t imagine how different life is here and even just to adjust to cold showers every day is quite a big knock for all of us. Thanks for praying for them regularly.
Keep praying for the baby boy that is supposed to come to us soon. I got a call and they are bringing him on the 23rd because he was in the hospital this weekend with convulsions again. I just really feel in my heart that God plans to heal him and maybe even allowed the sickness so that his mom would willingly give him up. We cannot possibly care regularly though for a child with serious health problems so we will make the decision during the first weeks of his stay with us. Thanks for praying for that with us.
Please pray for Carlos daily. He is under such a HUGE load with the school being so big and so many other ministries, etc. I don’t know how to do most of the things he does so I cannot even take off some of the burdens from him. But God commands us to daily give him our burdens, so pray that Carlos will learn to do that and walk in peace and encouragement every day.
The church is growing every week with new people and we are thrilled with a chance to teach them the Word of God. We are requiring a little more firmly this year that the parents attend some evangelical church. We don’t encourage them to just come to Destino but if they don’t have another good church we invite them here. I think we may get q uite a few of them to start attending becaus we never really enforced the requirement this year but Carlos announced that we want a statement from their pastor that they are members of an evangelical church — so they won’t be able to cover it up anymore that they are not attending anywhere. Thanks for praying for all these parents. We are being so much firmer this year in every area so that we can start helping them get out of their poverty mentality that they cannot do anything and need hand-outs all the time. We have some projects planned to help them learn to do some things to make money and they
are all having to take turns helping in the school cafeteria this year to help us out there. We need wisdom continually about which children to work with IN SPITE of neglectful parents, and which families we need to let go because the parents just refuse to do their part. We made strict guidelines but will deal with each situation case by case because God loves these little children and I hate for them to miss such an incredible life-changing opportunity just because their parents don’t want to bother with them. We need LOTS of wisdom.
Pray for Wendy too as she is starting her first year as director. I know she will do wonderfully but she is nervous.
We have another group coming from First Baptist Augusta in a month so please start praying for them now as they prepare to come and that we will know exactly where we are to use their talents that week.
We have another big need — a tractor. Mike is trying to start looking around for some help on this in Houston but if anyone has any ideas about a good used tractor that we could get shipped here, please let us know and be praying about this with us. We spend so much money each year (and more often sometimes) just getting our road fixed so we can get in and out during the rainy months. If we had a good solid tractor with the grater on the front, we would save a HUGE amount of money. We also could do some work for other missionaries and save their missions a lot of money as well.
Keep on praying about the land. Carlos is trying to reach the people this week after school gets started and things die down a little. Please pray for the Lord to move their hearts and give us great favor and the price will be better than we ever imagined. We have the $100,000 waiting in the bank and are STILL amazed at such a huge provision from the Lord and His confirmation that this really is HIS will for Destino del Reino.
I can never thank you enough for all your prayers for us. We are daily amazed at His goodness to us and we are so blessed to be a part of something so BIG that God is doing in Honduras (and soon in the rest of the world). Thanks for everything.
By the way, for those who have signed up to sponsor students, I will start next week taking the pictures and you should receive a picture of your student in the next few weeks. Thanks for your patience on that. We still need to pray for more sponsors — probably are still lacking 25 to 30 — Please pray with us on that one. I will ask Zac to put the pictures of the kids that have not been sponsored on the web site in the next month so if someone wants to pick their child, they could do it that way. Thanks for praying for me to get all this stuff done — I am really overwhelmed this time of year and need discipline to get it all done.
Love in His Grace,
Rhonda
