Hey Everyone,
Thanks for the continued prayers for us at Destino del Reino. Things have been harder than I can even relate to you the past few months. But God is faithful and He is always doing things with purpose. He doesn’t waste any pain or situation in our lives if we let Him use them to mold us into the people that He wants to use for His Kingdom work.
I think He is specifically working on me lately. I told you that I listened to the sermon “Lukewarm and Loving it” by Francis Chan (www.cornerstonesimi.com and that God really woke me up with that sermon. After I finished listening and being very convicted by his sermon, I asked the Holy Spirit to tell me what was cold in my heart and he told me to write down a list of all my fears. That was really odd to me because i don’t usually think of fears as making me unspiritual or lukewarm, just things that I need to learn to trust more in. But He knew differently — when I finished writing down about 12 fears on the left side of the paper, the Holy Spirit told me to put above the right side of the paper “IDOLS” — and to take each fear and find what in my heart was an idol that was reflected in the fears. i.e. First fear, “Losing my children” — my idol: my children. Fear: Afraid of being criticized. Idol: My Good reputation. etc. etc.
God tore my heart open that day and showed me why I was cold — I have so many idols in front of HIM. I repented and God has really been working. Interestingly,less than two weeks later, I lost Ana. It has been such a battle to remember that HE loves her more than I do and He is in control. I think this was part of the surrendering process that he is doing in me.
My children have all been very sick for several weeks and it has been scary at times. I had a battle with the Lord all night about a week ago, over the kids again. I had this fear that Sammy had some kind of disease and that was causing his horrible fevers, etc. (he was sicker than the others). I wrestled all night and cried to the Lord and told him in anger, “You took Ana, and now are you going to take all my children?” After lots of wrestling and crying with God that night, I finally told him he could have them all and that I would serve him and trust him if I never had another “happy” day in my life. it was really a hard night for me but I believe it was necessary — I had started clutching onto the beautiful things (or people) that God has loaned me and He is a jealous God.
This week the Lord has convicted me that I have lost my joy (actually haven’t had deep joy for several years). I have asked him to show me why I can laugh and have fun times but deep joy doesn’t stay. Well, He is faithful to show me. Through several conversations this week and passages of scripture, he keeps confronting me with my ungrateful heart. It is kind of ironic that in the middle of sickness and financial struggles, and so many conflicts, that he is telling me to be grateful??? I realized that in Romans when it talks about how horrible the generation was, unthankfulness is in the list of their qualities. Also in the end times in several passages, the Word talks about how horrible and immoral men will be but it also says, “ungrateful.” So God is little by little correcting my evil cold heart and I ask you to please pray for me to be absolutely surrendered to Him in EVERYTHING even when it hurts — that is His desire and HE IS
GOOD.
He has also been stretching my faith with all of the things we have been going through and I realize that he has to change me and build up my faith in Him or we will not be able to carry this ministry to the heights and might that God wants for Destino del Reino. So i can rest in His knowledge of me and what needs to change and I want to rest in His very perfect hands as he molds me. Thanks for praying for me.
Also please continue to pray for Carlos. God is doing an incredible work in his heart and I am amazed at all he has suffered but all for the glory of God. A counselor in the US said that God had told him when he started his counseling ministry to only minister out of his weaknesses, not out of any strengths. He said that he only counsels with people who have problems that he has also struggled with. If he hasn’t experienced their pain, he refers them to someone who has. that is so wise and it is God’s method of rescuing people –through our own failures and sins and the victory that God gives us. We know that God is leading us to start a program at Destino for young teen boys who are getting mixed up in alcohol and gangs because of their lack of knowing Christ, and also not having anyone to love them. Please pray for us as we follow the Lord’s direction in each step of this program. There is not much ministry here in Honduras to help these young men and we also know that God wants us to help only a few at a time so that they will experience the very personal love of Jesus Christ in their lives. We can see why God has allowed Carlos to struggle so much because he will be able to minister to these young men with the compassion of Christ — He will show mercy where he has received mercy.
Thanks for your prayers for all of our needs. I have a couple of desperate needs right now that i would ask you to pray for. When I ask you to pray, I am not asking you to give. God will put it on the hearts of those that He knows need to provide for these needs, but if you will all pray with me, he will do it. We have to have another truck or car or something. We have all cars over 150,000 miles and lots of problems. We had to sell our Frontier earlier this year to pay off part of the teacher retirement back pay and it was a situation where we would have lost our ability to apply for accreditation. We can get a good pick up for about $7,000. I also thought that maybe someone is looking to trade in a good car and at the dealerships you don’t get offered much on a trade iin and maybe someone would consider shipping us a used pick up or van. Today there is only one car working and that is carlos and Wendy’s personal little car. Thanks for praying. I know God will take care of this need somehow in His perfect providing. We didn’t have enough money this week for all the food in the school, but God knew that we were going to have to cancel school because of all the sickness and so we DO have enough money for our needs this week. It is amazing when you see His perfection in all that he provides. The other big need is for $5,000 to pay off the end of the teachers’ retirement debt – -that will cause us problems in the next few weeks if God dosen’t provide for that — they threaten to never give us the approval for accreditation. God knows this though and we will just continue to wait on Him.
Thanks for praying for the illness in my home as well as the school. We cancelled school until the day after Easter — the students were “dropping like flies” and we couldn’t contain the spread of the virus. We took Cokie to the doctor for blood tests when she got so sick this week and we found out though that it is NOT Swine Flu, which we had been concerned about and it is not Dengue Fever — it is just a virus and will pass — GREAT NEWS!!
Pray for our English department for next year as well. We are needing more American teachers for the coming year but, as always, God will lead the right people to Destino. We don’t really need Spanish speaking people as we have found that those that don’t speak much Spanish do great in the classes and they force the children to speak English more than those that speak Spanish. We also have discovered that the teachers do not have to be trained teachers to do a good job. if God calls them, he will equip them. Thanks for praying for us as we figure out exactly how to work with the Americans and Honduran teachers as a unified team. I am believing that God wants me to be more involved next year and I need to know exactly how to help in this program. Again, my fear of criticism made me draw back from relationships with the Americans because of past problems, but I need to know what God wants me to do and how much I can help at the school and exactly how to trust HIM for the problems that arise. We need LOTS of wisdom.
Thanks for your continued prayers for us at Destino. We are amazed continually at God’s goodness to us and His plans for this place, in spite of our own weaknesses and battles. He is good and he is faithful and He WILL DO IT — but prayer is a big part of the fight so thanks for being on our team. We really do need you.
In His grace,
Rhonda
