Hey Everyone,
Just wanted to post a quick update to ask for prayer. I leave tomorrow for the US. On Thursday morning, my sister and I are taking my parents to a nursing home. It sounds like not that big of deal, knowing they need the full-time medical care and they will be well cared for in a facility like that, BUT it means taking them away from all their things they have collected through the years on missions trips and family vacations, all their familiar surroundings, and even for us it means that we don’t have a place to “go home to” anymore. It is a very painful thing for us and I would appreciate your prayers for the grace and peace of Jesus to cover us each step. I will be staying on to divide up the things in the house with my sister and will get the things we need at Destino packed to go on the container that will come in June. Thanks for your prayers. This world is not our home and I very well know that and believe that, but this is a tough step to take, knowing it is one of the last for my parents. Thanks for your prayers for them as they finish off their race. They have run well and many MANY people have been turned to the Kingdom of God through them and they will have great rewards from the Father one day soon.
I always hate to leave my kids but they are doing well and I praise God for that. I still need prayer for Josue — he is just a very choleric temperament that has not yet learned at age 10 to let the Holy Spirit control his anger and his tongue — thanks for your prayers. He is going to be an incredible leader for the Kingdom one day but he needs some maturity and we need to not kill him before he gets there, ha ha. He was chewing out one of the workers this week for not keeping the socks cleaner and in pairs — I immediately told him that he is now in charge of the socks. He also has been smelling all his clothes to check if they are cleaned well and has been hiding little pieces of food around the house to check to see if the workers are really cleaning the house well. He is a mess!!! ha ha — Eidy was my other choleric personality and God has FINALLY really really changed her. His Spirit fills us with all of HIS qualities when we let him and it doesn’t matter what our natural personality type is. Thanks for prayers — I need daily wisdom with all these kids.
Cristopher has been transitioning well in the house — he is 3 1/2 and is really enjoying living with his older brothers and sister. He is really attached too to Franklin (14) who is always so gentle with little ones.
Please pray for the funds to come in to continue our construction. We are okay this week but will be short next week to continue if more money does not come in. Thanks so much for your faithfulness in praying in all that we need. We have started on the junior high bathrooms and lack the final panels for the roof of the junior/high school building. Then we will finish up each class and have to put windows and doors in as well as the railing so no one falls off the second floor. God is soooo incredible and will provide all we need to continue educating these kids.
Please be praying for a one-day retreat that Pastor Efrain wants to have for our 9th graders. I expressed to him my concern that some of them just are not interested enough to continue at Destino to be trained for leadership for the Lord Jesus. He wants to work with them for a day and really spend time getting to know where they are spiritually. Thanks for your prayers. I really don’t want any of them to go but we need to complete the purposes of God here and not just educate the poor just for education’s sake. Thanks for prayers for wisdom in each and every decision for each child at Destino.
Please pray for a group of 12 who are coming from San Antonio, Texas on the 8th — they will help in the classrooms with English and also do a VBS in a village. The leader bringing the group is Stephen Eckert, who was in my youth group — I was a leader — at Scofield Church in Dallas MANY years ago. This will be such a reunion for Stephen and I and I am looking forward to meeting one of his daughters and the others who will come with him. Pray for them as they travel and that God will use them greatly that week.
Pray also for the American teachers that we need for the upcoming year. Several are praying about whether God wants them to continue or not and they need to hear from HIM. I praise God for those that carry on here and labor in the love of Jesus with these sweet children. It is not easy being a teacher — kids have a way of sucking every ounce of energy out of you. But every day they come with happy joyful faces and start all over with the energy of the Spirit once again filling them to flow out over these children with the love of Jesus. Keep all our teachers — Americans and Hondurans — in your prayers. If you would like to pray for one teacher by name regularly, please write me and I will assign one to you. That would be a HUGE ministry for you to do for Destino.
I will be at my parents’ house most evenings if you want to call me in the US — 706-731-5216. Thanks for your prayers always and I will give a longer update on what all God is doing at Destino when I get back from this week in the US.
SOOOO grateful for all of your prayers. Remember you can’t hit “reply” and send me a message so if you would like to respond, just send me a message at rhondadestino@yahoo.com
Love to all of you,
In His perfect and faithful grace,
Rhonda