Hey Praying Friends,
We have had a good week this week with our yearly Missions Day at school on Thursday. We have been doing this for about 10 years now and it is a highlight of the students’ year. The teachers work very hard in preparing the classroom to become another culture entirely and tell stories about people in the countries who are persecuted for their faith, share about how the religion of that country does not teach what God’s Word teaches us and sharing about the different customs in that particular country. We had 5 different countries and the teachers really created a great environment for the kids to get a taste of being in a faraway place where people need to know about Jesus. We also have a room where they go to watch a missionary movie. This year the 5th and 6th graders did not watch the movie but instead took time to write letters to various Christian leaders in other countries who are in prison for their faith. God told me at the start of Destino del Reino that we are to raise up missionaries and leaders for His kingdom and I know that He is putting the world on the hearts of these children.
Pastor Wade and Pastor Kevin just completed another pastors’ conference on discipleship this week. The pastors came this time from quite a distance and it was a great group of pastors. Each time pastors come for a 4-day conference and then about 3 months later return for the second part of the conference. Then after that conference, 25 or so new pastors come in for a week of training, etc. It is such a fruitful ministry and Wade and Kevin have been so encouraged to find that between the two conferences with 3 months between most of the pastors have already started discipling groups and have changed their focus of ministry!!! The gospel is going to really multiply in Honduras and Central America through this training. Please be praying for this ministry regularly and that the pastors will be faithful to fulfill what God has called all of us to do — make disciples!!
My older 7 kids have now all returned to Bryan College for classes to begin on Wednesday. I miss them SO much but am so proud of the leaders they are becoming. They are all so amazing!! I am so blessed to be their mama. Please be praying for them as they start a new semester. It is a challenge to them to play soccer and have training sessions and still keep up with their studies. So far they have proved to be very diligent and faithful to keep it all balanced. Thanks for your prayers for them this semester. God miraculously paid for all of their tuition and room and board again this semester so we are all paid up until January semester. I don’t know how God is doing this but thanks for the prayers for next semester and for my peace to know that He will continue to provide for them. Emily will go in January to start at Bryan and that will be 8 kids in college at the same time. After Emily is there a year, some of the kids will begin graduating and it will be less expensive. In just a year and a half five of them will have graduated. So pray for finances and faith for me for the next year and a half!! God is forever faithful.
Next summer, three or four of my Bryan kids will be going to the tip of Spain to work with refugees from various north African countries living there. I believe it will be Blanca, Franklin and Carlos this first summer. Pray for them to receive the funds they need and that God will prepare them for missions wherever He may want to send them. I know this experience will be life-changing for them. Although they grew up in this mission field, it is just home to them and going to Spain will be their first mission experience in reaching other people groups. I am so excited to see what God will do in and through them. They will work with Shaun and Abby Suitt who have been working in African countries for years now using soccer as the means to bring in young people to hear the gospel.
Church has been very encouraging this year. Our new pastor, Dalis, is a precious humble man of God and has had an impact on many already. He also is coaching one of the soccer teams and has a big influence on those boys. Next week he will be teaching about the importance of being baptized and we will have a big baptism service at our pool the following day. Please pray that those who have never been baptized will participate and be willing to obey the Lord in this way. When Covid hit 3 years ago, that very week we had planned to baptize tons of our students and some parents who wanted to be baptized. We have not had a baptism service since then, and so I expect there will be many candidates for baptism. I have 4 or 5 of my kids who will be baptized as well. Be praying about this please.
We had several groups come this summer for camps and VBs for our students. We met some great people and were thankful for their love for our ministry and students at Destino del Reino. We will have 400 students in our school next year and many of them are willing to help us find sponsors to pray and give to each of our new incoming students. Thanks for all of you who sponsor students at Destino. Your prayers are so very important and of course also your giving to help us feed and clothe and teach them.
Today I am teaching Sunday School to my kids again. This week it is on complaining from Numbers 10-12 — interestingly, that is what I have been doing for several weeks now — COMPLAINING — mostly to the Lord and not about him, but still it was complaining and ungrateful. Sometimes the burden of all that goes on here is overwhelming to me and I need to continue to “cast all my cares on Him.” When the money is low and when I have had several struggles with some of my kids in the home, I find myself getting very discouraged and forgetting that this is God’s ministry and he is able to keep it and provide for us and give me wisdom with each child in my care. I have repented and will teach the kids with a personal illustration of ME — in complaining today. Humbling!
Please be praying about another big undertaking. We have had soccer teams participating in the city leagues for several years now and they have done well. They are the Leones (“Lions”) as our mascot at Destino is the Lions. We believe that God is leading us to have more emphasis on this area of ministry at Destino del Reino. We will have categories next year for under-10, under-12, under-14, under-16 and under-18 yrs. That is a lot of teams but thankfully, several of our graduates from Destino del Reino are willing to coach these teams. We want to start training and discipling these kids through soccer and especially start teaching the older players to begin using soccer as a tool in evangelism and take them into villages and use soccer competitions to begin relationships with other young people to bring them to Christ. Please be praying for wisdom in training and discipling these boys. Soccer is the best tool to reach kids in Honduras and we feel we are to use this ministry to disciple our boys. Also we are in the start of putting together a devotional book written by soccer players that will teach them the similarities in soccer with the game of life — following Christ. Please pray for that book to come together. Coach Jeremy at Bryan is going to get players to write individual devotions for the book and Pastor Wade has agreed to pay for the publishing of the book. It can be a great tool for our coaches to use with our teams as well as when our teams go into villages to teach others. Thanks for your prayers.
Thanks for your faithful prayers for us. I am so grateful to all of you who love us and support us in prayer and financially. We are so blessed to have each of you on our team to raise up disciples and missionaries for the Kingdom of Christ.
In His amazing grace,
Rhonda
