Puerto Rico: The Back Door for Reaching the US Spanish Speaking Population. Our ministry is Church planting and training men and women for Christian service at Puerto Rico Baptist College.
We are reaching people here, who immigrate and reach others in Spanish speaking communities across our nation.
We have been praying for a new home for our church, a place we can begin anew after the double blow of hurricane Maria and the following Covid restrictions.
A Jehovah's Witnesses building came available, but was about three times the amount we had saved for a church property. But, through prayer, some negotiations, and generous giving, it happened. We are about to take possession of our new church home.
The promised matching fund of $30,000 came in and all is ready for the next step.
What remains? There was some disagreement between the Jehovah's Witnesses and the government about whether they owed property tax or not. They are in the process of getting that cleared up, hopefully, soon.
We have secured a great Christian lawyer here to help us in all of this. His help has been invaluable in guiding us through the process.
We were happy to have a storefront to meet in after the hurricane's devastation. But a one room church is hard to grow. We are anxious to have a church with rooms for Sunday school classes, a nursery, kitchen, and all the kinds of things that makes it a family friendly church. This desire has now become a reality!
Please rejoice with us, and send up a prayer of gratitude for what God has done. Having a church building with no monthly payments is a real blessing. It is also a good preparation for the future independence of the church. God is good. Amen!
This morning, I was anxious about the deadline for raising $30,000 dollars. This afternoon, I stopped worrying.
The story:
Our church here in Puerto Rico raised a bit over $40,000 towards a church property. We were stifled by our small, post-hurricane storefront rental. We found a church for sale listed originally at $160,000. After negotiating with them over a few months, the price came down. They were willing to sell to us for $140,00 with the parking lot, or just the building for $100,000!
A pastor heard of our need and told us that of the $60,000 remaining for the purchase of the church, he would help with $30,000, if we could raise the remaining $30,000 by October. Hurray!
But could we do it?
This morning, I called our mission agency and found that in addition to the $40 thousand our church had saved, $20,866.30 had come in, for a total of $60,866.30. Amen!
But the morning was not over yet. I got a call from a church in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands, where we had visited last Sunday. The love offering was $6,500! Then, a church in Paso Robles, California gave $1,000! That same morning, a pastor called from Washington state and indicated that his church might give $2,000 toward what was lacking to get us into that new church building!
All this together, plus some from another church we helped start here in Puerto Rico, means we can get that church!
Amen! Now, with so much good news in one day, is it too much to hope for a parking lot to go with it? I don't think so. If God can supply over $9,5000 in one day, what might He do for us between now and October, when we hope to make the purchase?
If you would like to help with that parking lot, closing costs, or new paint, we would be happy to show you how to do that. Contact our mission agency here, and they will show you how to contribute. Thank you to those of you who already have!
A pastor called recently and pledged $30,000 if we could raise the another $30,000 to purchase a church property for our church in Puerto Rico!
What is special about this property? After the horrible hurricane destruction of hurricane Maria, we first met in homes and now are meeting in small store front. It is fine for a small group, but has no rooms for growth. We need a place where we can invite families with children, have a church nursery, and have Sunday School rooms.
A rare opportunity came about. The Jehovah Witnesses are selling their church in town for less than the price of a house! It even has rooms for a missionary apartment in the daylight basement!
It is a rare opportunity. But also a limited opportunity. The matching funds offered were given for a 6 month time frame. Since that initial offer, one giver has dedicated $3,000, so we are 1/10 of the way toward the goal already!
Take a look at the video. Can you see what we see? A place for a Baptist church in the heart of Puerto Rico.
Please contact our mission agency, CBM, and help us get that church and the matching funds we need!
(For helping us by PushPay: Select "Missionary" in the drop down menu, and put "Prelgovisk/Church in the memo." )
It's been super busy here this March. The Christian school I work with here in Puerto Rico plans on having students return to the class room March 23. I teach 11th grade Computer Science there and help in the office. The government regulations we need to comply with here in this US Commonwealth are quite extensive and we are busy trying to make it all happen in the time available.
Having a fractured fibula doesn't help.
I'm finding everything is a lot slower in a wheel chair and on crutches.
I was able to get my cast sawn off last week and now wear a big boot to immobilize my leg. Therapy is scheduled to begin in a few weeks, and until then I am supposed to do range of motion exercises and some light resistance work.
I got some exercise bands to help. I didn't think much of them before now, prefering home gym equipment. But Im beginning to appreciate them. The bands have a higher "Spousal Acceptance Factor" than a well equipped home gym. What they lack as exercise equipment, they make up in cost saving, space saving, and portability.
So far, I haven't overdone it yet. It's hard not rushing the process a bit when there is so much to do.
It's been a while since our last post or podcast. Many supporters started following us on Facebook and I have fallen into the habit of posting my updates there and have fallen behind in communicating as well as I should by printed prayer letters or by online blog posts. I apologize.
I will include a year 2020 prayer letter in a link here and give an update below.
Our churches continue under Covid restrictions. They are allowed to meet at 25% of capacity, but many do not meet, for fear of injuring their elderly church members. Our congregation is like a small family group, and we all felt like we should have Sunday morning services together. It is a blessing to teach, preach, sing, pray, celebrate the Lord's supper and have fellowship with each other.
Our Puerto Rico Bible College has a few new students, one from a Puerto Rican family in North Carolina. The college is fulfilling our vision of training believers for the ministry, who can then evangelize and plant churches within Latino communities in our country.
Our Son-in-law, Abe Kennedy, has been installed as pastor of Southgate Baptist in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands. We enjoy watching his sermons on Youtube. Daughter Bethany went from being the wife of the youth director to the wife of the pastor and seems to be adapting to the that change just fine.
On my way home from teaching a class at Levittown Baptist Academy, I left the car to bring in a garbage can and slipped in some curbside mud. I landed hard on my knee and twisted my foot about 90 degrees to the side. I hollered and neighbors came running and, with Tina, helped me into the house. I got an x-ray and found I had a fracture in my lower leg. I got a boot, but it wasn't enough. Now, I have a cast and will get a follow up exam next week to see if I need to escalate treatment.
So, for right now, I am doing as much as I can from home. Teaching my class on the Pentateuch in Spanish by Zoom, though, feels very unsatisfactory. I miss the energy I get from being in the presence of the young people who are there preparing for the ministry. Their hope, faith, zeal and positive spirits are better felt in presence than through a video portal. But, we are doing what we can and God is blessing.
Our church has been able to save and we have been gifted with funds toward the purchase of a church building. We have about $40,000 available and we have some prospective places ranging from $100,000 to $140,000. Please pray for the healing of my leg and my mobility, and also that we will be led to right place and be able to acquire it for the work of church planting here in Puerto Rico.
I made my first video missionary "prayer letter" with a Puerto Rican friend, Roque Becerra. Together we share what is happening here in Puerto Rico, both the blessings and the needs that we face here.
Pastors: You are welcome to use this in a church service. Let us know if you do! It's always encouraging to know someone is praying for us!
My pulpit looks different, but I'm still preaching, teaching, and reaching out to others. I'm giving sermons from my small home office. I record them on Zoom, convert them, and post them on YouTube, then send out the links to our church members. I made a Facebook page for our church where we can share our teaching, preaching, and send encouraging messages. We can geofence invitations and posts also. They can be sent to people that live within just a 1 mile walk from the church. That is important, because a lot of people walk to church and parking is a problem in our town. In our Bible College, I'm teaching Biblical Greek and a Christian Ed class on metrics. I'm also using Google Classroom to teach Computer Science and Music classes for a Christian school here, Levittown Baptist Academy.. We are using what we have and are happy to do it. But, I would like to get a webcam to improve what we are doing. We found that the ones recommended to us, the Logitech C920S and a few other models, are out of stock. I think we might go for the budget choice, the Echo, because it's in stock and the price is $62, and it will certainly be better than the laptop camera. I'm not happy about the restrictions, but I am glad that we leaned how to use some new methods and technology during this time. I think we will keep using all the methods. Why not have multiple hooks in the water, if you want to catch some fish?
When people are led to give toward our ministry, we are humbled, encouraged, and very, very thankful!
Sometimes we get requests asking us the best way to give. Here are ways to give, Please use the one that best fits your preferred way of giving.
1. Through your church. If you are in a church that already supports us, you may give the gift through them. It helps to inform them it is an extra gift, so it will be added to the support they already send.
Saturday morning, our bed began shaking. It felt like the bed got shoved an inch back and forth in different directions for about a minute. I've been in earthquakes before, so I thought it felt like maybe a strong 5 point something earthquake. But after the 6.4 one earlier, followed by a swarm of minor quakes, a bit of anxiety came along with the quake.
A hurricane you can prepare for, but when the ground starts shaking, and you realize you're in a quake, you don't know if it's going to be a minor one or keep growing until the house falls down. You just have to ride it out and see.
We checked the news and saw that the Catholic church sent out a message that all masses were to be held outdoors. Some hospitals put patients and beds in the parking lots. As the day progressed we tried to get more info.
Sunday, we found the mountain road to our church was closed due to landslides. The detour we were forced to take was quite an adventure. It took us about an hour and a half to get to church this morning, winding our way through a couple of other small towns to get there. The town mayor said that because of hurricane Maria, the island government has been focusing reconstruction around the big metro areas and our the rural danger areas have been neglected. He predicted the road would be closed until February and then, only one lane opened.
No one said it would be easy!
Church was a blessing. Everyone had an earthquake story. Besides loss of power and water, none of us suffered loss. One the girls from our Bible college and her family were forced to leave their damaged apartment, but none of them were hurt.
We are thankful, especially since our electricity came back on, and we have ice and air-conditioning again, and are safe and sound.
We thank God and thank you for your prayers!
Requests:
1. Tina has had a bad case of bronchitis she is trying to get over. Prays appreciated.
2. I would like to replace our aging Briggs and Stratton generator with one that has an auto start. Our model is a beast to start with a pull cord and if I'm not home, no way could Tina do it be herself.
3. We have raised about $40,000 toward the purchase of a church home for our congregation. For $140,000, we can get a building the Jehovah Witnesses are holding on to. We would like to see ourselves there and them not there! Monthly contributions towards this will help it grow and help us get there.
Please pray and ask the Lord to supply our needs and send us the help needed to do the work of missions here in the Caribbean. Thanks again!
It’s around late November and early December that people begin to notice Orion in the evening sky.
I pointed out Orion's belt to a church member one night. He told me that those were the "Reyes," the wise men on their way, following the star, to find the new born king.
I don't think Orion's belt was made to tell that story, but you know what? When a Puerto Rican looks up at the sky at night and sees the Wise Men on the way to see Jesus, well, that's a lot better than any message the story of Orion has ever given me.
So, good for them, and maybe it's time we updated some of our traditions to tell a better story and share a more important message than comes from our traditions.
The Wise men arrive Jan. 6th. The night before, children fill the boxes with grass for the horses (yes, the wise men ride HORSES in Puerto Rico, NOT camels). In the morning, the children find the shoe boxes full of presents, left by the Wise men in token of their thanks.
Now, isn't that a better story and tradition than our Santa Claus and how we have made Christmas a snow festival?
Hurricane Dorian was just warming up when it passed us. It is extremely unpredictable.
School was canceled here on the island as the hurricane was projected to miss us by 180 miles to the south east. It seemed like excessive caution at the time. But we took some basic precautions anyway.
A day later, the track showed Dorian making a direct hit through the town we live in! We kept checking the weather reports and asked for prayer. That night, Dorian moved to over 100 miles to the north-east!
Passed us on the NORTH-EAST!
To those who prayed, thanks! It seems like the hurricane skirted an invisible wall of protection that surrounded us!
Hurricanes that miss us still take their toll. Depending on the level of stress, people will distill and store water, hurricane proof the house and yard, reschedule activities and allow church attendance to suffer. Then, every thing that was done to prepare for the hurricane has to be undone. It is a bit of an annoyance, but we just look upon it as a drill to be better prepared for the next one.
In the 1940's, a business man turned evangelist was visiting a pastor and his wife who lived in the remote, upper peninsula of Michigan. The formerly friendly family seemed unhappy to see him. He found out why. They were down to their last potato, but the pastor had clubbed a porcupine and brought it home. They were loathe to share their only food. But, they did.
This man shared the story of the poverty and living conditions of the church planting couple with a number of pastors and churches and Hiawatha Missions was born, founded to support church planting missionaries to the rural, forgotten, neglected or otherwise difficult to reach parts of the United States.
I'm sure glad they did. We joined the agency, now known as Continental Baptist Missions, and are in a church planting work in the US Caribbean, among the 3.1 million souls who live on the island of Puerto Rico.
We never had to eat a porcupine, or even a Puerto Rican iguana so far. We are so glad to be working here with Continental Baptist missions and supporting churches who care about reaching the lost in remote places like these.
One of our friends asked if our mission agency had an online giving app so they could donate automatically without having to remember to send in a paper check every month.
I checked with Continental Baptist Missions and they have a nice, easy to use online giving app called Pushpay. I checked it out and it looks simple. and easy to use.
I like that. Simplicity in giving is biblical. "...he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity..." Rom 12:8.
Under "Memo," put our name and what you are giving towards ( Prelgovisk: Church Building, Prelgovisk: home, etc.)
Select how mow much and how often you want to give
After you're set up, it makes it very simple to keep giving without filling in or mailing anything after that.
Our friend set an amount for $200 a month!
What a blessing when simple, biblical giving can be!
We got the news Sunday morning while speaking to our people about buying a Jehovah Witness building and converting it into a Baptist church. I got goose bumps!
Please visit the online giving page at CBM and prayfully ask God, how much and how often you could give.
We could not believe the price. A church available for the price of a house!
My deacon Luis Lopez and his wife passed by a Jehovah Witness Kingdom Hall and saw a "For Sale" sign on it. We went and investigated it today.
The building is in a good neighborhood, built on a hill well above the highest flood water line. It is a two story building of 35,133.4
sq. feet, with a lot across the street of just over 21,300 square feet. It has parking for about 40 cars.
The asking price for all of this is $164,900!
Plus, it is already zoned and has all the permits for use as a church, which are hard to get here in Puerto Rico.
In a small town and in our post hurricane disaster economy, home prices have fallen, making this a tremendous bargain.
Our current, temporary building is comfy and cheap, but it t has mold issues affecting some of our members. We really need better place for growth and the health issues of our members.
Could you help us toward this goal?
Our church has over $21,000 saved toward a goal like this. That leaves $144,000. It seems like a mountain of a price for us. But, like Caleb, we can ask for that mountain!
Joshua 14: 12 Now therefore give me this mountain...
If you can help, please send a special offering to us through our mission agency orhere online and put our name (Prelgovisk family) where it says MEMO.
Continental Baptist Missions 11650 Northland Drive NE Rockford, MI 49341, (616) 863-2226 https://gocbm.org/contact
I have been praying for someone to go with me on visitation on Saturdays. I don't like to go visiting door to door alone here in Puerto Rico.
This last week, the pastor of a church I helped get started volunteered to go with me on visitation. His name is Angel Espada, which means "Angel Sword" in English, a great name for a pastor! He said he could give me one or two Saturdays a month. That doesn't sound like a lot, but it was a real emotional boost. During days when we hear a lot of "No's," having a visitation partner makes a difference, as we encourage each other, keep on going, and visit more people. I could also visit people with a partner that I would not otherwise visit if I was visiting alone.
Today, I just got a call from another Puerto Rican pastor, Gabriel, whom I had helped in the past. He said he wanted to help me visit every Saturday. Gabriel also asked if he could bring along another man who he is grooming to be a future pastor so he can train him in evangelism! Also, he wanted to know if it was OK to visit in the town and pass out gospel tracts on additional days or times! I said yes, along with a lot of "Amen's!"
After all this time praying, how sweet it is to hear people from our past volunteering to give us a hand in one of the most difficult areas of church planting, soul winning visitation!
Rejoice with us, but please continue praying that the Lord of the harvest would send us workers, that their good intentions and offers of help would be realized, and that our church would grow and prosper from the labor of these willing, worthy workers!
Tina and I are planning our 2019 summer and feel we should visit family, friends, and supporters in California. We would like to catch up, and share our missionary experiences, especially what going through hurricane Maria was like. We also want to share what we look forward to accomplishing in our church planting and Bible college ministry here in Puerto Rico. If you would like to met us, host us, help us with transportation, or help us to find a missionary apartment for June-July, please let us know.
Good fishermen have tackle boxes with a good selection of items to choose from, the tried and true and sometimes, something new. We want to be good "fishers of men" so here is what we are currently doing. The Tried and True: For door to door evangelism, we have recently bought a couple of boxes of gospel tracts. We like the ones that have print big that are easy to read for our poor rural people who often can't afford eyeglasses. The one's that are well illustrated and have fewer words seem to to be the ones that get read the most.
Passing them out in mountain neighborhoods, on hillsides without streets, makes for a lot of hill climbing. We navigate narrow cement stairs that zig-zag up the mountainsides. Some of my previous visitation partners have health issues that have them less able to accompany me. I am trying to recruit new helpers. I have visited alone and will do so if necessary, but visiting with others is the Biblical pattern and it certainly is best. Please pray that I can find some new visitation partners soon.
Something New: A Puerto Rican pastor's son I know and I talked about a new thing we heard of. We learned that on Facebook you can put a circle around a community, say a 5 mile radius around the church, and boost a post to that community. So we tried it. I wrote an invitation to our church, connected a Google map to it and set it to run for 7 days. Here is what happened.
We got a lot of reaction! For about the same cost of a box of tracts, we got 206 reactions, 55 written comments, and 29 shares! A few of the comments were negative, but I was able to answer objections, dialog with some people, and was encouraged by the vast majority of positive comments. We received a lot of promises for prayer, and even promises to attend.
We will keep doing the tried and true, but will also continue with the something new. I think this will be a great addition to the various way we do or could do evangelism here where we labor in the interior mountain region of rural Puerto Rico.
Hurricane Issac is coming. We are in the cone of probability for a strike this coming Friday. Although for now, it looks like the northern edge of Issac will scrape the underbelly of our island. If it misses us, it might seem that all the time, materials, and expense of being totally prepared was wasted. Well, not really. It serves as a good drill for weathering future storms. Preparing for Irma last year left in a better position to survive Maria that devastated the island a year ago.
Please remember us in prayer here in the Caribbean, especially during the hurricane season.
We are in hurricane season again and people are nervous about it down here, after having lost so much and endured so much from hurricanes Irma and Maria last year.
Recently, a storm passed us to the south and panic gripped our area causing many store shelves to be quickly emptied of key supplies.
It feels like paranoia, but it is understandable. People suffered much more during and after the hurricanes than early reports indicated. Those experiences have not been forgotten. It was a false alarm, but alarms like these take their toll.
We suffered the loss of the church building we were renting near the city center. Church members lost roofs and were forced to move away to live with relatives in other towns. Our numbers decreased, but we kept our congregation together. Our people wanted to continue as a church and continue an outreach and church planting ministry to our devastated town of Comerio.
We began meeting again, first in a home for a while, and then in a small concrete building that was a video rental store that was operated by a church member who died of cancer last year.
The good in all of this is that our remaining members are encouraged to have survived and been extremely supportive of continuing the work of missions in our town and elsewhere. We have remodeled the building, and are putting up a sign on it this week. We have ordered and received hundreds of gospel tracts and are planning a tract distribution day soon.
It is like beginning again, but with a good dedicated core group as a team that has a lot of good will and experience. Our church has saved twenty thousand dollars toward getting a building of our own, so we have that to draw on in emergencies. Friends and supporters sent us financial gifts to help. It was a blessing to be in a position to distribute food, tarps to cover damaged homes, and to help repair storm and tree damage to our Bible college. The resilience of our people and the positive progress we are seeing is very encouraging.
Sarah & Mario Fragela
This August, the last of our unmarried daughters, Sarah, got married. She married a Puerto Rican young man, Mario Fragela, that had been a student of mine.
We had the wedding here and had quite a few people in our home. I preformed the ceremony and was able to give a simple and clear gospel message along with the vows. From all accounts, it went well.
Kristin & Danny Becerra
Two years ago, Kristin married the son of a Puerto Rican pastor I work with. Before, we were outsiders working as missionaries here. Now, we are united by marriage to two different extended Puerto Rican families. I notice I get a lot more smiles and positive nods from people as we go about our work here.
We are happy survived the storm. We are enjoying the smiles and help of new people. We are thankful for a core of faithful and dedicated church members who have sacrificed to continue the work of church planting in the rural mountain areas of Puerto Rico. We are thankful also for your help and encouragement.
It has made a big difference. Please continue your prayer and support for our missionary work here in Puerto Rico.
Tina was interviewed for a TV segment about Puerto Rico recovery efforts yesterday (Segment starts at 3:05, Tina's part: 7:45). Chuck Holton, A former army Ranger, visited the island as trouble-spot news correspondent for NRA TV. We met him and some of his helpers and showed them around the day they arrived. Chuck brought a SAT phone and allowed our Bible college kids to contact their parents to say they were OK. That night, they could not find lodging in any hotels, so we offered our home as a base for them the week they were here. They left us some cool inflatable solar lanterns which came in handy for our Sept-Jan period of no electricity.
Chuck remembered us when he went to do an update on the recovery (or non-recovery) here in Puerto Rico. He called us by Skype and Tina gave him an update on the state of things on the island.
We appreciate Chuck and are grateful for his help and also for getting the word out on what is happening down here. Chuck and crew are great people to have around when things get tough.
I ordered a "Sampler Pack" or assortment of gospel tracts from a couple of places. We got a nice selection online from a place called "Moments with the Book"
I asked our people to read and evaluate them. We look for tracts that have clarity in communicating the Gospel, are likely to be read, and that our members would feel good about giving to someone.
Then we ordered a bunch of the ones that our members liked the best.
I find that the members of our missionary church are more likely to pass out tracts they have read and got exited about, than those we just order and put out in a tract rack.
Scheduling a "Tract Day" is something we have done in the past and I think we will do again in the near future. We pick a day, usually a Saturday from 10-2. We try and get everyone from our church, plus maybe some friends from other churches, to pass out tracts with us. Then we split up into small groups and have a tract blitz, blanketing different areas of our town with tracts. After a couple of hours, we return to the church for lunch and share our experiences. I ask our helpers to give a testimony Sunday morning about their experiences to encourage the church.
Does it work?
Having a tract in hand makes it easier for our people to visit homes than just walking up to a door with a Bible. Since it's easier, the tracts make the visit between our members and neighborhood people more likely to happen. It is true that the personal contact and the shared testimony of our members is more likely to encourage others to make a life changing decision than the tracts we give out, but the presence of a tract giver, giving a positive testimony, makes the tracts more likely to be read and for that message to be received in a way that will make a difference.
I give a devotional on Wednesday mornings to the 7th through 12th graders at Levittown Baptist Academy in the town of Toa Baja, Puerto Rico.
They can get pretty excited about things..
I also teach Bible to a class of 8th graders twice a week. Just one of me and thirty-three of them for an hour. Some days that hour seems like it's a lot longer than an hour.
I used to be intimidated by the thought of speaking to rowdy groups of kids. But, even when there doesn't seem to be enough of me to last that hour with the lot of them, I have always found that the Word of God is enough to get us through. It is sufficient in itself to do miraculous things. It is easier to boldly proclaim something when you know with a certainty that it has the power to change lives for the better.
So here we are, missionaries in Puerto Rico, boldly proclaiming the Word of God, not just on Sundays, but during the week as well.
You may also note that we seem a bit tired at times. That's OK too. I don't mind getting tired doing something that's worth while doing, and nothing is worth doing more than reaching the souls of men (or rowdy school kids) with the Word of God. It has the power to change lives. That's something we should all get exited about.
Today, a church member brought a bag of papayas he harvested and gave them out after our Mother's Day Banquet. In spite of the hurricanes destruction, the trees recovered and began producing fruit again. He told me the biggest one was over 13 lbs and that they were especially good for making papaya, strawberry, and vanilla ice cream smoothies.
Our church is being replanted again as well. We have rented a small building in a new location. We have met there now for the last 3 weeks. Every week it is looking better and there is a good spirit among our people. Please pray that our church might prosper as it is replanted in its new location.
After four months of no electricity and numerous months of rebuilding, we are trying to get back to our practice of weekly ministry updates.
People responded to our needs and sent money to help rebuild missing roofs, personal losses, and to repair damage at Puerto Rico Baptist College. The fence between our Bible college and a mechanic's car strewn field was taken out by the hurricane and a number of very large trees that came crashing down on it. But thanks to gifts that we have received, we were able to contribute $2000 towards rebuilding it. Now, not only does the school look better, but because of the wall, it is more secure.
Tina has been taking pictures of the progress on her way to cook meals for the students. It's going up!
