Our 2024 APRIL Prayer letter: Print, Post, Share, and Pray!

 For our April 2024 prayer letter: 

Click HERE

Then: Print, Share, and Pray!

Prayers Answered! Baby Margaret Ambar arrived early but safely

She arrived! Father Javier and mother Lizza are happy.  Baby Margaret Ambar was born Saturday the 20th, 5.8 pounds, 20 inches. Her safe arrival was the answer to many prayers. 

Javier and Lizza are a Puerto Rican missionary family that serves with us in our church planting efforts here in Puerto Rico. Please pray for their family, that little Margret Ambar will thrive and mother Lizza will heal soon from her cesarean delivery. 

Please pray for a safe delivery for the baby of our associate Puerto Rican pastor Javier and wife Lizza

Please pray for Javier, Lizza, and their soon to be born daughter. Due to an RH factor situacion and other reasons, Lizza will be undergoing an earlier than scheduled C-section very soon, possibly by this coming Sunday, May  21rst. 

Javier is serving as my associate pastor in our missionary church here in Puerto Rico. He and his family are a blessing to our church and represent the next step in our church's growth. 

Again, please pray for a safe delivery and all that is best for this precious family.

Baby Shower in Our Missionary Church!

 We hosted a Baby Shower for our missionary church members Javier and Lizza Pizarro. I met Javier a number of years ago and encouraged him to preach at our church. Since then, he has graduated from a Bible institute we have here in our churches and has joined us as now as associate pastor. Lizza and he have 3 children and are awaiting their fourth. The ladies of our church made a special event for them. Our prayers are with this fine family as their family grows and as they serve with us as missionary church planters here.

Hooray! Air-conditioning!

Thanks to the offerings of our Puerto Rican church members and help from our supporting churches, we now have air-conditioning in our church!  

We have some members with health issues that suffer from the humid, tropical heat here. It is a blessing to help them get relief from the heat. It's enjoyable for us also!

An added blessing is the noise canceling effect. Before, with all our windows cranked open, we could hear the neighborhood noises: roosters crowing, lawn work going on, and radios playing as neighbors washed their cars Sunday morning. 

Now, we can close the windows, tune out the outside distractions, and enjoy our church services much more. 

Thank you to all who had a part in helping equip the church to better serve here on the mission field.

Our missionary church commute is challenging, but beautiful

A winding road, between the mountain and a steep drop-off to the river below, is the road we travel to our missionary church in Puerto Rico. The road is challenging, with its many curves, giving little room for maneuvering. 

It's a bit stressful when a big truck comes from the other direction!

Landslides sometimes can cause an hour or so detour.

But there are compensations. The greenery, bamboo along the roadside, flowering trees, and often, the dam ("represa" in Spanish) has a beautiful display of water flowing over it. Sometimes, after a torrential downpour, it looks more like chocolate milk! 

Sometimes landslides keep us from arriving at all. Fortunately, we have a faithful deacon and other church members who can fill in when these happen.

Puerto Rico Baptist College Graduation Banquet

I teach classes at Puerto Rico Baptist College and get help from students there in our missionary church planting here on the island. This year, a student from Peru, Zoraida Mejía Alzamora, worked with us. She served as a Sunday School teacher and laboured with us in painting, cleaning, and participating in getting church projects done on Saturdays.

We honored her and the other graduating students with a special dinner. Her mom flew in from Peru to be with her for this special occasion. We had them both in our Sunday morning service following, and gifted Zoraida with an offering to help her with a missionary outreach she will be doing with a Hispanic Baptist church in Texas this summer.

Here are some photos of the event

                                                                        Tina and me

                                                                        Zoraida and Mom.

Training future preachers and teachers for our Spanish Speaking Churches!

I love teaching at Puerto Rico Baptist College. Here is photo of one of my classes this year. 

Our students come from the island, but also from Peru, Colombia, Nicaragua, and various other nations in Latin and South America.

It is  encouraging for us to be around quality young people like these with a vision to serve the Lord. 

Their faith, energy, and willingness to serve bodes well for future missionary efforts in their countries as well as our own.

Our First Church Hosts a Pastor and Churches Leadership Conference

 We had a great at the leaderships conference for our churches' that ran 9-3 Friday and Saturday. The church where I served as missionary upon our arrival in Puerto Rico now has their own paid for property and was able to host the event. Classes on Leadership qualifications, how to organize events, creating agendas for meetings, use of statistics as decision making aids, integrating personal and ministry agendas, and time management were interesting and of value. It was good to fellowship with our Puerto Rican pastors and learn from them their life and ministry work experiences as well.

We host a Four Day Marriage Seminar-Feb 2023

 We were blessed to have these pastors attend a marriage seminar we hosted this month. Pastor Urraca from the Dominican Republic gave us great teachings on improving our marriages. 

We host a Prophecy Seminar- Jan/Feb 2023

We hosted a prophecy seminar over six Wednesday mornings. The Wednesday morning service is turning out to be a real blessing to our church. Most of our people can attend, especially those who have trouble driving at night. Also, we can get guest speakers more often that are a benefit for our church. A church we helped start in a neighboring town is pastored by a graduate of Puerto Baptist college, Angel Espada. Angel did a great job and stimulated us to think more of our daily activities in light of Bible prophecy. 

Neighborhood BBQ Outreach-Jan 2023

We put the parking lot of our new church to work! We invited neighbors of our church and their kids to celebrate a Three Kings Day BBQ with us and they came!  Associate pastor Javier Pizarro planned the event and did an amazing job. His wife Lizza gave a devotional to the kids in front of a bouncy house set up in our parking. Their parents listened in while enjoying hamburgers, hotdogs, and fellowshipunder the shade of a canopy we set up. 

Three Kings is celebrated like Christmas here in Puerto Rico, the Kings giving out presents instead of Santa. Three of us dressed up and handed out presents to the kids after the devotional. I was surprised that the owner of a small restaurant in town came with her family. It is a restaurant our visitation teams often stops at for a break. She got to know us over time and seemed happy to be there.