Revival!

We held a three day revival, from Wed-Friday last week. I invited a Pastor born in the Dominican Republic, (the island next door to Puerto Rico) to preach for us. He did a great job. He is the taller man on the left of the picture. He preached three powerful messages about love. Almost all our members came out and good number of new people visited our church during the special meetings. There were tears and testimonies Friday. It seems the Holy Spirit is doing a work in the hearts of His saints here in Puerto Rico!

Evangelistic Funeral Service

I led a elderly gentleman (about 90) to the Lord about six months ago and preached at his funeral Sunday afternoon. I gently but firmly shared the hope of the resurrection and spoke of The Good Shepherd and his love for all classes of people, represented by Lost Sheep, Black Sheep and even Goats. At the grave site, the message was Tears without Jesus and Tears with Jesus (shared sorrow here, shared joy in heaven). At the end of the graveside message, a little rain fell, just enough to go along with the falling tear imagery of the devotional. Many non-Christians were there and heard the gospel. I saw many nodding their heads in agreement during the sermon. Our hope is that the funeral sermons may be a new avenue to share the gospel here in Puerto Rico and bring more people into the church.

A New and Unusual Bible Study Site!

A New Tool. I just found this neat bible study site today, the "Blue Letter Bible" It has a feature no other site I've found has. Next to the verses listed, is an icon that takes you to CLASSIC HYMNS that go along with the verse, complete with the Lyrics, Biography of the hymn writers AND a Midi file that plays the tune! I wish I was preaching in English so I could use all of the neat lyrics for sermon illustrations! Well, here it is for my English speaking Pastor friends. It is at: http://www.blueletterbible.org/index.html

Eye Surprise!

Tina went to get some new lenses for her old glasses yesterday, but was a little concerned about the expense. Tina described what she was looking for and then her eye doctor surprised her. She had some of her personal eye glass frames that resembled what Tina wanted and she offered them to Tina for free! Wow! Yesterday free bananas and now, free eyeglass frames! God is meeting our needs in some very unexpected ways!

Banana Blessing!

We rent a small wooden home with a metal roof that has a lot of hidden blessings! Our landlord planted some banana trees down the hill and allows us to harvest whatever grows in our yard. We picked a bunch yesterday that has about 100 bananas on it and weighs about 35 pounds! They help with our food supply and are better than the store bought variety. But we have to eat them all in the next two weeks! Got any recipe's?

Good Sunday

We led a young man named Israel to the Lord a few years ago. He dated and became engaged to Kati, one of our church members. I baptized Israel one year and performed the wedding ceremony for them in our church the year after. They have continued faithful ever since. This Sunday I had an opportunity to pray over their 22 day old infant daughter. It is a very satisfying experience to see one you prayed with and baptized continue in the church and mature in Christ. The baby is cute too!

Missionary Kid Music! An unexpected blessing came our way this year. Someone donated about twenty violins to our Bible College! We have a student, Nora, who loves to teach and only charges $5 a lesson. So, while I pick up some students to go on visitation with me on Friday, Sarah comes along and has a violin lesson at the College. Missionary kids miss their friends in the States, but our kids seem to have lots of opportunities for fun here on the mission field! 

Graduating Church workers from Deacons to Pastors! Carlos and Judy have worked in our last two churches. He has served as a Deacon and as an interm Pastor for a year during our last furlough. Jim Stinedurf, a missionary friend of mine, started a church in the town of Caguas where Carlos lives. Carlos went to help him get it started. He is a very smart guy and worked as an accountant for a big company, but has always felt he should retire early and serve the Lord full time. Well, we are happy he has taken the plunge!

A woman came to church Wednesday night just as we were locking up. She had her little daughter of 4 with her. She said, "Oh no! I have been meaning to visit your church for a long time, and now I am finally here and it's all over!" I said, "Come on in!" and opened the doors. Tina and I went in, showed her around and later spoke to her about her soul. Her name is Anna, she is a nurse who works Sundays and describes herself as "separated" from the Lord. We showed her God's simple plan of salvation and prayed the "Sinners Prayer" with her. She left happy and promised to come back. Sometimes we go looking for the lost sheep. But sometimes they come looking for us!

PS She came again tonight! Anna had some good questions and we knew what book to look in for the answers! Amen!

Hey, leave our frogs alone!

Somehow our national frog, the coqui, got into Hawaii. They are trying to get rid of them because of the noise! The song of the coqui is the lullaby that puts us into a sweet sleep every night here in Puerto Rico! It is loud, but at least our little frogs drown out some of the unwelcome human sounds around here. When I am away from Puerto Rico, I want to call my friends on the island just so I can listen to the coquis in the background! Click here to hear.

Did you get our new prayer card yet? If not, drop us a line at Prelgovis@yahoo.com and we will get one out to you as soon as possible! 

Some of my classes are bigger.

These are my students in one of the Christian Education class I teach:" Introduction to Physical Science." The class is a lot of fun and the college kids are great. They come from all over: California, New York, Puerto Rico, San Salvador and even Nebraska! I require them to create object lessons from science experiments that they will do in class. We should have a nice collection of good object lessons in a few years that could be a great teaching resource for them to use in the churches, Christian schools and camps wherever in the world the Lord sends them.

Some of my classes are small.

This is Cynthia, one of our students who came here all the way from Peru. I am teaching "Western Civilization" and she is the only one in that class this semester. I hope to get some of our smaller classes developed into independent study courses. I have asked Cynthia to outline the text book and gather info that we can make into our own web page. Our goal is to have a web site containing our classes contents and requirements so anyone can benefit from them anywhere in the world.

A Welcome Surprise!

Adrian, a former helper at our church, transferred to a college in Indiana and I was wondering if I could find anybody to go with Tulio and me on Saturday visitation. To our surprise, a young man named Irvine decided to come all the way from Spain to our Bible college in Puerto Rico to study for the ministry. Irvine is originally from Peru, but went to Barcelona to get a degree from a technical college in draftsmanship. While in Spain he felt the Lord calling him into the ministry and heard about our Bible college. He has come here to prepare for the ministry and hopes to work especially in counseling teenagers. Irvine gave his testimony Sunday morning and helped us clean the church as well this last week. We are happy to have him in our church and will try our best to help him acquire all he needs to be an effective servant for the Lord.

Welcome, and greetings to you from our church on the mission field. After the service let out, I rounded up some of our members and a visiting family for this photo. We have about 38 people now in the church. A few days during the year (like Father's Day) we may have around 50-60 people. May the Lord bless you, your family and your church this Sunday!

Our Puerto Rico Baptist College has started a new semester . We have a record number of students again, about 60! We have some Pastors who can't teach this year, so I am teaching an extra class. I do all my teaching on Mondays when I can so I can work on church planting up here in the mountains of Puerto Rico during the rest of the week. But Mondays are getting very long! I have 15 students in three classes: Introduction to Physics: one class in Spanish, the other for English speaking students. Then History of Western Civilization (taught in Spanish). I have a class in Apologetics in the evening, but don't know yet how many are signed up for it. I am using the Apologetics material for our Wednesday prayer meeting Bible studies and my Science experiments for object lessons during Summer Camp, so we are getting double duty out of some of our efforts. We do get tired. But then we see the blessings and we get recharged! 

Bethany and Rachel go back to college tomorrow. Here are all our daughters with Itzel, one of their Puerto Rican friends. We really had a lot of fun and shared a lot of love with our daughters this Christmas vacation. Thank you to those of you who sent gifts and helped us financially so we could see them again. It will be hard to say goodbye. We wont see them maybe till next Christmas! Bethany will continue as a Graphic Arts major, but Rachel is considering a switch from Business to Missions. They just finished their first semester, so I am sure many more changes are in store for them.

Tuesday we prayed with a 27 year old named Vernon to receive the Lord as his Savior. Sunday Vernon came to church! It was great. Vernon came in a little late, but walked down to the very front pew and sat directly in front of the pulpit and gave us a big smile! Miguel, who helped us meet Vernon, came to Wednesday prayer meeting tonight for the first time in a long time. I feel excited about the spiritual interest rising among our people. I know God has the power to change lives, but it sure is great to see it with your own eyes!

I came across this poem in my devotions today. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

"We are here to be perfected,
Only God our needs can see;
Rarest gems bear hardest grinding,
God's own workmanship are we." -Anon.

I am encouraged that God has chosen to make us into better people and will not give up until the job is done.

"Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:" - Philippians 1:6

We led a 27-year-old young man named Victor to the Lord tonight. We led Miguel, Victors' cousin, to the Lord about two years ago and helped him through a rehab program. Tonight, Miguel went with us to Victors house. We were well received and Victor listened with interest to the Good News of Gods' love for him and the better life Jesus has for those who love him. Victor prayed and asked Jesus to be his Savior tonight.

On the way home, I wanted to encourage Miguel. I said, "We all had a part in Victors' decision tonight, but you had the greatest part of all. I presented the gospel, but Victor did not let us in because I was the pastor. Victor has seen you live the Christian life and wants the kind of life he has seen in you. He let us in because he wants what you have, a changed life." Well, Miguel went home happy and I came home rejoicing. Thanks for praying for us. Tonight it made a wonderful difference.

3 Kings Day. Tonight, all over Puerto Rico, children are filling boxes with grass for the horses of the three kings. They slide the boxes under their beds and then toss and turn in anticipation of the big day. Tomorrow they will find the grass gone and presents in the boxes: proof that the kings came, fed their horses and then left toys in gratitude for the kindness of the children who cared about their horses. Somehow camels never got into the pictures of this event in Puerto Rico! We are suffering a bit from colds in our family this week and will most likely spend the day resting and maybe redoing all our photo albums. We would appreciate the gift of your prayers. Feliz Reyes! (Happy Three Kings Day!). 

Bethany and Rachel were both in our Christmas play this year. We are encouraging our youth group to put on Christ-honoring plays as a way of evangelism and getting them used to using their talents for the Lord as young adults. Sunday night we gave our second production and are hoping for a spiritual impact within the church and some decisions for the Lord in the community. We had about 40 in each of the nights of the play. The youth group did a great job.  

Tina worked like crazy, making the costumes. We spent a good bit of money on the material and a ton of time putting it all together. We needed a week or so getting the material and Tina worked at her sewing machine for about two weeks making the costumes. But the results have been well worth the efforts. We have an exited and motivated youth group who are working in the church and for the Lord.  

Wow! This was me 50 Christmases ago! I think I had more fun this Christmas! The youth group at church did a great job on the play. We will put it on again tomorrow for our church and a few others we have invited to the evening service. We made a video of the play, but we were so busy with that, we forgot to take any regular pictures. I hope to take some at our second showing and post the pictures here in the next few days. We have a baptism scheduled for the 9th, but the gentleman (Felipe Soto) is undergoing chemotherapy and may reschedule if he is feeling poorly that day.

If you want to see some more of my old photos, click here: Ofoto.com