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.
Starting a church, teaching at Puerto Bible College, initiating plans for a Seminary, fighting termites and remodeling our new home...so many jobs at once!
How can we do a good job at all of these things and still manage to have a good family life and not burn out in the process?
Well, there are THREE things that help make it happen:
1. Reading and putting into practice sound productivity principles. (Right now I am reading "Getting Things Done" by David Allen).
2. Your prayers and support! Yep, the more of these we get, the more gets done!
3. Your personal visit! You know all those references about being a "Servant" or a "Slave" for Christ? Some people take that literally and actually come out here and help us for a week or even a month or so.
Have you every considered slavery as a career option? Well, if you do, we can keep the right kind of people doing the right kind of things down here for quit a while.
It is 405 miles from our house to the devastation you see every night on the news in Haiti. We did not feel the earthquake directly. But being so close to Haiti has given the tragedy an extra emotional impact among our people. Last Saturday we had a pastors’ fellowship. One of the first items we discussed was how to help our near neighbors, the Haitians, in their moments of desperate need.
We sympathize with them greatly. Puerto Rico is no stranger to natural disasters. We ourselves have suffered loss in the floods and hurricanes that strike hard here in the Caribbean. Other situations are looming as well: We are 285 miles from a volcano that is erupting on the island of Montserrat. Earthquakes to the west and volcanoes to the south-east, people are getting nervous.
In order to help people in trouble, like the Haitians, and to help our own people, We have decided to take some measures to equip ourselves to respond and offer some kind of aid and services. I have acquired a Ham radio license. This qualifies me to participate in emergency disaster drills. Besides being able to provide aid during an actual emergency, I think just being able to participate in the drills would be a great asset to our evangelism here. We could be a witness to the other emergency care providers and also be identified as a valuable resource by the people of our community.
But…in order to participate I need a radio: a Ham radio capable of being set up quickly in the field. Ideally, it would be something like the radio in this link (http://www.universal-radio.com/CATALOG/hamhf/3450.html). The radio and accessories to make it useful for field and rescue work run about $1,200.
I know it's not cheap. It is expensive to be prepared for an emergency. But what other people tell me is, it can be even more expensive to NOT be prepared for an emergency.
The move was a real grunt. We switched houses with the previous owners, so we could move in faster. But that meant we had to get everything moved and leave the house completely clean in one day. We never could have done it without the help of three hard working college students, Nancy, Christian, Bairo and Sarah's boyfriend Mario all of whom worked all day Monday.
We left our home clean but found a LOT to do in the new house. The house was all empty except for quite a bit of dust and grime.Tina said that she had heard of "Dust Bunnies" before, but she encountered a "Dust Monster" left under the bed by the previous owners. The first couple of days we lived among the boxes. The twins slept on mattresses on the floor until we got their bunk beds put together. The animals (two cats and a dog) made the trip fine and did not get lost. The cats helped by sleeping on the new boxes to mark where we had to unpack next.
The house came with some unexpected pluses. The owners left behind an installed video projector, some nice furniture, an above ground pool, and a 750 watt power generator for those days when the power goes out. We have a banana tree and some nice flowers in the back yard too. Very nice.
Christmas Eve came and we had our bathroom, living room and two bedrooms set up. We got a tree and Tina and the girls decorated it nice late last night on Christmas Eve.
Horray! We are celebrating Chistmas today, a bit worn out, but very happily from our new home.
Two college guys, a high school student and a college girl helped us pack up two minivans and move all our furniture, boxes and odd things into our new house. After ten hours and many multiple trips, we called it a day. We were exhausted and treated the crew to a Taco Bell feast.
Tina gave me some Ibuprofen for my back, but besides a lot of sore muscles, I think we didn't suffer any major damage to anybody or anything.
Now for the fun of unpacking and trying to find the coffee...
We are living among and out of our moving boxes in our old house, waiting for the people in our new house to leave. They were having trouble doing this, so we offered to switch houses. They liked the idea. So today, we took the first load of boxes over to our new house. I got some help from some of our Bible college guys, to help them and to speed things along for us. We hope to finish up Monday, the 21.
I don't think the reality of owning a house has sunk in yet. But it does feel pretty good seeing those boxes finally move out the door.
Our new address is:
Steve & Tina Prelgovisk URB SIERRA BAYAMON 33-15 CALLE 31 BAYAMON, PR 00961-4365
Busy week: I graded about 300 student papers and got the progress reports done two days before they came out. We are preparing the house for a move. We hope to sign the closing papers on our new house this coming Friday.
I visit on the weekends with 3 college students and we also are re-starting our youth group, adding a Friday night meeting to our already full week. I am also preparing to teach a new Science class at Puerto Rico Baptist College. It will likely be a Chemistry class that I will teach in Spanish.
My doctor said I should walk an hour a day.
I am not complaining..MOST of it is a lot of fun, or at least exciting. But, I sure would appreciate your prayers for our stamina, energy and wisdom to know when to say no!
I am thinking there is a great deal of wisdom in the old Latino custom of the "Siesta." I believe I will practice some of that cultural wisdom as soon as I can.
Unexpected Fireworks: An Unplanned Revival, a Fire and some Explosions
The week started one of the highest points we have EVER had. It ended with a BANG. Literally!
The Unplanned Revival:
I invited a man I led to the Lord eight years ago, (and baptized, and helped through an Alcohol rehab program, discipled, participated in his wedding, and trained to help in church services, etc) to preach Sunday.
The word got out and many of his friends and relatives came to hear his “debut” as a preacher. Our regular attendance has been in the mid-twenties lately, but shot up to forty for this special day. Well, it was great, more than great. He (Miguel) told of how he lived before, how he met Christ and the difference it made in his life. There were a lot of tears.
He ended by saying, “I will now wait here for the next few moments for anyone who wants to make a decision like I did.” We waited for about two minutes in silence. THREE adults came forward, asking how to be saved! About six more came for prayer. One of the adults was the boyfriend of Miguel’s sister.
What a day! I had them sit in the front pew, opened a bible and showed them all how to accept Christ as their Savior AND THEY DID! After our prayers, we hugged (PuertoRican style). Tears were running down their cheeks. Our church people were defiantly REVIVED. The drive home from church Sunday was filled with animated discussions and praising God for what happened.
The BEST PART of the whole day was that someone I led to the Lord and trained actually preached and won others to the Lord. And did it in our own church! Wohoo! Opps, I mean, “Amen!”
Fireworks: I was up late Thursday night, getting paperwork in order for a house we are trying to buy. I heard and felt a violent BOOM. I thought it was thunder. But it went off about six times and was so violent it felt like someone was shaking your body.
Tina came running out of the bedroom, “That can’t be thunder! What’s going on!”
We put on the radio, fired up the Internet and looked out the windows. We could see towers of flame and thick smoke. It looked like Mt Saint Helens going off. Everybody was calling everybody and guessing about terrorists, meteors, etc.
We got on Google maps and saw a gulf oil refinery tank farm about where the flames were coming from. Sure enough, that’s where it happened. About seven giant oil refinery tanks exploded in a chain reaction. Someone just told me it's up to seventeen now.
Last night five neighborhoods around our Christian school were evacuated for fear the toxic cloud might shift that way sometime today. They are letting it burn itself out. The fire is currently spewing out great cloud of smoke and will likely keep it up for two or three days more.
We are safe right now. But it is hard to plan or even sleep when a change in the wind direction might mean a mass evacuation. We are OK here for the time being, but we have to ready to leave on a seconds notice.
Please pray for us! We like the FIRST kind of fireworks , but the other kind, not so much!
Big bangs shattered windows. Pillars of fire and smoke last night came from giant gas tanks ( the kind bigger than houses) at a Gulf oil refinery exploding. Eleven tanks are in flames. There are 40 tanks in that tank farm, some with jet fuel, others supply the islands electrical system. They are just going to let it burn itself out.
Our school is canceled for today. Stay home kids. Everyone here is safe, we hope you are.
We might have to mass evacuate our neighborhood. The pillars of smoke from the oil refinery fire may descend to ground level during the cool of the night. We may just grab some blankets and food and head to the mountain to avoid the toxic smoke.
11:59PM Fri
Some of my students a few miles north of here were just evacuated to a hotel. We are waiting to see if the police come to our neighborhood. I am canceling visitation tomorrow, as everyone is uncertain about which roads are open, etc. We will try to keep the family together in one spot in case we have to move suddenly.
The house we are trying to get is NOT the auction home we mentioned earlier. We found a better house.
We decided not to go for the auction house because it was too expensive and had some major possible problems (leaky roof, electrical and plumbing etc.) After looking at a few other houses we found one that is a lot nicer and at a better price.
It's a cute white house with a bright blue awning on the porch. The new house has four bedrooms, two bathrooms, great floors, four air conditioning units, ceiling fans, tons of windows for ventilation and natural lighting. It comes with a stainless steel fridge and washing machine. It has a nice landscaped yard with a small above ground pool and fruit trees. The house has been well maintained and has no repairs to make.
The location is ideal. It is on a quiet dead end street and it's a four minute walk from Tina’s work as a cook at the Bible College. The students can come over without us having to go get them in our car also.
It has some unusual extras. The owners are leaving behind a full house generator for when the electricity goes out (regularly), a solar water heater and a cistern. The large carport comes with a surprising feature. It has an outdoor theater projector installed and a 6x4 ft. screen near the back wall, perfect for college classes, church fellowships or just having your own semi-outdoor theater.
The only drawback is the small but very cute kitchen. But Tina says she does 90% of her cooking at the Bible College anyway. We only eat breakfast at home.
The price started at $166,000 a year ago and the buyer agreed to sell it to us for $152,000. We're hoping for a good interest rate from the bank. Our credit score is great. But the question is the down payment and closing costs. The more we put down, the less our monthly payments will be and it will make it easier to qualify for the better interest rate.
We found a very nice home at a good price and are hoping to buy it. We just met the owners and of the house and their real estate agent. It is a lovely home and only a FOUR minute walk from our Bible College.
If you ever thought of helping us financially, now would be a very good time. Gifts received or money lent to us in the next few weeks would lower our monthly payments, and maybe even free us from paying mortgage insurance.
Please consider helping out a little (or a lot) extra right now. An extra gift this month could mean 30 years of saving every month.
This story reminds me of the sacrifices made by Military families:
Four-year old Paige didn't want to say goodbye to her daddy before he was shipped off to Iraq. Paige said later, "I didn't want to let go of him."
No one had the heart to pull her away.The commanding officer allowed Paige to say goodbye as her dad prepared to ship off from Fort Dix. ===
It is a touching story. Families go through this kind of pain because their loved ones go to war.
We Christians are in a great conflict also. We serve a different Commander-in-Chief, but the sacrifices are just as real. Please do not forget your missionaries, as we too have had to leave country and family behind to do our part.
Last week Tina saw a public auction notice on this house two doors down from the house we are renting here in Bayamon. It has been empty for at least a year and a half after being repossessed by the bank. They tried to sell it for $178,000, then lowered it to $160,000 but still couldn't sell it. Now it's up for auction.
Tina has had her eye on this place ever since we moved here a year and a half ago, but it was always out of our price range. Is this auction an opportunity for us to get into home ownership? Or could it be a house that falls apart and costs you a fortune in repairs, like in the movies?
On the positive side, the house is huge for Puerto Rico (2,311 sq. ft.). It's really a house with two apartments in the back so it has five bedrooms and four bathrooms (3/2 in the main house, 2/1 in one apartment and 1/1 in the other). The two bedroom apartment is bigger than the house we are living in now! We could even rent out rooms to some of our college students or teachers.
We had no problem getting pre-approved for the home loan. What we need now is the $10,000 for the down payment. PLEASE PRAY that the Lord will show us if this is the right path for us and that the funds needed for the down payment will be provided.
I think we really are making some good progress down here. We have:
Progress in our Church We painted the church basement and are close to finishing up. Thank you, Alpine Baptist youth group and Pastor Scott Florida from Michigan. Now we are almost ready to move our small Sunday School down there. Now we can work on making our small Sunday School into a BIG Sunday school.
We are training 3 new students this year in our church. They doing visitation with us, teaching, helping with the music and doing a lot of the painting. They are: Jose Ivan, a Mexican from the San Fransico area; Laura, from the cloud-forests of Colombia; and Ashley, from Mexico.
Progress in Our College I am taking our Christian education majors from Puerto Rico Baptist College in everyday to a Christian school for teaching experience. Tina is cooking for the college this year. We get free lunches! Yeah!
Progress in Our Family Our 17 year old twin daughters are doing great in our revamped homeschooling. And our granddaughter is getting cuter every day. Our Oldest daughter Bethany is preparing for her Masters degree art show in Pensacola, and we will proudly attend. They are good kids, getting smarter and better looking every day.
I think that is enough to make anybody feel like they are making some progress. It works for me!
It is important for the students at Puerto Rico Baptist College to have social outings, work projects and group activities that involve helping others. One of these activities provided by the college is called "Soul Winning Day."
All the students, plus our 17 year old twins, Sarah and Kristin, went and participated in this just a few days ago. They all got in the student van and went to a small church pastored by Rosendo, a young Mexican student I trained and who served as my assistant pastor for 2 years. There they passed out tracts and invited people to the church. It was a great experience for everyone. Sarah and Kristin had a great time, Rosendo's church got some help and the college kids got the satisfaction of helping a fellow student.
The picture is of another outing we had, but it gives you an idea of how full and how fun the van can get!
I confess, Sarah and Kristin's attitude toward all this was my main concern. I am happy my daughters enjoyed serving others and got a little appreciation for what their dad does during the week.
Early in the mornings and late in the afternoon, I fill my van with student teachers. I take a group of six of our Puerto Rico Baptist college kids to a Christian school so they can get experience teaching. It is a lot of fun to hear their excitement, eagerness and youthful kidding during our daily commute. It is a real trill to walk on that campus with students I have personally taught and see them go and teach others.
Saturdays, I take three of them to visit with me for our church. Sundays, the same three go with me to teach Sunday School, help with the song service or fill in where needed.
So our we keep our car busy hauling college kids all week long. We enjoy them when we they are with us. We are proud of them too. Great job guys! Keep up the good work!
The electricity has been going out a lot lately. I don't mind getting out the candles and the Coleman lantern that much. It is kind of adventurous and reminds me of camping out.
What I DO mind is trying to work and sleep in Puerto Rican heat and humidity with no fans, no ice and no cold drinks. Sleeping in damp sheets is no fun. One or to days of this is tolerable. But once we we without electricity for AN ENTIRE MONTH.
We are thinking of getting a power generator, but they run around $800. I guess we will just have to sweat it out and be philosophical about it.
We are thinking of getting some sort of emergency food supply for those long power outages. I came across "Canned Bacon" the other day, but I think we will just stick with extra tuna fish cans for the time being.
Thank you to those of you who prayed for us and expressed concern about the approach of TROPICAL STORM ANA and HURRICANE BILL. Just a few days ago, the weather forecast had them heading straight for Puerto Rico.
We felt like the number one pin in the bowling alley watching these big monsters rolling towards us. But little by little, like bowling balls that curve away just inches before a strike, these storms veered away; ANA to the south and BILL to the north.
The good news is, they missed us. Hurray! The bad news is, many people had to prepare for the storms they didn't know were going to miss us. So, we missed some key people Sunday. But we got through the week, thankful for being spared a very nasty encounter with HURRICANE BILL.
It has been very hot here lately. The heat index (opposite the "wind chill" index) has been 100 or more almost all week. It seems odd that at night, when the temperature drops to 75-80, we feel cool.
We keep working, visiting, teaching and preaching. Tina is cooking in a hot kitchen at Puerto Rico Baptist College during the day. We try to find ways to keep cool. But we are happy in our work and feel blessed. We are content to sweat a little to get the job done here in Puerto Rico.
Saturday evening, the weather charts had THREE hurricane/storms heading directly for Puerto Rico. A lot of panic ensued and a good number of people in our church stayed home to prepare.
Even though we had low attendence today, there was a good spirit in the service. The non-Christian brother of a member came and seemed to enjoy the service.
The funeral home down the block had a large funeral at the same time as our service and their music blasted over some big speakers for the entire neighborhood to hear. It was tough singing in competition with that, so we just had one song and went right into the sermon.
The people hung around for about an hour after the service and we enjoyed fellowship with them all.
Three storms looking to become hurricanes are in the North Atlantic. Ana, Bill and an unnamed one. Already I am getting calls of people not coming to church to prepare for a possible hit.
Ana looks like it will hit us head on.
Bill looks like it might just miss us to the North, but it could be trouble if it hits us.
Visiting people on an island suggests the idea and usefulness of a boat. But our island is so big (35 x 113 miles: Population 4 Million) that there is enough for us to do without visiting the more inaccessible places by boat.
We use what we have, but could use better equipment to extend our ministry.
We are happy, for example, to work with 3x5 cards and rubberbands. But being supplied with some better technology, such as an Iphone account and phone, wouldn't hurt either
The better equipped we are, the better we can serve. It can be fun being creative, but there is a lot to said for doing a quality job with the right kind of tools.
I just got some lab results back from my physical exam. For the most part, they look pretty good. The doctor said the EKG was perfect, BUT the blood sugar test result suggests I may be heading for the "pre-diabetic" zone, if I don't make some changes.
I like change and challenges, but...I also like those Reese's Peanut Butter Cups as well. I guess I will have to develop some new habits. We have already begun making some new patterns. Tina and I are walking more and plan to add more walks to our schedules every week.
I had some great news and some potentially bad news today.
The great news:
1. I spoke with a 16 year old young man named Peter today for about an hour in his home. He shared some of his problems and I shared some of my life experience and we read together what the Bible said about it all.
After reading a number of scriptures, Peter asked to accept Christ as his Savior. We prayed and he did! Peter then said he would be in church Sunday and offered to help as needed in our church.
2. There is an unemployed college age young lady named Michelle in our church that needs some financial help. I needed help advertising our upcoming VBS. I thought, well, maybe we can help each other. She came by the church today with her mother and I offered her the job of passing out advertisements 3 hours a day for the VBS.
She said "Yes."
When I left town a few hours later, I saw her and her boyfriend going door to door passing out the pamphlets. It encouraged me to see them helping us by "walking the walk" and not just "talking the talk."
The Bad news.
Peter's mother came home just after I prayed with him and told me that she had a bad day at work. She works with the Health dept and said there was a Swine Flue panic in town today. She said 300 people came in all at once for help, shots or information. Apparently, a women who works at a local restaurant might have got it, so all the town was in an uproar. Two people just died of this recently here, so they were pretty exited about it.
I was suddenly afraid how this might affect us. I thought, "Well maybe this will hurt our VBS." But then I remembered that God has asked us to sow and to serve, it is His job to grant the increase. Some other scripture came to mind: Prov 3:25 "Be not afraid of sudden fear..."
So...should we rejoice or worry? I think we should do the following:
We will visit and enable others to visit. We will prepare as well as we can. We also will come with paint, sandpaper and brushes. If the kids come, we will have a great VBS. If they don't, well, we already have seen results in our visitation and will get out those paint cans and make something happen for the good of the church one way or another.
We get a lot of questions about the heat and humidity. Here is a little Q&A on this popular topic.
Q: Is it hard to work in the tropical heat and humidity of the Caribbean?
A. Well, living in the heat of the tropics in a concrete house can really sap your energy. But we have found ways to get the job done, regardless.
Q: Why not just use air-conditioning?
A: I wish we could. But in Puerto Rico, all the electricity comes from gas fed turbine generators, and is VERY expensive. One small room air conditioner all the time can raise the electric bill $200 a month. At our current support level, the cost of cooling the house is just too much
Q: How do you cope with the heat then?
A: We do have some strategies to keep tolerably cool. We have lots of fans and two small air conditioners for the bedrooms. When the heat and humidity get really unbearable, Tina goes into the smallest bedroom, sets the air conditioner to about 78, puts the Algebra books on the bed and homeschools Sarah and Krisitn in there.
We drink a lot of ice filled drinks. I mix diet Sprite and grapefruit juice or get some Crystal Lite Ice Tea mixes. Peach Tea and Green Tea/Mango are my favorites.
Some days it is too hot to study at home, so we might go to the food court of a mall for a break in the heat of the afternoon and study or do things there.
Keeping things dry is a challenge. Many things, like flour or pancake mix go into the frig so the heat and moisture won't hatch out weevils.
Q: Is it always so hot?
A: No, usually it is plenty warm here, but there are a few month where we begin thinking of the beach or some games involving water. When it gets REALLY hot, games like this begin sounding like a good idea.
Here is a game I learned from our camp councilors:
Water Balloon Relay:
Fill a kiddie pool with water and different color water balloons. Put an empy can under a plastic chair with slats in it.
1. Bob for a water balloon. 2. Run to a chair. 3. Sit on water balloon 4. Run back and tag a team member 4. Continue until one team fills the can and wins the relay.
We are hosting a BBQ for the 4th of July for a few fellow church planters and some Puerto Rican pastors.
We do something like this once a month to encourage new pastors. But I think we get as much or more out of it than they do. When things get discouraging in a new work, there is nothing like hearing good reports regarding a church that was planted from a pastor whom we helped succeed.
But meetings like this also mean cleaning the bbq grill, spring cleaning the house, painting, decorating and yard work. Between visitation, VBS and fellowship preparations, we are getting quite a workout. I guess I shouldn't complain. At least being active in the ministry saves us the cost of a Gym membership!
