Even though it has only been a couple of months since our last newsletter much has happened. Please read below for details.

Praises

• God is answering prayers in regards to our monthly financial support. With some new supporters who have come on board recently we have reached 90% of our budgeted expenses. Thank you God, and thank you to all of you who are faithfully supporting us financially. Without your assistance we could not go and serve in Honduras full time.
• In addition to the financial support our prayer support is growing too. Our network now includes people from different churches in middle Georgia. Thanks CTM!
• In March God granted us favor and opened up a new door of opportunity for us with another pastor near La Campa. This new relationship has greatly increased opportunities to minister with and to more Lenca Indians in southwest Honduras.
• For our home and small group training center in La Campa that is nearly complete. God has blessed us with a beautiful spot to live and serve in the mountains of southwest Honduras.

Prayers

• Our residency paperwork is stalled somewhere between our attorney and the government and we can’t seem to get straight answers. Please pray for a major breakthrough so that we can receive our residency papers right away. We can legally go to Honduras without the residency papers and live there on temporary visas but it is much more convenient to have the residency papers.
• Language skills. It has been very difficult to make time to study and practice Spanish with all of the other demands we have on us while in the U.S. preparing to leave for Honduras. Please pray that we will be able to make time for this so that we can at least increase our language skills at least a little more before we get there.
• The biggest demand on our time right now is sorting and organizing our “stuff”, trying to determine what we can take to Honduras or dispose of otherwise.Please pray for wisdom and the ability to know what to keep and what to let go.
• Please pray for us to have joy and peace during our time of preparation during the rest of April and May. Please pray for us to have special and meaningful time with our friends and family before we leave the states on May 30th.
• Please pray for our “new” families and friends that the Lord has already blessed us with in Honduras.
• Please pray as the Spirit leads for the following pastors and their families in Honduras: Pastor Wilmer (San Pedro Sula), Pastor Emilio (La Campa), Pastor Jose Maria (Santa Teresa), Pastor Arturo (Gracias), Pastor Samuel (Mataras), and Pastor Chebo (Cruz Alta).
• Finances (see praise above). While our financial support is coming in very strongly we haven’t quite hit our monthly budget. Please pray for us to receive more if we need more or to recognize that we have what we need.
• Please pray that we don’t neglect to maintain our relationships, the most important one being with our Lord, then with each other, then with our friends and family, during this super busy time of getting ready to go.

Other Updates

We had a great time of ministry with the team from Kentucky in early March. They expanded on the opportunity we have to teach English in the schools using Bible stories. In addition to that they worked on two construction projects. They helped Pastor Jose Maria and the church in Chimis Mataras build three new Sunday school classrooms for the children. This is the same community where we helped start a brand new church in 2012. It is exciting to help the church take a big step towards training the next generation. They also broke ground on a small cabin on our property in La Campa where pastors and their families or other visitors, like our friends from the U.S. 🙂 can stay when visiting us.

We have made a lot of progress going through all of our “stuff”. As of this newsletter we are better than 50% of the way through sorting, organizing, and disposing of things. Some things will be taken down to Honduras gradually, some things are being put into storage for a short time until we are sure what we want to do with them, some things are being donated, and some things will be sold at our yard sale on May 15th & 16th. If you’d like to come see us at the yard sale send us an email, hines@fmusa.org, and we’ll give you details.

We are looking forward to some domestic travel in May before we leave. We have friends and family in Illinois, Kentucky, south Georgia and north Florida we are planning to see before we go. We are also trying to spend as much time with friends and family in the north Georgia area too.

Hopefully this will make it to Honduras!

The guys from KY working hard on the guest cabin.

New Sunday school classrooms in Chimis Mataras.