PRAYER REQUESTS

• Please pray for us as we work to finalize plans for our summer mission teams that begin arriving on June 4^th. From June 4^th until July 23^rd we will have non-stop mission teams visiting. It takes a lot of time and effort to make all of the plans and reservations for 6 teams.
• Please continue to pray for two unreached communities named Mezcalillo and Arcamón. God is opening doors in both communities (see Praises below) but there still remains much work to do.
• Please pray for Jean and I as we prepare to speak at a special church service on April 27^th for the women of Caiquin, and pray that through us all of the women have a personal encounter with the Lord.
• Please pray for the first church service in Arcamón on the evening of April 28^th. There is not a church building so we think the service will be in somebody’s home but we don’t have all of the details yet; Pastor Jorge is putting this together and will be leading the service.
• Please pray for wisdom as we share, and for people to be receptive to the message of love, forgiveness, and salvation available through Jesus Christ.
• Please pray against a spirit of fear that controls a lot of people we meet. Many people hear the truth and know they need to make a change but they are afraid for lots of different reasons. The reasons aren’t that important, just that they find courage and strength to not be scared or intimidated by others.
• Please pray for the Lord to give us His wisdom as we explore working more closely with one of the other missionaries in the area. Update, it seems that the Lord is opening this door because we have started to coordinate efforts in a couple of areas and it looks like it is going to work out well. There is a lot of work to do here so it will take all of us, and we want to make sure it is the Lord bringing us together with this particular missionary and his family.
• Please continue to pray for our Spanish language skills, and that we will make the time daily to study. We both are making progress and we are confident that this will be the year that our Spanish skills increase exponentially.
• **Please pray for our residency again** Because of a mistake that was made we were only given one year of residency which expires at the end of May 2016. The renewal process is not supposed to be as difficult or lengthy as the initial application, and the process is underway, so please pray that we get at least two more years of residency by the end of May.
• Please pray for the continued encouragement from our friends and family in the states. It is amazing what a blessing it is to receive even a short note from loved ones.
• Please pray for us to have wisdom and discernment to know what projects and ministries the Lord wants us to participate in and which ones we should leave alone. There are so many opportunities that it can be overwhelming trying to know how to choose. This is still an important request since we have more projects than we have resources for at the moment.
• Please pray as the Spirit leads for the following pastors, their families, and the churches represented: Pastor Wilmer (San Pedro Sula), Pastor Emilio (La Campa), Pastor Jose Maria (Santa Teresa), Pastor Arturo (Gracias), Pastor Samuel (Mataras), Pastor Roberto (Gracias), Pastor Modesto (Gracias), Pastor Marco Tulio (Cruz Alta), Pastor Amilcar (Monqueta), Pastor Rosita (Gilguarapez), Pastor Jorge (Caiquin) and Pastor Marco Antonio (Olominas), and two new pastors we’ve recently started working with-Pastor Lorenzo Mateo (La Meande) and Pastor Arnoldo (Coalaca).
• Finances (see praise below). Our financial support is coming in very strongly, but after finishing our income taxes recently we’ve also just experienced the impact of having to pay the self employment tax (SS and Medicare), so this expense needs to be an addition to our monthly budget going forward.
• Please pray for our personal prayer lives to grow stronger and stronger. We can run around and do a lot of things, but without prayer we will not bear lasting spiritual fruit.
• Please pray that we don’t neglect to maintain our relationships in the midst of doing ministry, the most important one being with our Lord, then with each other, then with our friends and family, while we continue to establish ourselves and our ministry in Honduras.
• Please continue to pray for our short term mission teams who are preparing to minister with us this year. Three teams have already been here; there are 6 more coming this summer, and one or two more coming this fall.
• Please pray for our faith to stay strong, and grow even stronger, for continued protection from spiritual attack, and for strength when the attacks do come.
• Please pray for us to be bold and courageous, to not miss any opportunities to glorify God, and to draw people closer to Jesus.
• Please pray for wisdom in determining what to do with the rest of our “stuff” in the U.S. While visiting last fall we went through quite a bit of it and were able to organize some of it so that our mission teams can bring some things down here for us this year. While sorting through it we were reminded of why we did not get rid of these things before we left, and we realized these things would really help transition our house into feeling even more like home if we could get it here. But if we can’t get it here we’ll need to make some decisions soon because it does not make sense to keep paying for storage. While not consuming our thoughts this is still a situation that needs to be resolved this year.
• Please pray for our families who are in the U.S. There are situations that are challenging, and some more so with us being here and them being there.

 PRAISES

We have lots of praises this month to share with you!

• Praise God for an amazing start to 2016. We just finished up with our third mission team for this year and the Lord is blessing our efforts greatly. With these teams we have been visiting in several communities sharing the gospel and love of Christ. We have been welcomed into every home that we have visited.
• Praise God for 2 new church buildings, thanks to our friends from KY!
• Mezcalillo Update: Along with our friends from KY we did a 2 day medical clinic (or brigada en español) and nearly 80 people accepted Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior. In addition to the family we met on our first visit in January it appears that God is moving very quickly to establish a church in this previously unreached community.
• Arcamón Update: Jean and I spent another day in Arcamón with Pastor Jorge (from Caiquin) and about 20 or so others from his church. We visited many homes and shared the truth of the gospel with many people. We helped one young woman named Rosa to become a Christian, and the Lord revealed to us two families of believers in Arcamón who are ready to see an evangelical church form in their community. We are going with Pastor Jorge to have the first church service with these families, and any others who want to join us on April 28^th.
• Praise God for a new believer named Rosa in Arcamón, and the other new believers listed on the February prayers and praises, and for all of the new believers in Mezcalillo (see above).
• Praise God for the 6 summer mission teams coming to minister with us this June and July. We are so thankful that He is opening doors for us so quickly and we are excited about the ministry God has for us this year.
• Praise God for getting to meet some of the other missionaries serving near us and in different parts of the country. And praise God for the two organizations we have joined recently called Networking Honduras and Honduran Fellowship of Missionaries and Ministries. There is still so much work to do in Honduras and in order to get it done we will have to work together and these organizations make it easier to work together.
• We continue to receive encouragement from so many of our friends, praise God for the encouragement from our brothers and sisters in Christ.
• For the continued faithfulness of our God to provide for our needs through our friends and partner churches who faithfully and generously support our ministry.
• Praise God for the great friends He has brought into our lives in La Campa, San Pedro Sula, and El Progresso. We are especially thankful for Pastor Emilio and his family, the Perez family, Pastor Wilmer and his family, and Tony, Juanita, and Rommel-our Hotel Plaza Victoria family in El Progresso.
  
• Praise God for all of our prayer supporters because we can’t do what we do effectively without the prayer support of all of you.
• Praise God for all of the little things we learn almost daily about life in La Campa and Honduras. It is so much easier to be effective when you know the rules.
• Praise God for a generous financial gift that allows us to help with three different construction\ministry projects. This gift was given by a man simply because he heard reports about what God is doing in and around La Campa and decided that he wanted to be a part of it.