PRAYER REQUESTS

• Please pray for us as we work to finalize plans for our summer mission teams that begin arriving on June 18^th. From June 18^th until July 16th we will have non-stop mission teams visiting.
• Please continue to pray for two un-reached 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 two more communities we’ve recently learned of with no evangelical church or outreach taking place, Nuevo Cedros (we’ve visited briefly earlier this year), and Poso Verde.
• Please pray specifically for Jean’s mom who is 87 years old and recently had two strokes. At the same time please join us in praising God for a quicker and much better recovery than we imagined possible at the time the strokes occurred. She has been moved into a nursing home where her recovery is continuing. She will need to work hard with therapy to recover enough to be able to return to her home. But even then she will require some home health care services. Please pray for a spirit of acceptance and cooperation. Please also pray for Jean and me during this time because Jean is spending time in the U.S. helping her mom while Greg is in Honduras keeping the ministry and coffee business moving forward.
• 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 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 this month. 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. **Residency Update** We were granted temporary papers extending our residency for another 90 days beyond May 29^th while our paperwork for the next two years of residency is being processed. Please pray that the paperwork gets processed and that we receive our residency cards for the next two years quickly so we can put this behind us and keep moving forward in other areas.
• 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), Pastor Walterio Cruz (Tegucigalpa), and two new pastors we’ve recently started working with-Pastor Lorenzo Mateo (La Meande) and Pastor Arnoldo (Coalaca).
• Finances (see praise below). Please pray for our financial support to continue coming in strongly and consistently.
• 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 3 more coming this summer, and one or two more coming this fall. **Update, although we don’t understand what the Lord is up to we trust Him knowing that He has all knowledge, and perfect knowledge. We’ve had three of our six teams who were planning to come down this summer cancel for various reasons. There is a small team coming in August that developed a few weeks ago, and there is the possibility for another team to come down later this year. So we are not discouraged although we’d be lying if we said we don’t wonder from time to time about this 
• 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 our families who are in the U.S. There are situations that are challenging, and perhaps a little more so with us being here and them being there.
• On a somewhat serious, but not as serious as other requests, please pray for our first garden. We started out small and planted some yellow squash, okra, honeydew melon, watermelon, cucumber, and sunflowers this year. On a more serious and related note, please pray that the rains continue sufficiently so everyone’s corn and beans will do well so that people have enough food to eat this year.
• Prayer and Praise: We received 30 cases of dehydrated, nutritionally fortified food from our friends at Networking Honduras to help people who are hungry. We’ve distributed some of this food in Mataras. Arcamón, and La Campa and we still have more to give out. Please pray for the families receiving this food, that not only does it meet their physical need, but that it also is a way that they learn about the God who cares about them and desires to meet their spiritual needs too.
  

PRAISE:

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

• Mezcalillo Update: God, through the ministry of the Hoy Spirit, is continuing to move and work in Mezcalillo. We had our first church service at the house of Gloria Marina and her family (this is the family God revealed to us during a day of home visits in January) recently. Pastor Samuel and several people from Mataras joined us, along with several other people from Mezcalillo. That day we learned that there is a piece of property that will be donated for the construction of the new church when the time comes.
• Arcamón Update: We had a great afternoon of visits on April 28^th and did in fact have church service that evening in the center of town outside the community center. Many people from the community were there and the gospel of Jesus was proclaimed for all to hear. There were not any conversions that we know of that night but praise God for the opportunity, and pray for us to continue to serve Him there in faith, knowing that the time will come for people to begin following Jesus.
• The church service Jean and I spoke at in Caiquin on April 27^th went very well. Praise God for a man who came forward and chose to become a follower of Jesus Christ. A community leader from Caiquin visited for the first time that night and came forward requesting prayer for her family. We do not believe she is a follower of Jesus so praise God for her visit and pray to God for her and her family.
• 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 3 confirmed summer mission teams coming to minister with us this June and July, and the one or two other teams that may develop in late July and August. We are so thankful for all of our short term mission teams who come and serve with us.
• Praise God for the completion of the new Torre Fuerte building and the beautiful dedication service that we got to participate in at the end of April. It is such an honor for us to be a part of what is happening in Torre Fuerte. It is also humbling to learn of the history of this church, the faithful believers who have contributed so much to the legacy of this church, and for us to have the privilege of sowing and harvesting alongside our Torre Fuerte brothers and sisters, and also so many friends from the U.S. who have sown far more than we into the life of Torre Fuerte.
• Praise God for our friends Alan and Don who were able to bring several bags of things down for us earlier this month. Besides the positive economic impact of not having to replace these things by purchasing them here it is such a pleasant surprise to receive familiar items from our previous home. It’s funny, in a good way, the good memories that come to mind as you unpack something familiar from a different place that you have not seen in a while.
• We continue to receive encouragement from so many of our friends, praise God for the encouragement from our brothers and sisters in Christ.
• Praise God for His continued faithfulness to provide for our needs through our friends and partner churches that 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 J
• Praise God for a generous financial gift that allows us to help with five 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. **Update**Praise God that the four construction projects are all in process right now, this money is helping to fund construction of church bathrooms in Caiquin and Mataras, pouring a concrete floor in the church on Olo Minas, and construction of a Sunday school classroom for the children in Cruz Alta. There were also some funds to put towards new seating in Torre Fuerte, our home church in La Campa.
• Praise God for four straight days with rain, our garden is looking healthy, the mountains are turning green again after a very, very dry year so far, and our first rain barrel is already full of water for our garden and flowers.