Merry Christmas!

Hi everyone! I love this day! Christmas eve was always one of my favorite days as a child. Maybe even better than Christmas day! As an adult and as a missionary our traditions have changed quite a bit. We were looking forward to going to a church tonight and "blending in." However, when Greg told the pastor we would be coming, Greg became the guest speaker. Poor guy, NEVER gets to hear a sermon, he always has to give it. Anyway, we are going to make the most of it and we look forward to taking some of our friends with us tonight.

My mother-in-law and nephew will be coming on Friday and we cannot wait for this! Because of the arrival of family, Santa has delayed his visit to San Lorenzo until Saturday morning. So our "true" Christmas eve won't be until Friday night. That is definitely one of the perks of living in another country! We can plan Christmas day to fit our schedule. (Christmas day here in the village, is really just another day) Annie is beside herself with excitement and cannot wait to see what Santa is going to bring her. This is the first year she has really caught on to the idea of Christmas. Of course I am not sure who she wants to see more, Santa or Grandma! I think Grandma!

I just want you all to know that we wish each of you the very Merriest Christmas!! You are all so precious to us and we feel truly blessed that we have people like you following our ministry, praying for our friends, praying for our family, giving financially and simply being our friends! We would like to thank the International Mission Board for the way they support us. Without the givings of the Southern Baptist Churches, without the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and the Cooperative Program, we wouldn't have all of the blessings we have. We wouldn't have good insurance, a good car, a nice home, toys under the tree, and many other wonderful blessings. They really do take care of us and this inables us to be able to reach our people group without having to worry about our next paycheck! So if you are a part of any of these givings, you are a part of keeping us on the field, and for that, we will forever be grateful! Thank you all for making this one of the very best Christmases we have ever had! We pray you will find yourselves equally blessed throughout this year and into next! God bless you all!

Long day!

Hello everyone! We started the day off at the funeral of "grandma." We arrived a little late, but it turned out to be for the best. We missed all of the strange rituals they do and got to pray with Barbara at the grave. Barbara was doing well and holding up incredibly considering she didn't sleep all night long. Her sisters ( she is one of 9 and has 1 brother) were all criticizing her and trying to provoke a fight. They are all mad at her because she has forgiven her uncle and they think that is wrong.
Her uncle was soooo sad. He was all alone. No one wanted to even get near him. Greg walked with him for almost a mile, just the two of them. They talked about God and His forgiveness and David (the uncle) told Greg he wanted to start coming to our meetings. He said he used to hang out with some "brothers" (meaning Christians) and he thought he would like to do that again. Please pray for him. He has a long road ahead of him. He has been a very strong alcoholic and for him to leave this behind will take a miracle! The custom here is to mourn the death of a loved one for 7 days. So... he will be faced with drinking for at least the next 7 days.

We had our meeting tonight and bless Barbara's heart, after not sleeping all last night and all day today, she still came tonight to tell everyone how God was working and to ask for prayer for her uncle. She is SO precious! I was so proud of her today, she thought of how God would view every one of her actions! I am sure He was proud of her too!
We had a great Christmas celebration tonight and our numbers continue to grow. God is moving! Please continue to pray for us! We love you!

Please Pray!

Barbara's grandma died yesterday. ( the one who had been beat by her son) The funeral is in a few minutes. Please pray there are no problems! There is a lot of hate toward the son because he ultimately caused her death. He has been very repentant, but we fear their will be a lot of problems. Please pray for Barbara, she feels Satan is attacking her from every corner. (she was the one who was recently baptized) More later!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! I am sorry I haven't posted anything for a few days. I have been a little under the weather and really haven't had much to tell. But... I am doing much better and thought I should give all of you faithful readers, something to read! ;o)
Monday night went well. We are still praying for our friend and recovering alcoholic, Salvador. He has stopped coming to our meetings. His wife, Angelica said that he is finding it too hard to leave all of the customs of their people behind. At this time of year there are MANY customs that are against the Bible's teachings. Please pray for this family as they are struggling in many ways.
On the bright side, we are finding that many of our new believers have committed to leave behind these customs. This is an extremely hard thing for them to do and there is a lot of pressure from their family and friends to participate in these rituals. Please pray that God would bless them for leaving behind these different customs to follow Him.
We are trying to offer them other ways to celebrate during this holiday season. So we will be having a special night on December 29th in honor of the birth of Jesus.We are very excited about being able to give each one of the children who have been coming on Monday night, a shoebox filled with gifts. We have about 35 shoeboxes that we will distribute during this celebration! That is one of the perks of living in another country, we don't have to end the celebration on the 25. Please pray that we have enough shoeboxes for everyone and that they will see this as a celebration of the birth of Christ and not just another ritual. We thank you for your prayers! God bless all of you!

Barbara being baptized

Baptism went great!

Hi everyone,

We had a great day yesterday! The baptism went great! It was a little different since the only place we could find to do it was about an hour and a half away. There are places here, but it is sooo cold that it would have been torture! So, we went on a day trip and had a blast. Barbara and Icho shared their hearts with us throughout the day and Icho mentioned that he too felt like he should be baptized but just wasn't ready. We are so thankful to all of you for your continued prayer support! It means the world to us! I will keep trying to upload a picture of the wonderful event!

If you are sending Christmas cards and are looking for our address somewhere, you won't find it. We have no mailing address. However, if you are interested in sending one you can send them to my mother-in-law's address and she can bring them to us when she comes in a few weeks. Just email me for the address and I will send it to you. Thanks again for your prayers! Missy and family

Baptism

Well, just like most things in our life, our plans for the baptism have been changed. Due to a conflict in schedules we had to change the day for the baptism. So... we are heading out tomorrow, Wednesday at 9 am for Barbara's baptism. Please pray everything goes well and we all have a great day. I will do my best to post some photos tomorrow night. Thanks for lifting us up! Missy