Joel's Birthday and One year with Sofia

 We are grateful for our kids. I have recently been pondering this passage from Psalm 127 vs 3-4 "Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them." I am grateful for quiver full we have. We are trying to continually learn what it looks like to prepare them to be send out like an arrow to make an impact in this world for the Kingdom of God.

This past month we had a couple of celebrations with our kids. First it was Joel's 13th birthday. We always have a special weekend with our boys when they hit 13 to begin teaching them what it looks like to be a man and how to live in this world as a young man and all its challenges.

It is hard to believe that Sofia has been with us a year as well. She is full of energy and life. She will soon turn 4 as well. She has changed so much in the last year. We are grateful that she is part of our family. It has not all been easy but we are grateful for her and excited for how the Lord is going to use her life!

Sofia is definitely a daddy's girl.

They love to swing outside.

The girls love to go to daddy's office and play.

Thanks for praying for our kids!

   

Helping others follow Jesus...

 One thing we have focused on here in Guatemala since day one is discipleship. We are trying to help people know and follow Jesus. This happens through a process most of us call discipleship. This has been the main focus and work of Iglesia Nueva Vida. Our desire is not just to help people know Jesus but also teach them to help others to know and follow Jesus and multiply the effort.

This has been happening and working. We work in coordination with New Life Network and we have partnered to start 9 discipleship groups that are going through an 18 month discipleship process in which they not only learn the fundamentals of the faith but also how to reproduce themselves in others. 

We recently had a retreat where we trained 20 more discipleship leaders. Please pray for these current and future disciplers. We planted some seeds that we know will bear much fruit in the future.

It is very exciting to think about these groups and leaders and future leaders of groups that in a year or two will be at least double and then continue to multiply from there. To God be the Glory!

Every Tuesday night we gather with our leaders for prayer and training too.

More Life Renovation...

 At our church plant we are in a series on Nehemiah that we are calling, "Called to Renovate." Nehemiah renovated the walls around Jerusalem but we are all called and invited into the renovation process God does in and through us. 

We have seen him do just this as over the last month we have seen 5 more people make public professions of faith through baptisms. Please celebrate with us and pray for Blanca, Hillary, Allison, Sergio and Guicho. Blanca is Hillary and Allison's Mother. God is changing whole families!

Here is a recent discipleship retreat we did as well where the Lord was working in hearts and lives as we talked about themes like forgiveness, temptation and how to live the new life in Christ.

Thanks for continuing to pray for New Life Church Guatemala!

 

Happy 3rd Anniversary to New Life Church!

 

We are grateful for the Lord's goodness in allowing New Life Church of Guatemala to complete 3 years of ministry! We have seen about 50 decisions for Jesus and 40 baptisms in these 3 years. We have over 50 people in our discipleship groups and we are finishing our membership process. 

Our band, when we started we used youtube worship songs ;-)

To God be the glory!

Family Pics January 2021

 

While Levi was here we had some family pictures taken. Its not easy to get everyone to smile but they turned out pretty good.

Levi's Birthday and Visit

 We are grateful that our son Levi and Janet (Jennifer's Mom) could visit us recently. Them being able to come was an answer to prayer. Janet contracted coronavirus 3 weeks before their trip. But praise God that she recovered and no one else in the household got sick. (Levi lives with her and her husband Tony) 

We had a good time with them celebrating Christmas, New Years and Levi's Birthday. 

We played lots of games..the question we asked every night after dinner was, "What are we playing?"

Hard to believe that Levi turned 18! We have two adult children. I guess that means we are getting old.

We had some pics taken while Levi was here...more to come.

Got to hang with some friends day after Christmas!

Levi bribing for kisses

It was nice to worship with all of the family even if we had to wear masks!

Had to sneak in cute pic of Grace!

Boys hanging out with the girls. They do a great job loving and taking care of them.

The whole crew...thanks to a generous Christmas gift from a friend we were able to take a trip to a local amusement park.

Jennifer and her mom.

We are grateful for family and the precious time we have with them which is not as much as we would like, but we take what we can get.

New Life Church Update

 God has been good in 2020 and He continues to use NLC Guatemala to see lives transformed. Even in the midst of the challenges that 2020 brought we saw God change lives. We had a dozen people say yes to Jesus and 11 people take the important step of faith of baptism. Here are some pictures of some of the great things happening at NLC.

Below is one of our discipleship groups that has grown this year and several are taking steps of faith.

This is a family that we visited and God is working in their family! The two girls in the middle were baptized this year.

These are a few of the baptisms this year.

We are so grateful for how God continues to work! Please pray for New Life Church. Right now we are in the process of starting membership and establishing more organization to prepare for future growth and multiplication.

This was the membership class we had yesterday.