 Things are moving along here without a lot of news to report. Much of what we are doing at this time is simply laying the groundwork for our future ministry.
Discipleship Groups
We have broken up the youth discipleship groups into six smaller groups. The groups we had were too large and attendance was not consistent.
Tim is will be leading a small group on Wednesday evenings of the leaders who will then teach their small group throughout the week. Tim is also preparing study sheets for the discussions and devotional guides for the kids to use during the week.
Teacher Training
Tim is working on a teacher training seminar that he will lead for those who are involved in teaching and preaching in the local churches. Most of these people have had little training, and when they stand up to teach or preach, they are really lost, as are most of the listeners.
Truck
 We have the truck back from the mechanic and it runs pretty well, but it is an old truck. We got a very good price on it and we will just plan to replace a lot of the older components on it as we go on. Tim took it out driving yesterday and it was an experience. The shifter is very sloppy and hard to get into first and second gear, but we are getting there.
House
The house is coming slowly. The big part now is simply putting all the new columns in the walls. The existing structure was not built well, so we are putting almost 30 columns in (8 by 10 inches by 20 ft tall) and footings at the bottom of each column one cubic yard.
We have the wood to form the second floor and hope to start that part in a week or so. We  are trying to get another load of rock and sand, without having to go to Managua for it.
The problem is that the sand around here has salt in it and will rot the rebar in 10-20 years, so we get the stuff that costs about 2-3 times as much. The extra cost is in bringing it in from Rama.
The guys tell me that this will be one of the two strongest buildings in Bluefields. That is fine with me because hurricanes hit this place on a regular basis and we don't want the house to fall down.
Our Kids
We appreciate your continued prayer for both of our kids as we are so far away. Jonathan has gotten a new apartment in Mesquite and really likes it. His job seems to be going quite well.
 We have talked to Jason a couple of times. He is in boot camp in GA right now. We had no way to communicate with him for the first month and that was hard on him, but he is able to call us now using a calling card and we have ways to send him letters and books so that is better.
He is doing well. He is reading his Bible regularly, and had had a lot of discussions with his fellow soldiers about Christianity.
Jason graduates from boot camp on April 17th and we are planning to go there to spend some time with him. We are not sure what the rest of our agenda will be. We will probably fly in and out of Miami so that we can ship some more supplies down for the house. |
