September 2013

“This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118.24 We feel it is time to rejoice and give thanks because of God’s faithfulness and to share with you who pray and support our ministry, what has been going on in our lives here in Honduras. In August, we returned to Tegucigalpa in time for our teacher’s orientation week before school began. We returned to find two teachers who would not be returning, but the Lord very quickly took care of the situation. There probably were the normal glitches that occur in any school at the beginning of the year, but before we could be weighed down the Lord gave us Psalm 118 to begin to use as our prayer over St. Mary’s School and Church on August 8, 2013. Please take the time to read it! You will catch a glimpse of what we have felt like and possibly have been dealing with without giving any details of all the things that we faced to begin this new school year. We still have more challenges, but we certainly have seen the Lord’s right hand doing mighty things and for that we are grateful. No! We still do not have a new roof, but the patchwork is holding up pretty well and we have had rain almost every day since we have returned. The new year has brought us the same number of students that we had at the end of the school year. This is good, but please pray that we will receive more students. We need at least 200 in order to operate better. On the high school level, we introduced the block system for classes. The classes are longer, but the students do not take the same class every day. Therefore, instead of taking 12 to 13 classes a day, they take 6 to 7. The students and teachers really love it! Also, we extended our school day by 30 minutes so we could offer some extracurricular activities. That has proven to be quite an exciting thing with sports, art lessons, chorus, yearbook staff, cooking club, book club, acolytes (church helpers club), Honduran folk dance, puzzle club, jam musica (club where they gather with guitars and other musical instruments and just jam)! The second quarter of school we have added a sewing club, a taste of Japan to learn about the Japanese culture, and gymnastics. It is hard to believe that our last 30 minutes of each day is ending with such marvelous activities, because last year the school had none of this!! God is so good!! We are about to come to the end of our first quarter or partial as they say here. There is a lot that still needs to be accomplished, but a lot has been accomplished already. “O, Lord, you have saved us; O, Lord, you have granted us success.” Psalm 118:25 We ask for your prayer support by praying Psalm 118 when you think of us and St. Mary’s School and Church. On October 11, we return to the states for a few days to take Abney to “double New York,” as she called it on her first trip there when she was 7 years old. Abney has been accepted to attend the American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA). We are planning to take her and help her get settled in before returning to Sumter. We are proud of her and excited that the Lord has opened the door for her to study what she loves! We will return to Honduras around the 22nd of October to begin the 2nd partial of the school year. Sundays here are special for us as Joe conducts the English service at St. Mary’s and then he helps at the next service with the Spanish congregation. Sunday afternoons have turned into a real special gift to us. Just up the road from us is a huge mega non-denominational Church and at 4:00PM on Sundays they have an English service. The people who attend this service are missionaries from several countries. A mixed group of many denominations coming together to worship, fellowship and be encouraged to go back out to serve in all the many different areas and ministries here in Tegucigalpa and the surrounding areas. The worship team there is amazing and has blessed us so much! Joe was asked this past Sunday afternoon to share about the Holy Spirit and give his testimony of how the Holy Spirit has worked in his life. We realized that it was 34 years ago, almost to the day, that we were in Darien, Connecticut under the teaching of the Reverend Terry Fullum and hearing about the anointing and power of the Holy Spirit for ministry!! Well, this letter is short, but long in gratefulness and thanksgiving for you and your gifts of prayer and money to enable us to serve the Lord here in Honduras. We “give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.” Psalm 118.29 Be Blessed to be a Blessing, Tina and Fr. Joe Prayer Requests: Yes, we still need money for several things concerning the school: Scholarships, Roof, Ceilings, Paint, Computers, Projectors; but more than anything else we ask that you will pray for our students, teachers, and staff. And if the Lord puts it on your heart to send some money down to help the school out, email us and we’ll give you the information you need to make a “tax deductible” contribution.

September 2013

“This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118.24 We feel it is time to rejoice and give thanks because of God’s faithfulness and to share with you who pray and support our ministry, what has been going on in our lives here in Honduras. In August, we returned to Tegucigalpa in time for our teacher’s orientation week before school began. We returned to find two teachers who would not be returning, but the Lord very quickly took care of the situation. There probably were the normal glitches that occur in any school at the beginning of the year, but before we could be weighed down the Lord gave us Psalm 118 to begin to use as our prayer over St. Mary’s School and Church on August 8, 2013. Please take the time to read it! You will catch a glimpse of what we have felt like and possibly have been dealing with without giving any details of all the things that we faced to begin this new school year. We still have more challenges, but we certainly have seen the Lord’s right hand doing mighty things and for that we are grateful. No! We still do not have a new roof, but the patchwork is holding up pretty well and we have had rain almost every day since we have returned. The new year has brought us the same number of students that we had at the end of the school year. This is good, but please pray that we will receive more students. We need at least 200 in order to operate better. On the high school level, we introduced the block system for classes. The classes are longer, but the students do not take the same class every day. Therefore, instead of taking 12 to 13 classes a day, they take 6 to 7. The students and teachers really love it! Also, we extended our school day by 30 minutes so we could offer some extracurricular activities. That has proven to be quite an exciting thing with sports, art lessons, chorus, yearbook staff, cooking club, book club, acolytes (church helpers club), Honduran folk dance, puzzle club, jam musica (club where they gather with guitars and other musical instruments and just jam)! The second quarter of school we have added a sewing club, a taste of Japan to learn about the Japanese culture, and gymnastics. It is hard to believe that our last 30 minutes of each day is ending with such marvelous activities, because last year the school had none of this!! God is so good!! We are about to come to the end of our first quarter or partial as they say here. There is a lot that still needs to be accomplished, but a lot has been accomplished already. “O, Lord, you have saved us; O, Lord, you have granted us success.” Psalm 118:25 We ask for your prayer support by praying Psalm 118 when you think of us and St. Mary’s School and Church. On October 11, we return to the states for a few days to take Abney to “double New York,” as she called it on her first trip there when she was 7 years old. Abney has been accepted to attend the American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA). We are planning to take her and help her get settled in before returning to Sumter. We are proud of her and excited that the Lord has opened the door for her to study what she loves! We will return to Honduras around the 22nd of October to begin the 2nd partial of the school year. Sundays here are special for us as Joe conducts the English service at St. Mary’s and then he helps at the next service with the Spanish congregation. Sunday afternoons have turned into a real special gift to us. Just up the road from us is a huge mega non-denominational Church and at 4:00PM on Sundays they have an English service. The people who attend this service are missionaries from several countries. A mixed group of many denominations coming together to worship, fellowship and be encouraged to go back out to serve in all the many different areas and ministries here in Tegucigalpa and the surrounding areas. The worship team there is amazing and has blessed us so much! Joe was asked this past Sunday afternoon to share about the Holy Spirit and give his testimony of how the Holy Spirit has worked in his life. We realized that it was 34 years ago, almost to the day, that we were in Darien, Connecticut under the teaching of the Reverend Terry Fullum and hearing about the anointing and power of the Holy Spirit for ministry!! Well, this letter is short, but long in gratefulness and thanksgiving for you and your gifts of prayer and money to enable us to serve the Lord here in Honduras. We “give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.” Psalm 118.29 Be Blessed to be a Blessing, Tina and Fr. Joe Prayer Requests: Yes, we still need money for several things concerning the school: Scholarships, Roof, Ceilings, Paint, Computers, Projectors; but more than anything else we ask that you will pray for our students, teachers, and staff. And if the Lord puts it on your heart to send some money down to help the school out, email us and we’ll give you the information you need to make a “tax deductible” contribution.

September 2013

“This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118.24 We feel it is time to rejoice and give thanks because of God’s faithfulness and to share with you who pray and support our ministry, what has been going on in our lives here in Honduras. In August, we returned to Tegucigalpa in time for our teacher’s orientation week before school began. We returned to find two teachers who would not be returning, but the Lord very quickly took care of the situation. There probably were the normal glitches that occur in any school at the beginning of the year, but before we could be weighed down the Lord gave us Psalm 118 to begin to use as our prayer over St. Mary’s School and Church on August 8, 2013. Please take the time to read it! You will catch a glimpse of what we have felt like and possibly have been dealing with without giving any details of all the things that we faced to begin this new school year. We still have more challenges, but we certainly have seen the Lord’s right hand doing mighty things and for that we are grateful. No! We still do not have a new roof, but the patchwork is holding up pretty well and we have had rain almost every day since we have returned. The new year has brought us the same number of students that we had at the end of the school year. This is good, but please pray that we will receive more students. We need at least 200 in order to operate better. On the high school level, we introduced the block system for classes. The classes are longer, but the students do not take the same class every day. Therefore, instead of taking 12 to 13 classes a day, they take 6 to 7. The students and teachers really love it! Also, we extended our school day by 30 minutes so we could offer some extracurricular activities. That has proven to be quite an exciting thing with sports, art lessons, chorus, yearbook staff, cooking club, book club, acolytes (church helpers club), Honduran folk dance, puzzle club, jam musica (club where they gather with guitars and other musical instruments and just jam)! The second quarter of school we have added a sewing club, a taste of Japan to learn about the Japanese culture, and gymnastics. It is hard to believe that our last 30 minutes of each day is ending with such marvelous activities, because last year the school had none of this!! God is so good!! We are about to come to the end of our first quarter or partial as they say here. There is a lot that still needs to be accomplished, but a lot has been accomplished already. “O, Lord, you have saved us; O, Lord, you have granted us success.” Psalm 118:25 We ask for your prayer support by praying Psalm 118 when you think of us and St. Mary’s School and Church. On October 11, we return to the states for a few days to take Abney to “double New York,” as she called it on her first trip there when she was 7 years old. Abney has been accepted to attend the American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA). We are planning to take her and help her get settled in before returning to Sumter. We are proud of her and excited that the Lord has opened the door for her to study what she loves! We will return to Honduras around the 22nd of October to begin the 2nd partial of the school year. Sundays here are special for us as Joe conducts the English service at St. Mary’s and then he helps at the next service with the Spanish congregation. Sunday afternoons have turned into a real special gift to us. Just up the road from us is a huge mega non-denominational Church and at 4:00PM on Sundays they have an English service. The people who attend this service are missionaries from several countries. A mixed group of many denominations coming together to worship, fellowship and be encouraged to go back out to serve in all the many different areas and ministries here in Tegucigalpa and the surrounding areas. The worship team there is amazing and has blessed us so much! Joe was asked this past Sunday afternoon to share about the Holy Spirit and give his testimony of how the Holy Spirit has worked in his life. We realized that it was 34 years ago, almost to the day, that we were in Darien, Connecticut under the teaching of the Reverend Terry Fullum and hearing about the anointing and power of the Holy Spirit for ministry!! Well, this letter is short, but long in gratefulness and thanksgiving for you and your gifts of prayer and money to enable us to serve the Lord here in Honduras. We “give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.” Psalm 118.29 Be Blessed to be a Blessing, Tina and Fr. Joe Prayer Requests: Yes, we still need money for several things concerning the school: Scholarships, Roof, Ceilings, Paint, Computers, Projectors; but more than anything else we ask that you will pray for our students, teachers, and staff. And if the Lord puts it on your heart to send some money down to help the school out, email us and we’ll give you the information you need to make a “tax deductible” contribution.