Colossians 4:2 (NIV) –
“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and
thankful.”
November is the month of Thanksgiving. A time to reflect on the many blessings that
we have: life, family, friends, health, jobs, etc. and most importantly it is a
month to Thank God for all the love He pours out on us!
We are praising God for a somewhat uneventful
or could we say a “normal” month. We are
feeling at home and settled in our new house. It is an older cement house that
is a little rustic, but it is spacious and airy and just has a good homey feel.
We never thought being a missionary would require us to be so flexible and
ready to shift to where he wants us next.
That’s Ok! It is always good.
This house has helped greatly with
ministry! Every Saturday we set up 30
chairs (and we have the space for more if needed) outside under our carport,
and show family friendly movies in Spanish.
We have been averaging 15 people every week, children and adults. It has been a fun time just to get to know
our neighbors and share our love for Christ in small ways.
Sunday’s we turn that carport into a place of
Worship too. Neither of us are worship
leaders, but God has provided us with a way to sing and get into the spirit of
worship together by using worship song videos in Spanish and English. We love to learn Spanish songs and they love
to learn English ones as well. Then Bruce preaches a message in English and
Miguel, our translator, translates in Spanish.
One Sunday the weather looked quite threatening
and we weren’t sure if a storm would roll in from the ocean or not. With this house we have the option and space
to set up church inside if needed. So we
did! It was awesome to see this group of
people from Spain, Italy, Dominican, Haiti, California and us all worshiping
together in our living room!
Janine
finished her sewing classes at Esperanza School for this year. Four young girls learned some basics and made
a pretty cool book bag.
We
have two Canadian, Christian, friends that live just down the street from
us. It is funny how we met months ago in
Santiago. We say, “It was truly a God
ordained meeting.” And we have been
blessed in so many ways with this friendship.
They live here 7 months of the year and then have a team from their home
church, close to Toronto, Canada, come and do mission work here for 2 weeks. We
joined them and the team for a few of their outreaches. We went to a nursing home in Puerto Plata for
a Special Christmas Party for the elderly.
Santa, singing, dancing and gifts for all! |
| One little serious elf! |
We
headed to the mountains and participated in a worship service with the team one
day as well; beautiful ride there and beautiful people.
The
team threw a Christmas party their last night here for all their friends (us
included): their driver, interpreter, pastors and their families. The party
started at 2:00 and we left at 11:30. You would have loved the pastor’s dance
that Bruce was a part of. Lucky for you
no pictures or videos are included.
Eating, swimming, singing, laughing! Pure fun! We had so much fun
together and were extremely blessed to have this time with other Christians,
and mostly English-speaking friends. It
did wonders for our soul!
We
are truly Blessed and Thankful for
how God leads our lives and has given us this opportunity here. We wind down
our time and ministry here over these next 3 weeks. And we are excited to be able to come to the
states for a two-week visit over the Christmas holiday. This will be the first Christmas home with
our family in 5 years. We are excited
beyond words! Hope we will remember how
to drive on snow J Brrrr…
And
we hope to run into a few of you too!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Blessed because of Him!
Bruce & Janine
