Dear Loved ones,
Greetings to you in the Name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I want to send a little update before we head back upriver in a few days.
As many of you know, some of us have been in the States for three weeks. In this time we were at our oldest son Moses’s wedding, in which we gained another sweet daughter whose name is Anna. We were so blessed to be able to be there and witness it.
We also got to see a lot of our friends while we were there, which was so exciting, but the sad part is that there are so many we didn’t get to see. When we were planning to go, we decided to stay for three weeks so that we can get to see everyone around our home area, but we weren’t there very long until we realized that we had way more friends then we had time to go and see. So we tried to get the word out about where we were planning to be a what time, so that they could come to see us, which helped a lot, but not everyone could come.
Our time there was not only exciting because we got to see our friends, but also because of what we saw the Lord do while we were there. We had prayed that God would touch the hearts of the ones He wanted to pray for this mission, and the ones He wanted to give for the needs here. I have to say that the Lord did an amazing job of communicating with yall! And yall did a great job of listening to the Spirit, because I know that I can be very clumsy when it comes to communicating.
It still almost overwhelms me to think about how so many of you were so willing to be a part of this work. The prayers you prayed over us has given us a new burst of energy, refreshed our spirit, and rebuked the powers of darkness in our village in the Name of Jesus. And the money that came in for medical supplies and for school supplies was well over the minimum amount we had hoped for. We are so excited about getting back to our village with the supplies, and to see our new friends again.
We also got some resources to get started on getting clean water for the people of our village, which is very exciting, because most of their illnesses are due to drinking dirty water. Since we live up there, I am convinced that getting clean water needs to take priority over building a children’s home or any other project we do. Of course taking care of their medical needs in the mean time is very important as well, along with trying to teach them the importance of sanitation.
I got tickled at our youngest son (John) when we came downriver to Puerto Cabezas. He got a glass of water, which is good well water, and after taking a big drink he puts the glass down and said, “this water is delicious”! We have a filter to clean our water in Krinkrin, but it doesn’t taste near as good as well water.
There is a protest going on for the last few days in Puerto Cabezas and Waspam. When we came from Puerto Cabezas to Waspam on Sunday afternoon, they had the roads all blocked off at the Managua intersection. Even though they told us that they were not letting anyone through, after we talked to them, we stood back and prayed and waited, all at once one of them came up to us and told us to pass. They motioned to the guys on both ends of the blockade to move the logs and stuff out of the way, which they did, and right after we went through, they closed it right back up. It was an amazing answer to prayer.
Then on Monday I made the trip back to the blockade to pick up a couple missionaries (Mike Jones and Tom Roth) because they couldn’t fly into Waspam as it was blocked as well, so they had someone take them to the blockade, where they walked through to the other side where I picked them up. By then the place was a complete mess, with fourteen busses and about that many supply trucks and many other vehicles stopped because they couldn’t get through. I just praise God that He intervened to let us through.
We managed to get to the gas station quick enough to get the gas needed to go upriver before it ran out, so we are planning to head out for Krinkrin at five in the morning, a day later then planned, but everything is fine. It looks like I will need to come back downriver in about two weeks to help out with building the roof trusses for the new dining hall for the children’s home at Verbo Ministries in Puerto Cabezas.
Thank yall again for all the prayers and support! I am serious when I say, because of what you do, we are able to do what we do. We praise God for every one of you! There is so much more to write about, but I don’t want to bore you with super long letters. Love yall!! Eli Lee
