Dear friends,
We left KrinKrin on Monday Nov. 10 and are now in Managua for 10 days. We left our house in the care of Marcos and Karen, a family of believers, while we are gone.
Not knowing how long it will take to get our residency permits renewed, we came prepared to spend four to six weeks here, even though we hoped it wouldn’t take that long. So far this year everything is going smoothly and things are moving rather quickly, and looks like we may get them as soon as next Tuesday! The church that is covering us here in Nicaragua (Centro De Fe, Esperanza, y Amor) has been a great blessing.
We are staying at a missions center in Managua “Quinta Shalom.” It is on a quite street and the owners are very kind and helpful. We agreed to do some painting to help offset the cost of staying here, which we plan to start next week. We share the kitchen with the cooks here and they are very patient with us and our daily baking. 🙂 We have agreed to cook the Thanksgiving Dinner on Thursday for the whole crew here and for the other guests who are here on that day. We are looking forward to that! We enjoy meeting other missionaries who stay here as well.
Eli, Mary, Chris, and Sarah have been going to Managua every day doing paperwork and seeing after ministry needs. The rest of us are staying here at the missions center, with Katie, Elizabeth, and John catching up in their school work. It is hard for them to always keep up with it at home with all the activity going on there. Eva is spending her spare time doing medical research while she has the luxury of the internet. She struggles with her stomach problems and blood sugar issues, but seems to be slowly gaining on both.
Since we are here, every morning after studying the bible, we also read from the book Radical by David Platt. We as a family are enjoying reading it, and would encourage others to read it as well.
It has already been a year since Eli was involved in that accident and spent several days in jail. We often think of that time and are so grateful to God for bringing us through all that. We had an eventful year, with sicknesses and many trials. We know that the enemy isn’t done yet, but we trust in God for our strength. Our faith has been tested and shaken, but our faith in God has grown stronger through it all. Praise be to God that the group of believers is growing in KrinKrin.
Thank you for all the prayers on our behalf and on behalf of the Miskito people, whom we love and minister to. It is a great encouragement to know that others are praying as well. May God bless each and everyone who supports us in prayer, encouragement and financially. Leah Lee
2014 Family Gift Boxes
The village we want to bless this year with the gift boxes is Pihpilia. They are one of the poorest villages along the river. Pihpilia is upriver from KrinKrin two villages, and has 130 families.
Our goal is to find 130 families who will sponsor a family in Pihpilia, so we can do for them this year what we did for KrinKrin last year. We want to bless each family with a care package of basic household items like you can see in the little video of last year’s event at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyVSD9BLT-IÂ
Many of these families do not even have some of the most basic things in their possession like; plates to eat out of, or spoons to eat with, a comb, a bar of soap to clean their laundry, or a paper/pencil that enables their children to go to school.
For these care packages, we choose $50 worth of the most basic things that a household needs to survive in the rain forest of Nicaragua. It is a relatively small gift, but in their world they could not come up with that much money if they combined everything they can make for two or three years.
So by giving a family one of these gift boxes is a blessing bigger than most of us can imagine. Even in a culture where showing emotion is considered weakness, many break down and cry because they are so overwhelmed with joy. A common thing we hear is; “Why would God love me so much that He would have His Spirit touch someone’s heart all the way in the States, to help our family with such a large gift?” Which opens the door for us to start sharing with them who God really is and how He desires to have a personal relationship with them too.
If you would like to be a part of this effort to bless these precious people, you can go to the Contribute tab and donate $50 for a family. Make sure you write in the memo that it is for a Gift Box. Or you can do it through our church, New Harmony Church, or send a check to, Religion to Relationship Ministries PO Box 345 Houston, Mo. 65483 and mark it as Gift Box.
Each box will also contain a booklet with the gospel message of Jesus Christ in their own language. We will also do a short presentation about God’s Love for them before the boxes are given out. Thank you for choosing to be a part of showing the Miskito people how much God loves them and wants to have a personal relationship with them.
