Dear loved ones,
I will try to give you a little update of how things are going in the rainforest of Nicaragua. We have just come through having a month of mission teams who came and helped us with the work here.
First was our Pastor David and brother Brady Weldon who came and preached and taught for three days at the pastor’s conference we had in our village. The teaching was mostly about the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit sure used the opportunity to stretch the understanding of a lot of pastors. It is almost like the Lord has taken and blown down the barriers and now we are trying to take the opportunity to minister to many new places. I have since been invited to preach at more then a half dozen conferences along the river. I did one last week and will be doing another one this Friday with more coming up. It is so exciting to have these opportunities to teach God’s word. Even though my Miskito is not the best yet, the Holy Spirit doesn’t seem to have a problem getting His point across. One of the biggest challenges at the moment is that we don’t have transportation. A few weeks ago when I was taking a team upriver, our boat gave out. The housing of the lower unit is beyond repair, and something on the inside is locked up solid. There are no parts for this kind of boat in Nicaragua, and these are not parts that can just be brought on a plane, so we are going to have to do something else for transportation. If we had an outboard motor, we could modify the boat to use it, and the outboard could also be used on our big cargo boat that we still don’t have a motor for. Of course we are also still praying for the Jet ski to use as an ambulance and for ministry purposes like going to preach at conferences up and down the river. There is no question that it is the Lord who is continuing to open these opportunities for us to minister in so many places, and He knows that with the ruhmatiod arthritis in my feet I can’t walk eight to ten hours to these villages, and He too knows our lack of transportation. So I am convinced without a doubt that He already has a plan in place about how He wants to provide, but just hasn’t revealed it to us yet. So we just continue to pray and trust, as we try to make happen what needs to happen.
We also had a few teams of carpenters come and got all the trusses up on the children’s home. I am planning to take the metal upriver this trip with a rented motor and our cargo boat, and hopefully have it all on in about a week or so. It is exciting to see the progress. We are still waiting on the government on the permits for the children’s home too.
Then the last team also help us assemble and distribute the family gift boxes to the second village upriver from us. That is such a rewarding thing to be involved in, being able to bless everyone in the whole village with so many essential items. The people are so grateful for the gifts. The village leaders asked me to tell yall thank you thank you, to the ones who helped make this happen. Being able to bless them in such a big way, it has opened that village up for us to have meetings and teaching sessions pretty much how we want to. Thank you!
In our village we are just starting up a children’s ministry, where we will be teaching the children from our village about God and Jesus Christ, moral and foundational education, as well as some fun games. A few of the new believers who we have been training up will be heading it up, since they have gotten a clear leading from the Holy Spirit to do so.
There are so many exciting things going on, as God continues to push the darkness back more and more. Our morning bible studies are continuing to grow on a regular basis, with numbers ranging from twenty to thirty five for the 6:30 one, and ten to fifteen in the 8:00 one. God is continuing to give different people in the village dreams and visions about what is really going on in the spiritual KrinKrin, and how they need to go to us and learn how to be saved. I believe there are several more almost to the point of surrendering their life to Christ.
We are planning to work with Verbo Ministries to restart the upper grades of school in KrinKrin again this year. This is going to be a lot of work, but it has become obvious that this is something we need to do. It will give us many opportunities to minister and teach the children that we otherwise can’t.
Thank yall for your continued prayers, because the battles we are fighting are not so much physical as they are spiritual. God has obviously answered many prayers in the last few month, and I totally believe He will continue to do so. Sometimes I think about how there are missionaries who work for years before there are any positive changes, and here we are only here for a little over two years and already see so much improvement. I’m sure it is because there are so many of God’s children calling out to Him about this specific area, which brings in more reinforcements to fight against the dark forces. Thank you, you make our work so much easier!
We are also very excited about receiving another person to our team! God has called a young women from the state of Oregon to come and help with the work here. Her name is Camille, and she plans to teach Spanish and bible in the school, as well as help with children’s ministry. Welcome aboard Camille!!
See yall next trip! I love yall!! Eli Lee
