Tahoe Donner

We packed up the car yesterday and made the drive to Tahoe area . . . thankfully, it wasn't necessary to put the chains on even when we drove over the pass.  We pulled in to town, stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things and then found our "vacation" home.  There had been quite a bit of snow and it was impossible to get up the driveway, so Stephen and Daniel unloaded the van and then went to a nearby parking lot to put on the chains.  Maleia and Josiah found some time to play in the snow before it got dark!

This  morning the snow was falling like crazy so it turned out to be fortunate that the chains were already on the van.  The wet snow was really piling up.  It was Josiah's first day to ski so he was really excited.  Here they are after breakfast. 

The next step was loading up the van, getting the ski boots, mittens and ski jackets on.  The wind and snow were really blowing when we dropped them off at the entrance.   We were

hoping that Josiah would be brave enough to take his first ski lesson.  Stephen, Aviah and I came back to the condo and played with blocks, babies and puzzles.  They called about 11:15 to say that Tahoe Donner was closing the chair lifts because of the wind.  We picked up four wet, tired and hungry skiers.  Josiah was excited to tell us all about how he learned to make "french fries" and "pizza" with his skies.

Sharing In Spite of Restrictions

While in Costa Rica we were able to go to schools on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning.  Because Catholicism is the national religion, most of the public schools have restrictions about distributing literature.  We were able to share the lesson, share the testimony and share the gospel, but not pass out tracts, Bibles or take the names of the students who made professions of faith. 

God is faithful, however, and the students were very interested in the lesson. Monday there were 74 decisions, Tuesday there were 101 and 105 on Wednesday for a total of 280 in the schools.  Praise the Lord.

FIVE YEARS TODAY

It's been exactly five years today!  On June 8, 2010, about 10:00 in the morning, our son, Jon, took us to KCI to catch our flight to El Salvador.  We checked four large duffle bags, each weighing 50 pounds, and each of us carried on a medium size duffle weighing 30 pounds.  Jeff and Paula Rhoades picked us up at Comalapa Airport and, thus, began our journey!

We're not the same people who arrived five years ago today.  Now we speak Spanish and are able to communicate with the people around us and we consider El Salvador "home." 
  
However, the most exciting things that have happened over these five years have not come as a result of what we have done, but what God has done in and through us.  Here's just a few highlights:

• We've been blessed to meet thousands of people from churches all over the US who have come to share the gospel on a mission trip 
• We've shared our testimony and listened to other's testimonies in hundreds of school classrooms.
• We've seen the gospel shared door-to-door and in the evening family festivals during more than 60 mission trips.
• We've seen hands raised in response to the sinner's prayer thousands and thousands of times. 
• We've been part of a great church that preaches the gospel and focuses on discipling new believers.
• We've made life-long friends as we've loved and been loved by our church family in all of the VidaNueva churches.  
• We've relied on God to lead and direct us in the work of the ministry here.
• We've witnessed what God can do with believers who are faithful to share the good news.  

We still have much to learn . . . and are still very much in the process of growing into the people God intends for us to be.  It's only fitting that we have an appointment at immigration today to renew our residency visa for another year.  We don't know what the future holds or how much longer we will be here, but we trust God to let us know when it's time to move on.  Thank you for being part of our journey; please continue to pray for us as we work here.

Here's to another five years.