Blessings of 2020!

It's hard to even remember the plans we had for the brand new year back in January.  Those plans seemed to have been simply washed away without a trace.  In their place something totally new and different happened, and that's what we're looking back on now to remember and proclaim the goodness of the Lord!

We started the year hosting a small team of five from our home church, Shady Grove PCA in Derwood, MD. It was a week filled with physical and spiritual work:  manual labor at the training center, assisting in a puppet show, holding a women’s meeting, planting over 300 moringa seeds as well as other things. From that planting we have had four harvests of moringa leaves this year. The leaves are used as a nutritional supplement for the pigs at the training center. The team of five was a big encouragement. 

March was a key month for most people around the world. Enter Covid-19. From March until August, we stayed at home in La Paz most of the time according to the strict travel restrictions put in place by the Honduran government. Then the Lord opened the door for food distribution which allowed us to shop, assemble, and distribute bags of food to needy people. Many of you donated funds to make that work possible.  In the end over 10 tons of food was given out to over 1,000 families and the gospel was proclaimed to all!  Thank you! People were blessed by those provisions. Praise the Lord!

From August until present time, we have been in the States, making Florida our homebase. We’ve been able to see some of our family, including our two kids and their spouses in Indiana and Georgia and our five grandchildren (current ages 7, 5, 3, 2, and 1), Ellen's mother in Virginia, and Ellen’s brother and his wife in Colorado! That was our first trip to visit them in Colorado and we loved every minute! 

One of the many blessings we have experienced this year amidst the shutdown from Covid has been connecting via Zoom meetings with our home church in MD and with our sending agency Equip International in NC for bible studies, prayer meetings and those special “parking lot chats” after a Zoom meeting has ended and people hang on to the call and keep talking.  Who knew of Zoom before 2020?

A new connection for Ellen has been a once-a-month Zoom call with other women who are missionaries with Equip. On one screen are ladies from Uganda, Spain, Mexico, Japan, and Brazil. We have also been able to join a Zoom call with Ellen’s cousins. Such a blessing! We have heard from others that they, too, have begun to be in more communication with loved ones on Zoom during this pandemic. That’s good news!

Last month we both contracted COVID.  While Ellen's case was mild and mine was like a bad flu, we felt very blessed to be in the States during that time.  It was easy to get tested and seek medical advice. Such a blessing!  Now we've had the virus and so while there are no guarantees, we are less anxious about getting it or giving it anytime in the near future! 

When the pandemic first shut down Honduras earlier this year, we picked a bible verse to memorize.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."
Rom 15:13

We are going to hang on to those words as we enter 2021!

Our prayer is that the Lord fill you with the joy and peace of Christ as you celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior!!  

Team Honduras!!