We thank all of you for your display of faithfulness and goodness to us and to this ministry. We thank our family, friends, faithful ministry supporters, new ministry supporters and those wonderful year-end gift givers!!! You continue to surprise us and amaze us by your faith and goodness.
After a wonderful Christmas break in Florida with Cherry's sister and family, we returned refreshed and ready to step into our ministry roles here. Our first year was full of just learning all aspects of the ministry and continuing to learn the language and culture (truly a life-long process). This year Dave moves into his role of helping with pastoral support and care and we both will work as ministry support to the field staff here--as mentors and encouragers.
So far this year, here is what our ministry looks like...
We hosted a family service in our home for pastor Edward's church--We love our living room overflowing with people and music like this...
Dave has started a weekly men's group using materials from "A Quest for Authentic Manhood"--a 24 week study with DVD teaching and all written materials are in Spanish--his desire is to raise up more strong men in the churches here and prepare hearts for the men's conference in April--He is encouraging Alan, one of the young men in our sports ministry here, to take on a leadership role in this study...
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We usually make pastor visits twice a week--going out in the more remote areas in the mountains is a special treat for us and for the pastors and their families--
In a recent visit to Palo Alto, we had lunch with the pastor and his family and then attended their afternoon church service--Dave gave the message and I helped translate--people literally walk for hours to come to church!!
Here Dave visits with two pastors at a new church construction site...
One of the pastors that GO Ministries partners with is Pastor Gumercindo and his wife, Dulce--a son and grandaugher were at their home the day of our visit...
GO Ministries encourages continued education for its pastors--We were privileged to attend the graduation service from a two year Christian leadership and church planting program for two of our pastors, Wilby and Romano, who work within Haitian communities here in Santiago. Wilby's wife and fellow missionary, Lisa, enjoyed the celebration too...
We continue to mentor young couples here using the book, Love and Respect, (Amor y Respecto)--We love these precious share times in our backyard patio...
Please continue to keep us in your prayers--we sense the battle between good and evil very strongly here and we know that we cannot fight that battle in our own power. We love you all and keep you in our hearts and prayers!!
By His grace and for His glory,
The Dave Sdhwulst family
ps--please take a look at our prayer request section to the right as well as some fun Christmas pictures at the end of this posting!!!