"Give thanks to the Lord for all the glorious things He does!" --Psalm 105:1
This is one of the verses Cristina and Gracie (and I) have been memorizing as part of their home school curriculum. We all start squatting down and then give a big jump when we say "Give thanks to the Lord..." and then we spin around with our hands lifted high, "for all the glorious things He does!" We do this again and again until we are dizzy and the verse has been memorized. It is pretty fun.
During March and the last few days of April we have many praise reports. Lidia's health has been steadily better thanks to the Lord and the many supplements she takes besides her morning power-food shake. No more infections, no more antibiotics. Praise the Lord!! In spite of this there have still been some "low" days when she doesn't have much energy at all. Please keep this issue in prayer. We hope and pray her body will be in good enough shape to handle not taking the shake (blueberries and cranberry juice are pretty hard to find down there) and as many supplements when we go back to Mexico.
We have a car!!! We have been so blessed by so many churches and we praise the Lord for His faithfulness and provision. It is a 98 black and silver Tahoe. It has 130,000 miles (mostly highway miles). The past owner took really good care of it. We have very little work to do on it before it is ready to make the big trip South again. It is smaller than a Suburban so we hope to get a car top carrier to make up for the lost space. Thank you to all of you who prayed with us about this and for your gifts and offerings.
Last Sunday we were given a huge bag of clothes for the girls. We think that between that and what we received in Texas they will have enough clothes for a year+. It was just a perfect gift, a very specific answer to prayer. Our God will meet our needs as we seek His kingdom first.
Tom has been reading and studying the material on prayer and spiritual warfare in Spanish we have been given. He and I have continued to converse in Spanish although it is still a struggle to do it every day. Please keep this in prayer.
We've were blessed last month to speak at AFLBS, the Bible School Tom and I went to. What a privilege to share with young people and encourage them to pursue God's missionary heart!
We also had the opportunity to go to Duluth and share in the work of the youth group of Minnesota Valley Lutheran for a couple of days. We worked hard and had a blast! That group has become very dear to us and we pray that God would continue His good work in each of them.
At the end of March, we were also blessed to go to the Okoboji family camp in Iowa . It was great to meet some of the faithful ones who have been part of WMPL's constituency for a long long time. We were blessed with their smiles, their prayers, their encouragement...and particularly blessed by their interest in and all the questions they had about the stories we shared about Mexico and the work God has given us.
We have been able to finally schedule a visit with the occupational therapist for Gracie. They seem willing to work with us and help us get things ready in the few months we have left before our return to Mexico. In the mean time we have been giving her some activities to do and try from a couple of books on SPD we got from the library. It's hard to tell if they are really helping or not but they are fun to do! Please continue to pray for this process, we have much to learn still.
Here's is our schedule for the next few weeks, please pray that we build more relationships with churches and that we be a blessing and encouragement to them to be more involved in missions.
| April 13th | Mission Sunday at Grace Free Lutheran |
| April 20th | Sunday School hour at Solid Rock Free Lutheran |
| April 27th | Service at King of Glory Free Lutheran |
| May 4th | Sunday School hour at Living Word Lutheran |
We will post pictures in our blog very soon and we'll let you know so you can check them out. In the mean time let us all give thanks to the Lord for all the glorious things He does!
In His service,
Tom, Lidia, Cristina and Gracie
