Greetings from … Drummondville!
It’s hard
to believe we’ve been in Quebec for a month already! We’ve been in three
English language churches in Ontario (including one mission conference) to
present our work, and one French language church in Quebec, as well as
attending the Quebec “Pastorale” retreat in Ste Adèle. The latter was a real
treat. As well as the fellowship with Quebec pastors we were well “fed” with
sermons by three Quebec pastors on “Is there a Shepherd in the Church?”
While here
I continue my daily blog “Sermones y Meditaciones” with sermon outlines that I
provide for Honduran preachers.
Family
We are
presently living in Drummondville, in what is called “The Centre of Quebec”.
Our daughter Annie found us an apartment here which suits us perfectly. We are
using a car that Annie lent us for local travelling, and renting a car when we
need to go longer distances.
It has been
great to see each one of our children, and our nearly three-year-old
granddaughter!
Melodie
will be coming to Canada for a few months in mid-July.
Deputation and Support
We already
have a nearly full schedule for visiting churches, and realize we will not be
able to visit all of our supporting
churches while here this time around. (We do have about five weekends
still available between now and September).
Our present
support level is $300 under our estimated monthly need.
More Honduran Plans
When we
return to Honduras in September, we will be working more closely with Josué
Claros, the coordinator for theological education in that country. This will
involve visiting churches and pastors to encourage them in the “ETBIL” courses
(both discipleship and leadership courses produced by BILD International and
translated into Spanish). We will spend time establishing clearer criteria for
the students’ projects in different courses. At the same time we will work for
at least six months with a local church in order to help train the pastor and a
leadership team there. Once they have their own training system under way our
idea is to move on to another church that might need the same kind of help. The idea is to make sure the pastor himself is
in charge of the training.
At the same
time I will remain available for “ETBIL Centroamerica” (which is under
LeadersFor) to help in any way I can. (In the past I have travelled with the
Honduran team to different points in Guatemala and El Salvador and one place in
Honduras where we are working with two ethnic groups).
Prayer
requests:
1. In Canada:
a. Road safety as we travel to
different churches
b. Wise use of our time
2. Back in Honduras:
a. Finding a suitable apartment on our
return
b. General safety (Honduras is the
country with the largest number of murders per capita in the world)
c. Health
d. Perseverance among the students
(pastors and otherwise) and facilitators of courses
e. Unity among workers
f.
Hondurans
willing to pastor churches in remote areas
g. Cultural sensitivity on our part.
3. General:
a. Finding the needs added $300 monthly
support.
