Newsletters - Aug 2006
Alongside Ministries en Nicaragua
Evangelism Through Relationships
Halle and Kathy August, Missionaries
amen@ibw.com.ni
www.alongsideministries.org
Aug 2006
(See Printable copy)
Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His love endures forever.
Psalm 107:1
Dear Friends,
I have been thinking of sitting down and writing this newsletter for at least a month now and it has been so difficult to get around to doing so. Every time I have thought about writing and what I would write about this verse from Psalm 107 has continually come to mind so it has become the theme for this letter. With each passing day we find ourselves continually giving thanks to the Lord for the many blessings that He sends our way, each wrapped up a little differently and always delivered in a surprising manner, but each one declaring how good our Lord really is and how much He loves us. And just think – His love endures forever!!
It seems that in these past several months we have seen an increase in the use of the sports center. We’ve had quite a number of Nica church family’s or youth groups bring car loads or bus loads of people out to enjoy a day of fun, fellowship and play. It is a vision that has become a reality as we see the sports center being so fully enjoyed. However without financial support and help from visiting teams there wouldn’t be much more than grass. Instead we’ve got a pretty spiffy baseball stadium that is nearly fully enclosed (no more natural lawn moo-ers) with level dirt base paths and even a warning track around the outfield. Most recently the stadium hosted a team from 1st Baptist Church of Fort Lauderdale who offered a baseball clinic and evangelistic outreach to about 120 youth from the ages of 10 – 18. Mike Doyle, a former New York Yankee (1978 World Series) who is now a pastor, gave a strong evangelical message each day and many of the children committed their lives to the Lord.
The ranchon (open-air, palm covered meeting area), built with donation money, has been the site of several nights of worship, parties, and now houses our weekly youth group meeting where 50 or so of the local youth, ages 15 and up, come each Friday for a night of games, fellowship, snack and a challenging Biblical message. We’ve seen several of these youth make a commitment to the Lord as well. We’ve started a Tuesday evening Bible study for those who are more interested in hearing and learning more of God’s Word and usually have about 8-10 attending those meetings.
Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His love endures forever.
June, July and August have brought a number of teams and guests through Quinta AMEN and each and every one of them have blessed us in different and wonderful ways.
June brought a group from the Menlo Park Presbyterian Church (California) down for the 3rd year in a row! It was great to anticipate the arrival of this team since so many of them were no longer strangers. They are always a hard working team that invests a lot in the sports center but they have also invested in us and we feel like we have several new and personal friends from Menlo Park. Thank you for God’s love that you pour out on us every time you visit!
In July a youth team from Living Hope Christian Fellowship in Bothell, WA came down ready to paint and dig as well as to provide a wonderful VBS experience for about 80 students from a small Christian school that we bussed in for 3 fun afternoons. Between songs, crafts, puppet stories and games they heard about some of the heroes of the Bible and how God worked through them and loved them. About a dozen of these children raised their hands and received Jesus Christ as their Savior as a result of this experience. Again, we feel like we received a double blessing from this group as new friendships were formed. We are looking forward to touching base with some of these folks again when we visit the Seattle area in late August.
The last team of the summer was a group of Venture Scouts (15 and 16 year old young men) and their dads. There were 14 in all and they were quite an amazing, fired-up group. They came to devote 3 full days to working around the sports center and while they didn’t have a formal evangelistic program they shared God’s love with a couple of neighborhood families in a way far more effective than any program. They invited these families, Isaias, Connie and their 2 children and Fermina and her 4 children, to have dinner with them on their last evening here and it was a sweet and touching time of fellowship. Neither the team members nor the family members will quickly forget the friendships that were formed during their time here.
Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His love endures forever.
The Lord’s goodness has reached all the corners of our lives down here. We have been deeply blessed by you, our supporters and friends, as you continually hold us before the Lord in prayer. We know that you do because we see and feel the results.
On a more personal note our youngest son Brookes has completed high school and has been accepted at Northwest University in Kirkland, WA where he will start this fall. He has already moved back up north and is enjoying some summer fun before he hits the books this fall. We will miss him terribly (we already do) but are excited for him to start this new phase of life. Please continue to hold him in your prayers.
We won’t have too much time to miss him before we travel north ourselves. We will be arriving in Seattle on August 22nd where we will jump right into wedding activities. We will be celebrating the marriage of our oldest son, Brandon, to Misty Rowell on September 2nd. We are excited to have our first daughter-in-law and welcome her and her daughter, Jeorgia, into our family with open arms. Please keep them in your prayers as they begin a new life together. Pray that they would continually seek God for His guidance and that He would be a central part of this new family.
Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His love endures forever.
Serving Together,
Halle and Kathy August
AMEN
Alongside Ministries en Nicaragua
Thank you for supporting our ministry in Nicaragua.
Your gifts, sent to Eastside Development (formally The NEO Foundation),
will be used for our general ministry activities or wherever you designate.
Eastside Development
PO Box 301471
Portland, OR 97294 |