What You Mean to Us!

Before anything else, we want to express a very special thanks to all of you who continue to pray for our family and support us financially in the ministry. We thank God upon every remembrance of you. Philippians 1:3

The Lord’s leading in our lives to transition to home missions has been a step-by-step process, and God has put very special people in our lives to mentor us through the process.  Dr. Stephen Little and Bro Herb Taylor of Baptist Church Planters have been particularly instrumental in this way.  We thank the Lord for their wisdom and encouragement.  Please continue to pray for us and support us as we follow God’s call on our lives as full-time missionaries.

Our present service in ministries of our home church, Starkey Road Baptist Church, is important during this time.  Most of our involvement is in music ministry.  Joseph plays classical guitar during worship for the Wednesday evening Bible study and prayer meetings.   Isaiah, Andrew, and Michael play for the worship time in their youth group.  Both Danielle and Joseph collaborate with Pastor Brandon, our youth pastor, in training and preparing young people to use their musical talents to glorify God.  

Joseph and Danielle will also be leading the worship and praise time in the Spanish-speaking church services on Sundays.  Pray that God will use us to be a blessing to our church in preparing not just musical leaders, but spiritual leaders for the next generation.  Daniel Cornell is one example.  He is a missionary kid from Venezuela and attends the Spanish church services.  Joseph has been teaching him guitar for the past two months and we pray he can use what he learns in church.  His first opportunity is coming up!  He will soon play “Buscad Primero el Reino de Dios” (“Seek Ye First”). 

Our prayer is to resume deputation this Summer or the latter part of this year.  While serving in Spanish ministries here in St. Petersburg, FL, areas in other parts of the country in great need of bilingual home missionary pastors have been presenting themselves to us.  Pray that God will show us what role He would have for us in meeting the spiritual need of these communities here at home.  And pray He will continue to meet our financial needs as He faithfully has throughout our time back in the USA.

Many of you assured you would keep praying for unsaved people we’ve mentioned in previous prayer letters.  After my long conversation explaining the Gospel to “Joe” at the gym, every time I have seen him since he has thanked me for taking time to talk with him.  We continue to chat at the gym about physical health and spiritual needs.  I have been teaching guitar to a young man for a few months now, the young person for whom I asked prayer in a previous letter.  God opens doors for me to mentor him about character issues, but pray he, his Mom and her friend would be open to hear the Gospel.

Finally, Paul asked in 2 Timothy 4:13, “Bring … the books, but especially the parchments.”  This is our request.  We need a special financial gift to ship our belongings back from Spain.  We have distributed the majority of our things to churches and missionaries in that area.  What remains are books with Joseph’s study notes, many of which cannot be replaced, like an original printing of Armitage’s Baptist history.  Along with those are college and seminary notebooks and family photo albums.  We need over $1500 to ship it all.  Please pray how you can help with this need.