Celebrate and Celebrations

I am in Texas right now.  I was born in Texas and am enjoying seeing this State and meeting up with some wonderful people with a spirit of hospitality as big as the state they live in.  I saw San Antonio for the first time from the air and it is a huge city!    I am meeting with so many friends, who have come to our mission in Honduras on ministry teams for the last few years.   I am meeting new friends who have an interest in the work here in Honduras.

We had our 20th anniversary celebration this past month of July.  It was super special, but at the same time, it is hard to get your mind around the fact that we have been here for 20 years.  Numbers are pretty special.  This year my mom will turn 80, I will turn 60, my daughter 30 and our ministry 20.  Time just keeps clicking along and I have so much more that I want to do.  These are the community children, who go to school with our girls. Some of these girls have been with us since last year.  They study with us Monday through Thursday to get there high school or elementary work finished.  They eat lunch with us and then help our girls clean up the kitchen.  All the girls have devotions in the morning up at the church.  We have 5 girls that attend kindergarten with our girls also.  Every girl that is attending here came here with the mind to study.  They are doing so well and I appreciate all the hard work our teachers are putting into the education of our neighborhood children. I appreciate all of you, who are helping us get these girls get their education.

These photos are by Conor McFarlane 

Neohmi and Miriam

Our girls will grades kindergarten to 4th grade will be attending The Abundant Life School.  Abundant Life is a church that is partnering with churches in the US and they are help sponsor children in Honduras in rural areas.  We have a discount for our girls who attend so they still will require sponsorships, but we are thankful for this opportunity for our girls to attend this school.  At the moment they only have up to grade four, but the plan is to get a new grade established every year until the high school building is finished.   It is a Christian bi-lingual school.  We are very excited that our girls have this opportunity to go to this school full time.  We will still have our school open for the girls from the community and for the girls in the grades that they do not have, but I have realized that they girls have been isolated and this will help them be able to interact with their own people.  We have had some of the finest people come on teams and other groups, who are a tremendous witness to the girls, but they spend more time with people from the US than they do with Hondurans.  So this school has the same format as we do of ABEKA curriculum  as well as helping them be able to compete in sports and academics activities with other schools in the Abundant Life Family.  They will also be eligible for grants to go to school here and abroad when they finish high school. The girls start school on the 18th of August.  They have teachers coming in next week for orientation from the US and England.  WE are delighted that a long term friend of our ministry is coming to live with us and to teach at this new facility.  The girls and I both are excited that Miss Kelsey will be here for 10 months!!  Kelsey had come down on a team this year with her family to do a VBS like they have done for many years. She has been coming every year since she was in high school.   The school had a meeting with the parents and I was there to ask if they could make a 4th grade for our girls.  They said they could do it, but would need a certified teacher and Kelsey (who is a certified teacher) interviewed while she was here and got the job.  She wasn't looking for a job when she got here, but she took the position.  Totally a God moment.  WE all are looking forward to a super school year.  The girls have been attending this school since January to get acclamated to get used to their system.  I have seen a huge change in our little girls.  They are excited about school and reading!!  I have to make them put up the books to bathe and do their chores.  It is a good problem to have.  I want to thank the sponsors who are helping us out with this, but ultimately we will have more girls that will come from our school and our mission who need to go to this school.  I want our whole area to have an opportunity to study at this school.  It will make a huge difference in their lives and in the lives of the community around us.

Construction Site of the new Abundant Life Christian School 

Chase Heatherly a long time friend and supporter of this our ministry from Anderson SC
is posing here in front of the new school.  It is a beautiful facility. 

WE celebrated our 20th anniversary of Such is the Kingdom Ministries Inc.   We had a great celebration!  WE had 25 people from the States including board members, friends and family. I was blessed to have my brother and his wife, my daughter and my grand daughter to be able to come and be with me to see the good things God has done.  WE also had a lot of our neighbors and officials who have helped us along the way.  WE want to thank everyone of you who has prayed and given into this ministry.  Most of you will never know the difference you have made in the lives of these girls and their families.  Please come to our Stateside celebration on the 22nd of August at LifeSpring Church in Moultrie GA. at 6 p.m.  LifeSpring is located across from Spencefield on hwy 133 going toward Valdosta, GA.  Come and celebrate what God has done through so many people that helped us run with the vision of SIKM.

Decorations by Kelly

Our Girls an Danielle made the cake

Kelly Denton Helping Us Get it Together

Our God is So Big...

WE have had tons of rain and then nothing.  I asked the watchman if he needed rain for his corn.  
"Of course, " was his reply.  I asked him to agree with me that we needed rain and that God said that He would send what we had need of.  He looked up at the stars shining above, grinned and said, "Okay," but looked at me like I had a squirrel loose in my cabeza.  Anyway,  on a cloudless night, and 5 minutes later, it was raining like crazy.  I called our watchman on the phone and all we could do is laugh. WE rejoiced about how Good God is, and it was good.

I just knew rain was on the way after that, but that was it, and it hasn't rained since.  I don't know why God answers immediately and then doesn't answer the same prayer later.  Who Knows? God does.  It is His universe and He can do what he wants to do.  I am thankful, when my prayer is answered, and sometimes confused when it is not, but that doesn't keep me from praying.  I am the one who is just standing on what His Word says to do.   However, it is the rainy season.  Please pray for our country of Honduras will have the rain they need for the crops we have planted.  It is a crucial time.  Right now I am going for the "two or more as touching anything" prayer.


Well God came through huge with finding the parents for the passports.  WE had not heard anything and then all of a sudden, they wanted to find one of our girls.  We are so thankful that they had a day off and they both came to see about their daughter.  Both have passports, and we are thankful to God for the plans He has for them.

    

                                                                        

We had two girls who snuck into the kitchen to see what they could find. I had set aside two plates for our two nursing students, who come in late.  Some of my other girls saw them in the kitchen. So I called the accused into my house.  One girl got there before the other.  I asked the first girl about the report from the other girls and she said indignantly, "I did not", with a "How dare you?" look on her face. Finally her midnight snacking cohort came in and said, "I did do it".  I looked over the head of the first girl and looked over at the wailer, and with a question on my face as to her guilt.  The truth sayer just nodded "yes".  So the first girl starts getting louder in her denial of the obvious lie, continuing wailing about how she didn't do anything wrong.  When I say wailing, I mean loud wailing, and much flailing of the arms for extra dramatic flair.  I talked with her and told her I didn't care about the food, I cared about her and what was important when we do something that is wrong, and that we need to say we are sorry, otherwise it separates us from God and from the people who care about us. So I told her to go to bed and think about it. She wouldn't move. She just stayed there crying softly now. I headed to the house frustrated, but turned around and asked her if she needed to say something. As I got closer she grabbed me and she said in a normal voice level but still crying  " I did do it, and I am sorry ". I told her it doesn't matter how many times you deny the truth or how loud you get denying the obvious, it is still doesn't make it turn into something right. I hugged her, told her I loved her and prayed for her and she went quietly and peacefully off to bed, with her head held a little higher.

I thought about everything that is happening all over the world and it is just like my young person. Her denying the truth, made me sad, but I still had hope she would realize even though what she did was not right, I still loved her, but I prayed that God would heal her thinking and He did and He can do this.

                                                                 

 VBS  VBS !!!!  What a wonderful time with the community and with our team led by Bill and Sandy McHugh.  150 guests at our celebration of Ranch Avalanche

                                               

 

Our girls sing a song here in English and Spanish with large hand motions and much enthusiasm :

My God is So Big so strong and so mighty there is nothing my God cannot do. 2x's.
The mountains are His
The rivers are His
The stars are His handiwork too.
My God is big so strong and so mighty there is nothing my God can not do for You.

I heard Christine Caine say this morning on You Tube sermon, that we need to sing this song to ourselves as the body of Christ,  as a daily reminder.  I have been humming it in my head. There is nothing He Can't Do. As the body of Christ don't have to fear. He tells us in His Word, 365 times, one for everyday of the year, not to fear.  I don't know who counts these things, but it gives me comfort.  We just need not to fear to watch and pray.  We need to pray against confusion, focus on what God's Word says.  We need to learn tolerate our neighbors, who may not understand the Word, but we need to love them even more than we tolerate them.  We need to want the best for them and the best thing for them is to walk in truth.  I have heard people say that "truth is relative", but God says that He is the Truth and He will set us free.  I want Him for my relative, my heavenly relative, who lights my way when I can't see through a situation.  He makes my path clear.  

Again, I want to thank all of our supporters.  There are people we know and people we don't know that help us with this ministry.  I do want to thank Wesley and Suzanne for everything they have done, which is a lot, to help us get ready for the 20th Anniversary.  They have been amazing.  I would also like to thank our teams. We had our team Marathon, which meant we had teams back to back for months.  We have 5 days free and then our guests from the States are coming to help us celebrate 20 years of Project Talitha Cumi.  Thanks to everyone who helped us all of these years.  We appreciate all of your hard work and the investments of you heart given freely to our girls. Blessings,  The Super Blessed Honduran MOM.