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Transitions

Lucas loves kissing "his baby"

It's hard to believe that we are already in the month of April.  Well, I suppose my very pregnant  belly makes it believable! Many people have asked us how we all have been adapting being here. Well, it has been quite the culture shock for us (reverse culture shock in my case).  After Christmas and New Years passed, 'vacation' time over, it was time to really think about settling for the long term.  The Lord provided us a home to rent fairly close to downtown and we are walking distance from Tulare First Baptist Church (also where Lucas goes to Day Care), from the very nice library, the trail that runs through town on the old railroad, a RiteAid Pharmacy, a small grocery store, and more. So I can't complain about location (especially since we can walk). We would also like to thank many of you who have donated furniture, things for our home, clothes, and everything we need for the new baby! What a blessing!

Taking the shortcut to preschool, 

the alley behind the house,

 Lucas likes to pretend 

he's Buzz Lightyear

         
There are things we miss of course in El Salvador, the friends, and our little place in the mountains.  Lucas frequently asks to go back and see his friends, and it has been interesting observing how he has processed this drastic change.  For example, one day it dawned on him, "mommy we live here now, and El Salvador is far away."  We've taken a few trips to L.A. and every time we go, he asks to go to the airport so we can fly back.  

          I never imagined that I would be moving back to my hometown, but God is always full of surprises and knows best!  So, I am looking at Tulare in a different light, as a mission field focusing on the growing Hispanic community. 

Pastor Daniel Elias translating for

Camilo's "launch message" at

Growing Healthy Churches Discovery Center.

          In January we attended Growing Healthy Churches Network Discovery Center. It was a Church planting assessment process that was a four day intensive program in Elk Grove.  Well, we were approved as Church Planters and we had to go through this process if there was going to be a possibility to church plant within the American Baptist Denomination.  In seeking God's will for this process we began investigating planting a Hispanic Church with different denominations and were seriously talking with two when Tulare First Baptist expressed interest in having us work with them. After proposals and meetings, we are excited to share that Tulare First Baptist Church has officially approved starting a Hispanic Church and has hired Camilo as Pastor as of this month. This is an exciting time for the church as it seeks to reach out to its local community with the gospel!

            Here’s a little update about what has been going on with our family and we appreciate your prayers for us…

• Starting in February, we began the 40 Days in the Word Bible Study (a study that the whole church was doing). 

  

  Members of our Spanish Bible Study

  Ours was in Spanish and the people have now formed our core group that we will begin the church with!
• April 12- scheduled C-section, time to welcome Camila! (in our next blog, we hope to share photos!)
• April 15- Lucas will be 4 years old. His English has improved so much since we arrived. He continues to attend Wee Care Day Care and loves walking to the library on Fridays for story time.
• Camilo continues taking ESL classes at the Adult School. Through his contacts there, we have a new member of our church, Maria 

  

  Members of our Spanish Bible Study

  Cortez. He is also teaching guitar lessons to a few guys from the class and sharing God’s word with them.
• On Wednesday nights Camilo travels to Tipton to teach music lessons (keyboard, guitar, bass and drums) to members of a local Hispanic church to help them form their praise band.
• We are grateful to Dan Olson for allowing Camilo to work a few days out in the walnut nursery, it was a good experience for him and he enjoyed the hard work!

       Please pray as we seek His will in starting this church.  The people that come to our home Bible study have the same need in common, a solid Biblically based Hispanic church that reach out to its community.   Many share frustrating experiences with Hispanic churches.   They have shared that they are not the only ones, and many people they know are not attending churches because of problems. The same story is repeated in the case of many, and this has just been even more of a confirmation of the need to plant a church starting here in Tulare with a vision to reach out to our surrounding communities as the Lord leads.

  We'd like to thank so many of you who have helped us in this transition time.  Every prayer, offering, encouraging word, and helpful hand has been what has sustained us during this time of change and adjustment. 



A few more photos...

We walk to the library every Friday for story time.

In December, it was still fall here!

Lucas likes to go to the 
"Jugueteria de Lowes"
 (Lowe's toy store)
 to build things on Sat. mornings!

One of Camilo's few days
working on a walnut farm.

Grandma bought Lucas a bicycle!



Coming to (and from) America...

Once being a Geography teacher, I have always had a hard time when people refer to the U.S. as just America, when America includes North and South and the region of Central America. In El Salvador, to not use the term, 'Gringa' too much, they would call me the 'Americana', but they too are 'Americanos'!  I couldn't say that I was from North America, because Central America is also included in the continent, because sometimes they would call me the 'Norteamericana'.  So in the end I was 'estadounidense'  which there is not a literal translation in English it would be like saying, United Statesian.

 

Lucas was the only one on the whole
plane studying the safety card!

 
Well after all the stress, sadness and anxiety of leaving our home in Ojos de Agua, we made it safely to the USA. We are thankful to all of you who prayed for us as we traveled...our prayers were answered! We had spent the last couple weeks weighing our luggage to not exceed the 50 lb weight limit. On American Airlines one has to pay an extra $30 for the second checked bag and $150 for the third. We had two pieces of luggage for each of us which included Lucas' car seat. I had one extra piece that I had resigned to pay the $150.  Upon arriving at the airport, we didn't have to wait in any lines, walked right up to the counter, and nice woman working there did not charge me extra for the car seat, so we were still able to make it within our travel budget! The flight was not full, and Lucas was the best behaved child one could ask for. He has been so excited for months to travel in an airplane! Our first stop was Dallas where we had to go through immigration and customs. Since we had a nice long layover, we took our time getting off the plane and again didn't have any lines to wait in at immigration. They went through Camilo's paperwork and we all got through no problem!  To go through customs we had to gather up all of our checked luggage and then re-check it to LA.  We got to the luggage carrousel and there was all of our stuff in a pile, there was no one else waiting for luggage! A very nice man helped us load it all onto one push cart and, still thinking in  Spanish, I told him, 'Gracias'.  

ready to go!



Arriving in LA, oddly, there was no one else picking up their luggage, and all of ours was going round and round on the belt... another answer to prayer, that all of our luggage made it, no problem!
We had to wait a bit for Camilo's dad to pick us up, when he arrived he took us to Jose and Isabel Melgar's home in North Hills where we would stay the night. These are our dear friends from Ojos de Agua that have supported our missionary work and the building project.  They recently helped raise funds with their church (Iglesia de Dios Reseda, CA) to purchase the remaining windows and the doors!!

As we entered their home we were greeted with many smiling faces and a welcome song! They had planned a Welcome Surprise Party for us with the members of their church!  Even though we were tired from traveling, this was just what we needed as we had just had a very sad goodbye.  We are so grateful to the Lord for our brothers and sisters in Reseda.



Arrived into Tulare on December 3rd with the Melgar Family
and Camilo´s father

The next morning, Jose and his family drove us all the way to Tulare, to my mom's home where we will be for a little while. We had a nice time of fellowship with them.

Now that we are here, we have been seeking opportunities to plant a Hispanic church in the area.  Please keep this process in your prayers. We also ask that you would pray for God's provision.

We are happy to be here, especially to spend Christmas with mom, my brother and his family. We will get to meet our niece, Avery for the first time!

Thank you for your support and we also wish you a Merry Christmas!

Here´s Lucas adjusting...

He helped Grandma decorate the tree and quickly invented a violin!

He has his own room at Grandma´s.
Here he´s enjoying a good read!

our luggage made it safely!

Just another reason why I love Salvadorians...

Well the beautiful people of El Salvador welcomed me with loving open arms when I came to the country in August 2003, and now I leave with an entire family, and this is probably the hardest  good-bye that I've had to face...

We've had an emotional month.  Yesterday evening we finished up a tour of visiting/saying good-byes to seven different congregations. The most difficult yet to come, next Sunday in Ojos de Agua. In each place we've visited, we've shared our praises to the Lord for the many ways these brothers and sisters have blessed us and they have expressed their gratitude to us.  All we can do is give God the glory for all He has done and how we have just been His instruments. In every church we've visited, we've been commissioned to our new mission field, with prayers for protection, guidance, and blessing. In almost every service the congregation has recited (traditionally said here for birthdays), Numbers 6:24-26:

“The LORD bless you and keep you;  the LORD make his face shine on you
   and be gracious to you;  the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace."

Currently we are resting at the beach after spending Sunday evening at Camilo's home church here in Puerto de La Libertad. After saying good-byes to some aunts and cousins here, we'll be headed home late afternoon to start our last full week in Ojos de Agua.  The week will include, two 9th grade graduations (Tuesday and Friday), packing, leading our last prayer service on Wednesday, packing, closing up bank accounts, getting this computer cleaned up to leave with the church, packing, cleaning, and more!  After our last service in Ojos de Agua on Sunday the 27th, we'll be clearing out our house Monday morning and in the evening head to San Salvador to spend the last few days in the country supposedly resting....but I imagine we'll fill the time with last good-byes to our family and friends in the city! 

**We appreciate your prayers as we travel and good health as we finish up these last few days here.

Here are some photos of some of our church visits:

We also visited the following churches, not mentioned below:  Esmirna Church, MCA, Portrero Sula, Nueva Concepción and Betel Church, Nueva Concepeción

"Welcome to your home missionaries" reads the sign behind us at Faro de Luz Church, MCA in Las Pavas

They were finishing up celebrating a week of missions.

After we had a time of sharing, the church elders prayed for us.

Sending off prayer at Brisas del Edén Church, MCA Ayutuxtepeque

Sharing at Betania Church, MCA Las Cañas, Nueva Concepción

Special presentation by children of Beerseba Church, MCA, Santa Rosa Ciudad Arce

Commissioning prayer with church leaders and special visitors, missionary, Nahun Martinez and his father

Beerseba Church blessed us with gifts for the cold weather, Lucas couldn't wait to model his very Salvadorian hat and scarf!

More special moments...

Camilo's last sermon
Sunday, October 30, Camilo gave his last sermon at Ojos de Agua Community Church.  It was an emotional service, and not even our last one yet!  He spoke on Paul's words of thanks to the Phillipians 1:3-11.  
A special moment during the service was when our little friend, Oscar sang his first solo. He is one that we have been trying to help for sometime and it has been an extra special blessing from the Lord to see how God has worked in his life.

Oscar singing a solo

Pre-teen group singing with Diego's debut on the guitar

Pastors' Wives and Children Retreat: November 1-2
A group of about 13 of us arrived from the Chalatenango region at the Mission Home for a special retreat for Pastors' wives and their children. It was a special time for relaxing, listening to one another and to special teachings from God's word. The children (majority adolescents) had a special time together. This was a much needed time for the family as sometimes we feel isolated where we serve and it was refreshing to share our praises and burdens with one another. At the end of the retreat, the women said a special good-bye to me. I am thankful for the time with these ladies and their children. 

 

Saying some good-byes already!

During the first week of November we had our last Pastors and wives meeting for the region of Chalatenango. We met at a local park in Nueva Concepción where Lucas could get some swimming in. They served a nice lunch, words of thanks, and a few tears. We were then invited by three pastors to visit their churches this coming week! The November calendar is full, and we appreciate your prayers for safety as we travel quite a bit this month visiting various congregations.

Pastors of churches in Chalatenango region

Lucas with his friend Luis

Lucas and Josué

Receiving a special recognition from Nueva Jerusalen Church, Coyolito

A special note from the wives group

Pastors' wives group

visa here!

Yesterday we went and picked up Camilo's passport with visa!  Our flight is scheduled for December 2. In November we plan on visiting four different churches to 'say good-bye'. Keep us in your prayers as we make this tough transition out of El Salvador.