Wednesday, November 7, 2012

The Plans I have for you..

Since we are find ourselves pressed for time these days, but still would like to keep everyone updated, we have decided to put our monthly updates onto the blog and just add pictures. If time permits I will update the blog more often,

“11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,” declares the Lord - Jeremiah 29:11-14a

For the last two weeks of this month, we have had Laura (and Jim Noble) here with our family. Laura shared her story with me and the ladies in the sewing centre. She shared that the verse above has helped her in her life to remember the Lords plan for her life. I too have been given peace by these verses. And a reminder to Seek First the Lord in times of struggle.

We have started our season of teams and we are into our third week right now. It is actually the fourth team down here, but we only saw the first team at the beach, so I don’t really count that.





Successes

1) My successes may be a little different than Stuarts. We made it through the school year here! The kids are graduated and they will have a month and a half off of school. (This may also go under struggles!!) We will let you know in the next update. Ellis is graduating from Kindergarten and had to buy a suit. We will go to see the special service on the 16th.
  1. 2)  The girls in the sewing centre. We are working on The Purpose Driven Life book and the girls are finding it life changing. I have seen much growth in them in the last few months and they have been able to share things that they were never able to in the past. They are also doing amazing work at quilt making and the quality of their work is second to none. Also Laura was able to spend some time in there and help get everything organized making it easier to see what we have and what needs to be done.

  2. 3)  I am pleased to announce that even though in the last e-mail Stuart listed this as a struggle, it has now become a success. Carlos has been clean and sober for over a month. Stuart has made a promise to him to visit at least once a week to spend time in the Word just with him, and he has been doing well. It feels like God was saying to Stuart that he put one of his sons in his path for him to love and care for as though it was his own and Stuart is listening and the results have been obvious.
  3. 4)  I asked the kids what they thought that God showed us this month that was positive. Kade replied that we found new communities that were really poor and he showed them to us so that we could give them food this month.
Stuggles

1) We got really gung-ho about putting on a bread course to create jobs and new skills for women. We discovered that if we could get a list of 20 people, then the OEF Hotel, along with a government career training program would put on the course for free, so we found 20 people. We set a day and asked them to come to the hotel to register with their identification. Well, no one showed up! Back to square one. This was really frustrating for me, but I know, that I can’t hold their hands and force them to do anything. I was really feeling like God was telling me that we were going to do something with a bakery. We are going to look at this again, but might approach this from a new angle. Stay tuned.

2) We have been having some issues with Daniella and Diego, and school. For those of you that don’t know, Daniella and Diego are Juanita’s youngest two children. Diego is now 18 and Daniella almost 15. Last year the Berstads and our family decided that we would sponsor them to go to the same school as our kids. They were doing really well there until recently. There was a facebook site put on the web, making fun of some of the teachers. A lot of the students were saying it was Diego, and the teacher told Diego that she went to the Police and the Police also knew it was Diego. Of course that last part was not true and I knew it because... Diego leaves his computer at my house. Also when he is at my house, he is either working on homework or making purses. And he is at my house almost every moment he is not in school. I think that the big problem is that the kids and teachers in their school are jealous that they are being sponsored by us. So they become an easy scapegoat. Not saying that they are perfect, they are still teenagers. Stuart has sat down with the teachers and told them that we don’t want any special treatment for either our kids or Daniella and Diego. But Daniella and Diego are really down about it. They were finally at a place where they thought they were making friends.

We would really just love for this family to have some peace.

Hopes
1)To spend more time in the Word for ourselves and with our children and making that more of a priority

2)To get the silk screening up and running including finding work here in El Salvador and contracts at home in Canada, as well as, find a person who is able to teach how to make a good quality t-shirts with the machines we have, employing a minimum of three more people.

3)To continue to find work for the sewing centre, whether that means individual orders, contracts for companies or on-line sales. We hope to get the website up and running so we market better. Check out our facebook page under http://www.facebook.com/sowersofjireh and soon our website www.sowersofjireh.com





4)To find a new place to have the Bakery program. Maybe in the community of Rio Frio.

Prayers
1)Protection for the teams and our family as we travel and work in this county
2)Peace for Juanita’s Family
3)God to continue to be part of and guide what happens in the sewing centre

4)A feeling of not being so overwhelmed by my children and life here.
5)Wisdom and Discernment
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6)A new place to that the Lord will choose for the bread program
7)Boundaries
8)That we would always remember to put God first no matter what we are doing.

9)Health and opportunities to rest.
10)God continues to work in Carlos’ life that he stay sober.

Thanks Carie 

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