Dear brothers, sisters and friends,
Greetings to you in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I pray that as this reaches each one of yall, it will find each and every one well and abounding in God’s Love and Peace. It is so wonderful to spend our time in His presence, as we go about being His hands and feet here in the rain forest of Nicaragua. It makes it even a lot more fun now that I can understand almost all of the language, and am able to communicate well with them, although I do have a lot to learn yet.
More and more of my time is being spent ministering God’s word, individually as well as everyday bible studies and some preaching at the local Catholic and Verbo churches. I enjoy it so much. It is amazing to me how willing the people are to learn. It seems like they have been watching us for the last two years trying to figure out what we are about, and now that we are able to put into words what they have seen us do, it’s starting to make sense to them. As they hear God’s word preached and realize that it’s because of what the bible says that we live the way we do, more and more are coming for the morning bible studies wanting to learn more about what God’s word says.
The new believers are growing very rapidly Spiritually, and one by one are expressing a strong desire to get involved in evangelism. It is so rewarding to see them being taught by the Holy Spirit and being transformed into the image of Christ.
With the money that was given for the mosquito fogger, we bought it already and it’s in use now. As the rains slow and the mosquitos get more, the timing of having the machine is just right. We have used it in KrinKrin once already, but are getting ready to do it again, and then as we get permissions from other village leaders along the river, we plan to do them too. I’m convinced that this will make a huge difference in the amount of malaria cases we will have to deal with.
The rice machine is working very well. The people from all the villages close around are so happy to be able to bring their rice here to get it shelled. And the ones that have some to sell are having a big advantage too. When they take their rice to Waspam to sell the store owners ask them where it was shelled. If it was shelled in KrinKrin they buy it, but if not they don’t buy it, or pay much less for it. The original response from the other few machine owners was that we are their enemy, but we put the word out that if they want us to teach them how to do it the way we do, we will. The other day the first one came by and wants to become friends and learn from us.
It is so good to have plenty of medicine for the sick these last nine month or so. The girls are getting a pretty good system down, so they can get through big groups quicker. The health ministry is getting excited about us doing medical here, as they keep hearing good reports from the people, and we keep bringing sick into the hospital. One of our recent trips with someone sick, the health director of Rio Coco area asked Mary a lot of questions about what we are doing, and then told her that they are going to make her the official health worker for our area. With that they gave us a big box of medicine, and when it gets all gone and we take the paper records to them they will give us more. It’s not close to all the meds we use, but it helps so much!
We are looking forward to several teams coming to help us in the next few month. Our Pastor David Gidcumb and our dear friend and brother Brady Weldon plan to come and do a pastors conference in our village, for the pastors along the river. We are so excited about seeing some of our friends soon.
These are the messengers we sent upriver on a two day journey upriver to invite the pastors to the pastors conference. Two others were sent downriver as well.
As some of you know, we have been talking about the need for an ambulance on the river. We have made a few emergency trips with our boat and saved the lives of a pregnant woman and her baby, a guy that got beat up and shot, as well as a young guy who broke his leg with the bone stuck out into the mud. Unfortunately, many times we don’t have the money to make the run because of the cost of fuel for our big boat, so many lives are lost that could easily be saved if we had this vehicle.
What we want to do is buy a three seat jet ski and fix the back seat so that we can strap a stretcher on it. This machine wouldn’t take very much gas and would travel quickly even in the three month of dry season when the river is too low to run our boat. It will also make it possible for us to help many more villages along the river. We also just found out just recently that our friends (Clint and Marilyn Hanley) who have been flying medical emergencies are planning to move back to the states in April, so we are praying that we can have our ambulance by that time.
Three thousand has already been given for the ambulance and equipment, but we still need thirteen thousand five hundred to get it. Please pray for this to happen so that many more lives can be saved along the river.
We so appreciate all the resources that are being given for ministering Gods Word in the various forms that God has opened the doors for. It has made it possible to start doing some work in a couple of the close by villages as well. The program we have where people can support an elderly person or couple is a great success. It is opening the door to minister Gods word to the individuals as well as whole communities as they ask us to come into their village.
Through this program you can support an elderly who is unable to go to the fields anymore, and is in great physical need, for fifty dollars a month. This allows them to go to their little community store once a week and take out some food. We currently have eight people on this program who do not yet have a pledged supporter. If you are interested in supporting one of these precious elderly, you can do so through our website, through New Harmony Church, or mail it to our post office box found on our website. Make sure you mark your donation as “elderly.” You will receive a prayer card with a photo of the person, and a short story about them.
Thank you for your interest and involvement with Gods work among the Miskito Indian people. I am amazed at how many people God is choosing to get involved with His work here. Your prayers are appreciated more than anything else, because the enemy is trying everything he can to stop the work that God is doing here. There are times we have to just believe God’s promises that He will win, because there are days that it seems like the enemy is getting the upper hand. But the bright side is that usually right after those times, God breaks through the impossible with a great victory that no one can deny His power. We love yall! By Eli for the Lee family
