First of all, we want to thank everyone for their prayer support, financial support and service. We also want to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas, celebrating with your family and friends and a blessed New Year.
This will be our third Christmas here and we really miss being with our families and friends. We are thankful that we have a telephone and a computer to communicate.
We had a team here that helped with celebrating Christmas in many ways, both here in Anonos and in Jasmin, where they helped to build a house. There will be more in our next newsletter about this trip.
Your support this past year has definitely made an impact on the local communities, and in helping FundaVida.
In 2008 we had two teams from Mountain View church in Culpepper, Virginia; A team from the Vineyard of Portland, Maine; A Vineyard church from Grand Rapids, Michigan; A Vineyard team from Columbus, Ohio; New Life Church from Columbus, Ohio. Two families and three teams from our own Vineyard Church in Mechanic Falls, Maine. A little over 100 people came to serve this past year.
Luis Sanchez, who lives here and who works with us, recently said this to the last team that was here, “Things are changing. It is much cleaner in the “quebrada”. Oh Boy!” Luis has lived here for 44 years and has seen the change. The “quebrada” is where the drug addicts live and the drug dealers are slowly moving out.
When prayers and blessings are given, it is wonderful to be able to look back at 2008 and to be able to say “Thank You, Lord, for answered prayers and for blessing us.” All of this has been possible, because God is with us.
Matthew 1:23 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, nd shall bear a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel”, which translated means, “God with us.”
I was working with Luis the other day, when he shared with me his memory of his childhood Christmases. Most of the children here receive their gifts on Christmas Eve, the 24th. And when Luis was a boy, he would go through the streets, the day after on the 25th, looking through the trash, pawing through the gift wrap paper, hoping that just maybe….. just maybe….. their might be something that someone had forgotten. He was one of those children who never received a Christmas gift as a kid.
As he reflects on it at this time, he says with a smile, “The greatest gift I have ever received is Jesus as my savior and my relationship with him.” He says in his words, “I am a blessed man.”
This is a photo of Luis and his son.
Merry Christmas to all of you and we look forward to whatever God wills for 2009.
Resting in His Peace,
Rodney and Cindy
