Straight Ahead Ministries - A Heartfelt Plea

From Dan Mesher, our local Straight Ahead missionary...please click on his letter to see at full-size. "Nate" desperately needs our prayers, and the light of the Gospel to pierce through his despair:

Gilbert Family Prayer Letter - Fall 2010

Many of Heritage Bible Chapel's congregation had the pleasure of meeting Pastor Luis Gilbert and his family when they visited us in the Spring of 2010 and performed an evangelistic drama during a Sunday worship service. We received the latest of his ministry updates and prayer requests this month:

Beloved Church:

May the Lord continue blessing you greatly in every area of your lives, in
your families, and may you have success in all that you set out to do in the
name of the Lord.

I give thanks to God that He allowed me to get to know you, and that today
you are part of the vital ministry that God has placed in my hands. My family,
without your help, would not be able to provide training for hundreds of
children's Bible teachers throughout all of Guatemala.

Thank you for your prayers. You are the gears that move the hand of God,
and in having your support, we know that God will bless you richly. Please don't
forget to write to us, as this encourages us to move forward in ministry and
also helps us to know how to pray for you all.

September 4th - We were invited to give theatre training
in the Theological Seminary of Central America. 60 students attended. My wife,
Dora, and our daughter, Abigail, accompanied me. This is the seminary
where completed my theological studies.

September 8th - We traveled to San Lucas Toliman in order
to provide trainings for (ELI) the School for Training Children's Leaders. Jaime
Lopez, the director of Sepal, accompanied me. 35 students attended. This took
place in the Bethel Central American Church.

September 17th, 18th, and 19th - We traveled to the city
of San Marcos where we began ELI, providing training for the Assembly of God
churches from ths region. 108 teachers from various denominations attended.
Katherine de Villalobos accompanied me. She is a missionary from Costa Rica.
Abigail, my daughter, also came along as we traveled 250 km. God has been
opening new doors for us.

In the city, my wife, Dora, and my children, Emmanuel and Joshua, attended
the first Internacional Conference for Clowns, where they taught and learned
various new techniques. God gave me the privilege to help set up this event.
Through this event, Emmanuel was invited to attend a Clown Conference in the
United Staes in February of 2011, Lord willing.

September 24th, 25th, and 26th - I traveled to Peten,
about 600 km. outside of Guatemala City. I went to impart theatre training,
making this the third "festival of talent" that has taken place in this area.
The storm Matthew affected us some, but thankfully having this venue has been a
huge blessing and tool in working with youth as 60 youth attended from various
churches. For this activity, I traveled alone.

During the month we have continued to work with some social help
ministries, collecting offerings and help for those who have been affected by
the rains. Please do not forget to pray for the following petitions:

1 - A Christian Education Conference that we will be providing in
Coatepeque, and that pastors will send their Christian educators.

2 - Please pray for the rain that has been affecting these events, making
it harder for children to attend their churches.

3- Pray for the students that are beginning university studies.

4- Pray for the children's education in those countries that have been
devastated by war and poverty.

Thank you again. May the Lord continue blessing your lives.

With much love in the Lord,

The Gilbert Family, Luis and Dora, and their children, Emmanuel, Abigail
and Joshua

Sword of the Spirit Christian Centre (Kenya)

This Fall, Heritage Bible Chapel has begun partnering in ministry with Sword of the Spirit Christian Centre in Limuru, Kenya. Senior Pastor Rev. Francis Ndunhu Ngugi sends regular, detailed updates about his church's ministry of preaching the Gospel and discipling new believers to the Committee via e-mail, and this month we received a gracious handwritten note of appreciation from him (see below).

Ashley Van Dyke's Update from Guatemala

Ashley Van Dyke sends the following field report from Guatemala:

Hello,

I am in Guatemala right now. We have already been here for about a week. Before that we were in Belize for about 10 days. Belize was very different than a lot of central america. Everyone speaks English, which was different hearing Spanish all the time. The time in Belize was pretty low key. We just helped organize and clean some of the rooms that the base has people stay in.

We are now with a friend, Ryan, who has lived here in Zacapa, Guatemala for the past four years. He is originally from New Hampshire and has come down through his church as a missionary. He has a lot of different ministries he doing here. The beginning of this week, we were constructing a wall that would close of a house to make it more secure. The Florian Family is who we were building the wall for. Their dad was just killed a few weeks ago so the family didn't feel as safe without an enclosed area. We did as much work as we could there and a few other people are finishing it up.

Yesterday was really awesome. Sharon, Ryan and I took the Sunday school class (all girls) up to an old volcano that is full at the top with water to swim in. We hung out there all day and sharon and i shared on being a virtuous women and staying pure, etc. The girls really enjoyed it and thanked us a bunch.

Ryan, who lives here, leads a Bible study every Wed. a church service on sat in a village, and a kids program in another village, and Sunday he leads Sunday school. Before each one of these activities we drive all around town and into a few different villages picking up a bunch of kids. The truck is usually jammed packed! but it is awesome to see how much they love coming to church and all the activities.

Tomorrow we have church then the bible study group is going to get together and help build some houses. There was bad flooding here a few months ago so there a lot of families with no homes. They are just wood small houses but work well for the families.

We will be here in Zacapa for about another week. This town has a lot of hurting people. Alba, is one of the sunday school girls, was in her house a week ago and people barged in shooting guns. Her brother was really hurt. He still has a bullet in his leg but doesnt have enough money for the surgery. There are lots of other stories like these.

I attached a few pictures from the past week.

Thank you for your prayers.
Ashley

Ministry News and Photos from Brazil

Pastor Geraldo continues his evangelism outreach at Belo Horizonte in Brazil (see pictures below). He writes:

Good evening,

We had a week of hard work here on Belo Horizonte. Our faith has been repeatedly proven, but God has been very gracious to our family and church. A testament of the care of our God was last Monday, after much work with our car and with little gasoline, our fuel ended up on a street with many cars in Belo Horizonte, cars honked behind us, Elaine was with me . But I also had another problem, had no money to buy gasoline. By faith, I pushed the car to the side of the avenue, and went out walking and praying for 15 minutes until a gas station near you. The Elaine was also praying in the car. We ask God for a miracle. We pray that God would move the heart of any brother at that time to deposit some money in our bank so we could supply the car. Arriving at the gas station I phoned the bank again to check the balance and see if the answer of God had arrived. To my delight someone had deposited that very moment, R$ 200 (or U$ 130). I bought petrol and returned to the car running, I put gasoline and after then the car started flow. Hallelujah! Glory to God!

On Wednesday talking to a brother of Florianópolis on skype he told me that on that Monday he was in the bank to make a payment, but the card did not work on self-service, so he had to go to the clerk to pay a account and at that moment he remembered me and my family and had a great desire to put an offer to us before pay account. He did that at exactly the moment that Elaine and I were praying for help for gasoline. He concluded by saying that after making the deposit, the card self-service back to work. When I told him that this offer was the response and provision for us at the moment, he was much edified with the testimony and thanked me. I who had to thank him, but he thanked for having been used by God in that situation. God be praised! We are experiencing the greatest needs in these days, but we're full steam ahead by doing what our God has called us to do. Yesterday Elaine and me got our afternoon in the hospital with sister, Arlinda. She suffered a infarct last week. Yesterday we visit her in the hospital afternoon and were a very blessed time. Pray for her, because she will probably have to pass a heart surgery.

The evangelism today was very blessed; we were me, Elaine, Joel and Natã, many people professed Jesus Christ as Savior. Hallelujah! Please pray with us for evangelism that we will do next week with material for the Jews, to the day commemorating the Jewish New Year.

Pray with us for a provision for our family, we are going through hard days and we need a bailout.

Sending some evangelism photos. Thank you for your love and prayer.

A bigger hug,

Pastor Geraldo, Elaine, Isac, Joel and Natã.

Pastor's Conference in Colombia - Photo Album

Pastor Leonel Ortiz, a ministry partner of ours in Colombia, sends this Picasa web album with photos from a Pastors and Pastors' Wives Conference in Villa Vicencio, Colombia:









View entire album as a slideshow by clicking here.

The Gilbert Family Prayer Letter - Summer 2010

Ministry news and prayer requests come to us from the Gilbert family of Sepal Ministry in Guatemala this month:

"Dear brother and beloved church:

May the Lord continue blessing your lives, family, and give you success in all that you do in the name of the Lord. Our prayer is that the Lord fills you with joy and wisdom each and every day.

We want to share with you some of the great things that the Lord has done through the ministry that He has blessed us with, and you are a very important part of God's work here.

Report of activities: July 8th

We visited the pastor of the Restoration Church in a town called Zapote at the base of Volcano Pacaya. We vbrought them help for sustaining their ministry and we took pictures to show others in soliciting help to rebuild the roof of their church that fell in due to the great amount of sand dumped on it by the eruption of the volcano. We ask you for your prayers for this servant of the Lord.

Saturday, July 10th

We traveled to Salama, in the department of Baja Verapaz to the town of Cuacuchito. There (with the Church of Universal Prophecy) we started the first classes of ELI and 22 teachers attended. Sister Theresa attended some of the sessions last year, and saw













the results of these teachings. The pastor of this church became very interested and brought all of his church leaders to attend. The road was very difficult to travel now that rivers have been overflowing and running strong. The children helped us to carry boxes of materials to the site as my vehicle just couldn't get up enough strength to be able to travel the rest of the distance. A supervisor from the churches of IDEC in the area of Tactic also attended, and we are now going to begin the ELI Program in that region. God has been faithful in opening doors for ministry.

Sunday, July 11th

We helped a group of students from the University of Biola that is experiencing missions for a month here in Guatemala. We were in Chisec, in the department of Alta Verapaz with the Assembly of God Church there. We worked with children from a town in this region. It was a great time, and was good to spend time with these children. The challenge was that these children do not speak Spanish, only K'echi (a Mayan dialect). In the afternoon we did ministry for children from the Central Church.

Sunday, July 18th

We were invited to the church of Faisanes to teach about the importance of children's ministry and to motivate them to begin the ELI Program in their church.

Monday, July 19th to Friday, July 23rd

We worked with a Sports Ambassadors' team from Mississippi in order to share the Gospel with youth through sports. It was a great experience for the team as they presented the Gospel to hundreds of youth. More than 1,500 students were impacted.

Saturday, July 24th

We traveled to Tumbador, San Marcos, in order to support the children's ministry and to continue to motivate them to take part in the ELI Program. This area lies about 275 kilometers outside of Guatemala City. We worked with more than 50 children there.

Sunday July 25th

We were invited to Berea Church in order to motivate teachers and their children's ministry. We presented the ELI Program. About 60 children attended.

The Lord has given us opportunities to provide social help:

1) We are bringing medicine to Pastor Raul Herrera as he is working alongside his church to provide medical clinics.

2) We are also bringing medicine to a missionary couple, David and Katy Huizt, as they also work in medical ministry providing medical clinics each weekend.














We ask you for your prayers, that each of these activities continues to bear fruit:
1) Pray that the youth that have given their lives to God continue growing in His love.
2) Pray for the teachers that they will continue to practice principles that they have learned.
3) Please pray for those touched by medical clinics that they would know the love of God and that God will continue opening doors in order to receive more donations of medicine.
4) Pray for the lives of future missionaries, the students from Biola University and the Sports Ambassador's team. Pray that the ministry that they have taken part in her in Guatemala will continue to impact them and that they will continue to walk in God's call for their lives.

Don't forget to write to me. I would love to receive news about how you are doing, and this also helps me to better pray for your lives and for your families."

Many hugs from the Gilbert Family,
Dora, Luis, and our children, Emanuel, Abigail, and Yhoshua
escuelaliderazgoinfantil@gmail.com