June Prayer Letter

The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing. Zephaniah 3:17

The summer months are upon us, everything is green again here with the coming of summers rain. Even with the rain though, we still have water rationing so that the reservoirs can fill up once again. We have learned to appreciate water and not take it for granted in these last months.

Lynn and I enjoy our ministry and are thankful for God´s blessings.

Praise Items
1. Legal Matters. Most of the property transfers are now done: La Urbina and Macaracuay churches now have their property in their own names. Pastor Jorge Barradas apartment is in the final stages of being placed in his name. We have encountered a recent glitch in transferring the bookstore property from the mission to the local church so we are attempting to do it in a different way. How boring! True. But it is big stuff here with rampant government expropriations of foreign property.

2. Lynn Discipleship Classes. Lynn recently had a lady approach her indicating that she wants to do what she is doing…one-on-one discipleship, going through a 10 lesson manual. Lynn is really excited that she´s be able to pass this off to another lady. In addition, she completed teaching a seminar called “Women of Worth” in two different locations.

3. Center of Ministry Development.(CDM). Harry has four more classes and he will finish the seminar on “Last Things” or Eschatology. This has been fun. The class members (2 MD´s, 1 university post-graduate professor, 1 Ph.D. biologist, 1 salesman, 1 secretary) are a pretty close knit group. Confession time: it´s not that the CDM material is that sterling (but generally pretty good really) but rather there is a hunger among some for basic, no nonsense Bible instruction.

4. Rental of New Meeting Location in Guatire. The meeting room in Pastor Armando´s house has gotten too small for the Sunday morning worship service. We praise God for opening up a nice size meeting room in a private medical clinic where one of the church members works.


5. Lynn praises the Lord for a great women's retreat the end of April. Our theme was "Cords of Love". We were much encouraged over the different ways God draws us to himself with love, strengthing our faith, helping us in the midst of difficulties and using discipline to draw us back to Himself. This is part of the group of women who enjoyed the retreat.

Prayer Items
1. Venezuela Economics. Pray for the economic situation of the country, It’s very bad and sad. For example, inflation is pegged at around 40% this year. Anyhow, this impacts a broad range of areas: giving to the churches, repayment of loans, income of church people, unemployment, etc.

2. Jaime and Maglery Torrealba. They are the pastoral family at the La Urbina Church. Jaime needs major back and neck surgery. Also, his wife Maglery has a severe case of hepatitis A. She´s on total bed rest, has not regained her strength, and now she´s into the third month of being severely ill. Furthermore, their health insurance policy doesn´t cover any of this.

3. Armando and Carolina Díaz. They are the pastoral family in Guatire and are undergoing major stresses with work, teen age children, finances, etc.

4. Men´s Retreat. Harry has a Men´s Retreat June 25-27. Pray for spiritual renewal and commitment for the men, many of whom are on stress overload.

5. Vacation. We´ll be in the Fort Wayne, Indiana area June 28-July 23. Harry has a major goal of spoiling as much as possible the 10 grandchildren so their parents have something to do in August! Seriously, we can´t wait to see the family.

We greatly appreciate your friendship, prayers and support.

A closer look at Treyton.

Introducing New Grandson, Treyton Joel Hyde

We are so excited about the arrival of Treyton Joel Hyde to Joel and Angela. He was born April 16, 2010. He weighed in at 6 pounds 12 ounces and is 19 1/2 inches long.

Some recent happenings

We are excited and have really enjoyed some recent events in our churches here in Caracas and Guatire. Harry continues to enjoy his students and is teaching a class on Spiritual Disciplines now. Lynn is involved in teaching a class called "Women of Worth" in 2 churches and is really enjoying that. Our churches are full and really working in reaching out to their communities, sharing what Jesus is doing in their lives in many ways.



We are not much for all night meetings but Venezuelans seem to enjoy having an all night prayer meeting. We have also come to enjoy being a part of this experience and blessing.



In March the Macaracuay church baptized 6 people. Four of these were young men!!
How we praise God for these men, this is an answer to prayer! The pastor is the 7th person in this picture.






The weekend before Easter, the Macaracuay church also performed a drama called "He Lives", the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus.
This took place in a public plaza across the street from the church. The presentation was well done and about 200 people attended the event...many non-church people from the community. Around 30 people responded to seek further information on the person and work of Jesus




On the lighter side we enjoyed watching some our friends do a Venezuelan dance called the Jaropo to Christian music.








We also spent a fun day with one of the youth groups going to a german village up in the mountains called Colonia Tovar and enjoyed a meal of German frankfurters and potato salad and a fun time of being tourists.




Prayer Requests:
1. Continue to pray for Venezuela. Primary elections are coming soon for candidates for congress. The regular election will be this fall. The devaluation of the bolivar and inflation are hitting the people hard. It also is opening hearts to the gospel and for that we praise the Lord.
2. Guatire Church. We are actively looking for a new meeting location for the Sunday morning service. A new location will facilitate new growth.
3. Bookstore Ministry. Pray for the continued ministry of the bookstore. It has a great outreach in the community and is an excellent contact point for people looking for spiritual counsel and a church.
4. Harry´s ministry. Pray for young people to enroll in the training program. The current program is going well but is attended by mostly middle age adults.
5. Lynn´s ministry. Pray for the two “Women of Worth” classes I’m teaching (one in Guatire and the other in Macaracuay) that the Lord will use this study to help the women discover their true identity and purpose based on the Word of God.

Happy Valentine's Day

As we approach Valentine's Day this Sunday, we rejoice in the love that God has allowed us to share together these 36 years. It has truely been a life of adventure together first in loving the Lord our God with all our heart and being obedient to His leading and then loving each other. The Lord's presence through the pleasures, joys, difficulties and disappointments, that we have passed through so far in this life give us strength and encouragement to keep going. His selfless love for us keeps us wanting to share with others so they too can know that love.

We praise the Lord for the way He continues to work in his church here in Caracas, Venezuela. The changing political scene, high inflation, shortages of food and medicine at times, insecurity on the streets and for the future make it difficult for our brothers and sisters in the Lord. But they are finding strength and peace in their faith in the Lord our God. Our churches are growing. As people see the very life they thought secure and good, shake under them they are looking for something secure. What an opportunity to share what Jesus can do for them.

The house church in Guatire is out growing the pastor's home and they are looking for a larger meeting space to rent. Pray with us that the Lord will lead in this and provide the needed space so the church can continue to grow and God's kingdom be extended.

We continue to make disciples. This is our passion, to see people become strong and persevering in their faith so that come what may the Lord's church will continue to carry out the Great Commission that Jesus left with us. "To go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that Jesus commands of us." Matthew 28:19-20.

St. Valentine died because he loved God more than life. God's selfless love sent us Jesus, in that while we were yet sinners, he died for us that we might have life, eternal and abundant life. Our desire is to share that love with others.

October 13, 2009

Yesterday was the Jesus March here in Caracas. What an encouraging event to be with God's family. This city is so big and hearts so hard that it is easy to get discouraged. But being together in the Jesus March helps one to realize we are not alone and what joy it will one day be to worship and praise God together in heaven.

It seems like yesterday that I wrote on this blog.
There is always plenty to do. Harry started his fall session in the Center for Ministry Development, teaching a class on "The Sermon on the Mount". He has 5 students who seems to be enjoying the class. He has also been mentoring Pastor Armando and has a class with him weekly. We are also involved in Pastor Armando's house church, helping where we can by teaching or preaching in the Sunday Morning worship service or Friday evening discipleship class. This past month the administrator of our Christian Bookstore, "Hidden Treasures" has been on vacation in Brazil visiting her sister, so Harry is filling in for her till she gets back in another week.

Lynn continues to be involved in the Macaracuay ladies ministry at Fabian Rubio, a prison half-way house. We've been going through Celebrate Recovery material and have seen the Lord work in these women's lives in a very encouraging way. A couple of the women have recently attended a retreat on "Forgiveness" as a result of their desire to have the Lord heal their lives. We praise the Lord for his transforming power in our lives and the lives of these women.

Discipling a couple of women who were baptized this past summer has been a real joy for Lynn also. What a blessing from the Lord to help these women grow in their understanding of God's Word and what it means to follow Jesus.

Continue to pray for us, that God will use us to bring glory to His name and extend His Kingdom here in Caracas.

End of the summer

Summer activities of retreats, Vacation Bible School, vacations, etc. are winding down for us as well as for Venezuelans. We had an absolutely wonderful time at FEC convention and the Missionary Retreat as well as a week with our family the first part of August. Our 9 grandchildren couldn´t be more perfect and charming in our eyes. We will have to admit though we need to be around them more to get used to the high noise level in the house!!

We are looking forward to the next several months before Christmas. Harry´s classes in the Ministry Development Center will be starting again soon. He´ll be teaching the Sermon on the Mount. Pray that the Lord will bring new students, especially men and young people to begin this training program. Our desire is that when we ultimately leave Venezuela, the church here will have a firm foundation of God´s Word. Also that they will have a way to train future leaders and pastors, so that no matter what happens in this country the Lord´s church will prevail.
Some other major events this month of September will be a Marriage Retreat sponsored by the Association of Venezuelan Bible Churches (AVIB) and the Macaracuay annual church anniversary celebration. Then the end of October will bring the annual assembly of AVIB. (We look forward to IM Director Earl Cecil being with us for that time.) In the midst of these special occasions we have our regular discipleship classes, teaching Sunday school, mentoring of our pastors, the women’s prison half way house ministry, hospital visitation and all the other things that go on in everyday life here that keep us plenty active. Pray that we will use our time wisely, that we will have open eyes and hearts to where God is working so that we might be his vessels, useful in extending His Kingdom and bringing glory to Him.