PSALM 100

A Psalm of Thanksgiving.

Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands!
2 Serve the Lord with gladness;
Come before His presence with singing.
3 Know that the Lord, He is God;
It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;[a]
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
4 Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,
And into His courts with praise.
Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.
5 For the Lord is good;
His mercy is everlasting,
And His truth endures to all generations.

Travis is the new interim pastor for the R Church, a local Ex-Patriot church of about 60. He taught there for for the first time last week and officially takes over this Sunday. He is still teaching on Wednesday nights at the Bilingual church. He has also been blessed to work with two terminal AIDS patients at the local hospital. One has recently come to Christ and been baptized and the other (Sharell) is already a Christian. He has been meeting with them every few days. Sharell is very bad off with large cancerous tumors all over his body. His foot recently became gangrenous and he doesn't have much time left here. He was taken home this past Thursday by his family to the far east side of the island and Travis is planning on visiting him later this week. Back in the states he would be on medicine to get rid of the AIDS and chemotherapy for the tumors. Here, all we can do is watch him get sicker. We try to help people live well but sometimes all we can do is help them to die well. We have talked about Heaven and the descriptions the Bible gives and even laughed about many of the things he will be able to do once he is rid of this shell. Please pray for both men for their witness and for comfort and peace for both.

Tish has continued leading the missionary women's bible study on Tuesdays. They have enjoyed great fellowship together and provided a good support network. Most of those ladies and their families came for a Thanksgiving celebration at our house- such a fun time! Tish (AKA Martha Stewart) did an amazing job of cooking and hospitality and we had 27 total. We missed our family and friends but this helped us to have a little bit of home which was a blessing.

She is also continuing to work with the children's home. This past Saturday was another craft day for the older girls who live at the home and they made beautiful Christmas wreaths. They are always so excited to come and do something that is just for them.

Next semester we will be switching to homeschooling our four children. We had tried the closest bilingual school here, but it just was not a great fit for our family. We are looking forward to getting back to a classical education that we truly enjoy. Being there certainly helped the kids with their Spanish so that was a blessing.

Unfortunately, November has also been the month of items breaking. Phones, computer, car are all broken for various reasons. Welcome to island living!!! The difficult part is that nothing gets fixed quickly- the car has been down 3 weeks and we just took it to another repair shop. Pray for healing and wisdom for the mechanics! ;)

Praise God that we sold our first 10 bags of Roatan Java coffee this week! We were able to get the best beans from the mainland from a small family farm. We will be going to some of the local stores this week with samples and information. Pray for a good amount of sales as this will employ 2-5 locals on the island in our first year. If you would like to order some we are working out the mailing logistics but will be bringing some bags back with us to sell. They are $15 per pound and a portion of the proceeds goes to our church working with the colonia.

En Cristo,
Travis & Tish
Ella, Zach, Heather and Eli