Happy New Year! We are so very thankful for all the God has done in us this past year, and so thankful for those who are sacrificing their own time and money to support us in prayer and finances. We would like to shower you with the blessings of sharing in all that God has blessing us this past year. So, be blessed!We have been fully involved in serving here in Granada with El Puente Mission Base, growing personally through every opportunity. God has grown our marriage in love and respect, serving together, working through challenges like the language and leading meetings, and in our general joy of doing all of it together. We are so blessed. God has grown us personally in punctuality, responsibility, perseverance, patience, and mostly relying on and being close to Him. Spiritually, we are studying the Word together and working out our salvation with fear and trembling, often with the help of God using each other to do the work. That's marriage in a lovely nutshell, isn't it?
Don has been serving faithfully in working with short-term missions teams, finishing the season even as a translator in August. He has also been doing a Bible study with a gentleman who can't read, sharing the Word, working through questions, and memorizing scripture. He has begun serving in a barrio called Pantanal (Pawn-taw-Nall), leading a Bible study with a couple other gentleman, and doing street outreach each Thursday. Their crew of serving Christians has grown to seven or so—Praise the Lord for workers! The harvest is very plentiful as over 15 people have accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior in the last 3 months. Please pray for their discipleship and endurance as they move forward in their walks, and as Don and the crew continue to share the Word in that area.
I have been blessed to be serving in the Jicaro Project, a jewelry project that funds Vida Joven, the Young Life club here in Granada. We are working on not just producing quality products, but also teaching good work ethic, characteristics of integrity and honesty and their importance in work, and the value of saving money. We currently have 25 youth and single mothers with bank accounts, practicing stewardship and growing in the discipline of putting aside money for emergencies and the future. I've been entrusted with the children's ministry here, leading the teachers in curriculum and even attending a teachers training with Kari Christoferson in Diriamba. God has completely been accomplishing it all even through my inadequacies, and for that I have truly drawn near to Him. I am also just starting to work on a character development program for the church community with my friend Bethany who is also serving here at El Puente. Please pray for direction and wise implementation of the program. We are all working on growing up here as a church family, moving from milk to solid food, and we are excited to be a part of encouraging virtuous character, grabbing hold of it as a community.
We have both been blessed with a strong Christian community here, as well as close friends and a household community as we house many of the interns who come down to serve for weeks, months, or a year. Don has served so well as the head of the household, taking care of bills, issues, and the general development of community within the house. We would appreciate prayer in that area as well, praying for strong community for us, as well as humble repentant hearts willing to work through issues for God's glory.
Don and I are learning how to really build a strong marriage foundation and have finally figured out how to really pour into our marriage spiritually. We have developed a regular habit of praying together for each other evening and morning, and we have dedicated part of our Tuesday morning routine to praying through God's Word together. We are so blessed after the "walk in the wilderness" as I like to call our first 3 years of marriage seeking God's plan for intentionally pouring into our spiritual lives together as a couple. We have been reading Deuteronomy 6-11 lately and really coming to know God as our GOD, coming into the Promise Land of all that we have in Him! I love it, and I am SO very grateful for His faithfulness in continuing to bring us to completion in all His design.
Altogether, we are beyond grateful for this time that we have had here to serve and to grow. Thank you for your prayers. We have needed and felt their success! Thank you for your financial support as well, without it, we would not be so blessed by this opportunity. We are praying for you all as well!
Sincerely,
Don and Jacque Straka
January 2012
Good morning how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately it’s impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this I would ask you one small favour:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Nicaragua? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Nicaragua in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and a original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Calle Valencia, 39 Bajo C
28903 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com, where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely