Merry Christmas, everyone! This year has been a year full of the grace of God. He has been amazing to this missionary family! We have seen His hand upon on our lives, protecting us, guiding us, and helping us as we learned to live and minister in Paraguay. He has now brought us back to the United States for a time of ministering in as many churches that will have us, visiting family and friends, and traveling across this great country meeting new people and making new friends.
To all of you who have been praying for us and supporting our ministry, we say a great big THANK YOU!!!! We pray that God blesses you for your faithfulness. There were many times, in the past couple of years, when we knew that you were praying for us. We felt your prayers when we went through difficult situations. I remember one time, I was struggling and nervous about giving the invitation after one of our drama presentations. It was one of those nights when the audience was cheering and clapping for the devil (in the drama, not the real one :), and it seemed like they were more excited to watch people being dragged off into hell than for those going to heaven. I didn't think anyone would respond to the altar call. As I stepped out to begin the invitation, a sense of peace and a calmness spread over me. I could feel God's presence. I could feel the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and I knew that you were praying for me. The amazing thing is that on that specific night, over 100 people responded to the altar call. Over the past two years, it was the biggest response, for one night, to the invitation to give their life to Jesus Christ.
That is just one example of God's grace upon our lives. This next year, we would like to visit with everyone, but we know it is not possible. Our plans are to post our schedule on Facebook, Twitter, and here on the blog. You can check out the schedule and if you are in a nearby town or in the area, please feel free to join us in that church. That way, we can visit and share what God is doing with as many as possible during 2010. As you probably know, our website is down. We have a MacBook, and I am trying to use iWeb to do a better website; however, it is not working too well. We do have our domain registered correctly, now. I just have to figure out how to get it published to the web.
Please continue to pray for us as we travel all over the United States. Currently, our van is broken down. It doesn't work, at all, and we don't have the money to purchase another one. For me, it doesn't seem smart to buy a new car only to try and sell it in a year. I would rather not have a monthly car payment, if we can help it. Please pray that our 2001 Pontiac Montana can be fixed well enough to last another 130,000 miles or so. Also, we will be moving back to the Springfield, MO area in February, and we need to make sure that our van can get us back their, safe and sound. Other prayer requests are: health, protection, rental home, raising funds to return to Paraguay, and that I don't gain any extra weight during itineration :)
Love to you all! Merry Christmas and may God bless you now and in the new year!
Charley
