Taking a Deeper Look

As our year comes to a close here in Santa Marta, we have many things to be thankful for and excited about.  One of our ministries here in helping plant a church in a local neighborhood. The area is made up of middle-class families, many of which are in the local police. One of the ladies at our church named Jasmine felt the urging of the Lord to begin a small group in her home. She has such a heart for her neighbors and wants them to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.  We have been working with our pastor, our teammate Sam, and another couple in the church to reach this area.

Over the past year, we have been working through a discipleship program with those who attend (mainly women).  We have had a recent desire to begin more purposeful outreaches in the community.  It has been somewhat of a challenge to minister in this area mainly because of the lack of interest on the part of the men.  Since many of them work long hours during the week, they want to be a home on Sundays.  At the end of September, we had a movie night that was attended by more than 40 people, plus kids. We were greatly encouraged by this and are excited to see how this will increase the attendance in our group. Two days before the event, our team walked around and handed out invitations to the people in the neighborhood. Kendall, Parker, and Logan all participated too. It is such a blessing to see your kids be a part of ministry at such a young age. The two older ones love talking in Spanish and in many ways are a bridge for us to share the gospel with people. Many people cannot understand why we would leave the United States, with three little ones, to live in Colombia. Well, the answer is easy--we want to be a part of what God is doing here.

After we watched the movie "Letters to God," we had small group discussions about how God has a purpose for each one of us and wants to have a personal relationship with us. The conversations were very positive.  There was a new energy in the house as everyone was talking. In addition to the adults, we had a kids movie, popcorn, and coloring activities for the little ones.

Over the next two months we plan on having another outreach primarily for children. Please join us in prayer as we try to come up with interesting and relevant ways to introduce people to Jesus, the Savior of the world.

We continue to work with the youth at the church. Jon and I have both started small group Bible studies in our home with several of the youth. Jon has two groups (one on Thursday and one on Saturday) and I have one on Thursday too.  The girls and I are studying a book that talks about the lies that Satan and the world uses to distract teen girls from their faith.  The boys are studying basic principles of faith.

Prayer Requests:
1) Our main prayer request right now is that our support level has dropped over the past 6 months or so.  We are seeking the Lord's wisdom as we decide whether or not to travel back home for a few months to raise more funds. With the poor economy and an increase in our insurance costs, we have had less support coming in.  We are, however, so thankful for those who continue to give to us sacrificially every month.
2) Pray for our children's outreach in the next few weeks as we plan and prepare of this. Pray that many kids will come to hear about Christ and that it will be a way to reach their parents too.
3) Jon is preaching next Sunday as part of Missions Month. He plans to talk about how we should be excited to join with God in His work and that we need to take an active role in furthering His Kingdom. Pray for clarity of thought and flow as he his putting his ideas together. Pray that those in the church would be excited about missions and that they would be open to God's leading in this area of their lives.
4)Pray for the Bible studies of the youth. Pray that they would prepare in advance and that they would allow God to work in their hearts in areas they might need to change.

Forging Ahead

About 3 weeks ago I had the opportunity to preach again in our church which is always an adventure. Teaching and preaching are things that I really enjoy, but to be honest, the preparation is something that is just really difficult for me. It always has been. It seems that when I sit down to study my mind usually ends up in a million different places about how I could teach this, or I am thinking of examples that might make a point more clear. It's a very organic process for me. So when the time comes to preach or teach in spanish, my whole process has to change. For me, everything must be written out in painstaking detail. There is no "winging" it yet for me in Spanish, because if i do "wing it" I am likely to say that Jesus puede salvarte de sus pescado "Jesus can save you from your fish" rather than Jesus peude salvarte de sus pecados. A scandal would arise and everyone would leave the church. No not really, but it scares me to think of what might come out of my mouth sometimes if left to my own devices. So I must "script" everything that i'm going to say... I hate this. This just isn't how I'm built. It goes against everything inside of me to do it this way. I long for the day when I can say whatever comes to my mind in Spanish and it be understood by everyone what I'm saying. I probably long for that in English as well.

In some ways this is such a good discipline to have. We are to be thoughtful about what comes out of our mouths, especially in regards to the scriptures. In the book of James, we are reminded that teachers are held to a different level of accountability. God takes seriously His word, and so should I.

We had a great ministry opportunity this past Saturday. We were invited by our college ministry to take part in a food and clothes "distribution" to the homeless that are on the streets in our city. They aren't hard to find, and many times they are right outside our doors, literally. I have to be honest here, this is difficult thing for me at times. Not the giving to them, that's the easy part. But when you are living in a foreign country with small children, there are times when we really struggle with what to do. I know that might sound terrible, but the safety of our children is extremely important, and there are times when even the Colombians are fearful that offering food or clothing from your house greatly increases the danger that they will seek more things from your house and thus endanger your children. There has to be a balance between using wisdom and protecting your family, and caring for those people that desperately need help and loving them as Christ would love them. I hate that this is even a consideration, but with sin in the world, it is.

So we were thankful to leave our house behind and just walk the streets with bags of clothes and food to help those that needed it. I was with a group of teenagers and some college aged kids. And i had the pleasure of taking Kendall with me as well. We want her to see how much people desperately need our physical help, as well as see people's need for Jesus. Along the way we encountered young and old that were in need of just something to eat. We met a young teenage couple where the young girl was pregnant and they were begging for money and something to eat. Can you just imagine being pregnant and homeless? Can you imagine how that little baby will develop if the mom can't eat? We had a sandwich for which they were very thankful, but we all know that this is just one meal. Where will the meals come from tomorrow and the next day come? We met some who were thankful and others who just took the food and a shirt or pants and just left. We had opportunities to share the gospel, but I pray that we will have even more opportunities in the future.

We finished our night in a place that was called "El Borro". I had never been there but I knew that this place was "special" in the sense that even the Colombians had a great fear of going to this place. My teammate Sam said going to this part of town is akin to us making the journey to a foreign country. The Colombians have heard stories about this place and in many ways they had a fear of what this place was all about. Well little Kendall and I had a first hand opportunity to find out why. We walked down a dirty road and then we were met with a street that was just filled with homeless. I have to places with homeless before, but this for some reason had a different feel. One thing that was very quickly noticeable was that the majority of people here were either physically disables or mentally disables in some way. It was an entire street of people suffering. Now i realize that many of you might have seen this before and probably on even a much greater scale, but for me, this was an eye opening experience. And one for which I am extremely greatly to have had. I'm thankful for Kendall who had no fear of these people, but stood among them. And sat with us we talked to them of God's love. I need these experiences just as much as she does. And while some people might think we are a little loco for taking her to places like this, we pray that God will use these times in all our hearts to help us understand how desperately He loves all of us. We are praying about how we can continue a ministry to these people to teach them on a regular basis who God is and how much he values them.




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Together Again

To Those that we Love:

This blog will contain a little more personal information than normal.

For the past year or so we have realized that Kendall was really having some struggles in her ability to learn certain things in both the school and the house. At one point, every day she was excited to go to school and learn and be with her friends, but then, she began to complain of stomach pains and she seemed to be carrying a lot of stress about learning. We were concerned that she might have dislexia or some other learning disability because she just wasn't understanding some basic things that we really thought she should be getting. If you haven't met Kendall, she is extremely verbal and loves talking to people. She is very intelligent and that's one of the reason we were becoming so frustrated with her. We just thought she was either being disobedient or she just had very little motivation to learn like some of her friends. So we decided that it would be best to go back to the States to have her tested to see if she indeed had something going on that was impeding the learning process. So we took Kendall to both a pediatrician and specialist for learning disabilities. The learning disability specialist gave Kendall several tests and concluded that Kendall has a moderate form of ADHD.

I can already guess what some of you are thinking, because i think the same things when i hear this term. This term is loaded. So many people have so many different ideas and thoughts about this that we really felt like we had been hit by a ton of bricks. I won't get into all that she told us about ADHD but her main advice was to teach Kendall in one language..English. She also advised us to put her on medicine, which at this point, we are nowhere even close to wanting to go this route. We can't in good conscience do this without totally exhausting every other idea to help her learn. We know this works for some parents, but for us, we are going to work hard to help Kendall learn all that she needs to learn in the house.

Amanda started home schooling this week and it has gone really well. Kendall really can do well when we eliminate distractions and help her to focus. We all could would probably do better if we did this. (Her class in the school has 30 some kids, so there are always a few distractions going on) This week has given us renewed hope that she can catch up to the level of her peers. Kendall has been in a positive mood and really done a great job. We are thankful that God has provided the resources and the people around us to help support us in this endeavor.

We continue to be encouraged about our involvement in the Esperanza church. I (Jon) continue to work with the youth group and have been thankful that it feels like i'm getting more connected to the guys that attend our group. This past Saturday, Amanda commented that the majority of our group was comprised of young men. For those of you who know the church and Latin America, you know that this is not normally the case. Many of the Latin American churches are anchored by woman and it's extremely difficult to connect with the men of the community. So this is really a great opportunity for us to really pour into the young men that have decided to come and be a part of our group. This doesn't mean we don't value our young ladies, but we just know that normally the church is seen by young men as being irrelevant. Please pray as we really seek to find good discipleship material that will encourage and strengthen these young me to love and follow God. When the church has strong men, it makes a huge difference.

We continue to be involved in the school and and a local church plant. These are areas where God is continuing to teach us weekly how we can be used by Him. Developing relationships and trust takes some time, but poco a poco (little by little) God is allowing us to see growth in this area. We are thankful for the patience of our God that uses our weaknesses to bring Himself glory. The pressures and the trials that come from working cross-culturally continually expose those weaknesses, but Gloria a Dios, that's part of the process as we are being sanctified and conformed to the image of Christ.

One more thing that we'd like prayer for. God has increasingly put on my heart a desire to start an ESL (English as a Second Language) ministry here in our church. Language is such a gift that can be passed along to others, but it's also something that can used for the sake of the Gospel. And this is our desire, to find ways to use our resource (English) as a conduit to take the gospel to the people of our community. So we are really just beginning to think through this process, but we know that our church (La Esperanza) is supportive of this idea and I'm excited to think of the possibilities of this ministry. We are already seeing how God has his hands on this because our teammate Sam was approached by the University about offering some type of ESL program there. Praise God! It would be amazing if we could have an influence for Christ at the University where we can speak freely about who Jesus is and what He's done using something that we are good at... Speaking English!!!

One quick word about our support. We are so thankful for all of you who have faithfully supported over the last few years. You have been and continue to be such a blessing to us. We have recently seen a significant downward trend in our support. We know that God will continue to be faithful in this area, no matter what happens, but please join us in prayer as we would really love to stay here and see to completion some of things that God is doing. Pray that God would provide financially and spiritually.

Prayer Requests:
1. God would be honored in our ministry here
2. Pray for Kendall as she adjusts to learning with Amanda
3. Pray for the hearts of those Colombians that need to hear the message of the cross

4. Pray for direction as we think through new ministry possibilities with ESL
5. Financial support




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New Life

Well, our little Colombian is finally here.   Tuesday, May 3rd at about 11:45, we welcomed Logan Riley Howard into the world.  This was really a great experience having our 3rd child in Colombia.  Our dear friend Michelle Schirra traveled all the way from Columbia, S.C. to help us welcome him into the world.  Michelle is a nurse at Lexington Hospital, and she helped with both Kendall and Parker, so we were so excited to have her and the peace of mind that she would be with us and Logan.  Our surgery was planned for 2 p.m on Tuesday the 3rd, but the doctor called us very early on Tuesday morning to ask us if we could change to 10 a.m.  I know it's only 4 hours difference, but when you are talking about major surgery, it seemed like a lot to ask.  But Amanda handled the change with grace and calm.

 We had no idea what to expect when we got to the hospital, but when we arrived, we payed our bill (cost of everything was $700 for everything,  surgery and hospital stay, so buy your tickets now ladies and have your babies here), they then asked for us to give them diapers and towels for Logan.  So basically, you have to provide most everything for the baby.  So before we knew it, they had Amanda in a wheel chair and got her prepped for surgery.  I was pretty nervous during this process because I had no idea what was going on, they were just doing things and not telling us a whole lot.  But thankfully someone came and got me and told me to wait for the surgery.  They then brought me into a changing room where I put on scrubs.  One of the nurses asked me if I had a fear of blood... Great question..haha.  This was such a surreal experience for me.  They then told me I could go on back, so I proceed to the operating room only to walk into a room with 3 other women laying on gurneys looking like maybe they had just gotten out of surgery as well...so weird.  But I finally stumbled my way into the operating room where I saw Amanda.

The first thing I noticed was the sheet between Amanda and her stomach was quite low.  I immediately knew that this was going to be challenge for me no to see the surgery.  There are some things in life you don't need to see...this is one of them.  So I got a little stool and I tried my best to bend down really low so I wouldn't be able to see what was happening.  Must have been an interesting site for the medical staff to see the gringo bent like this.  Well, just as soon as I sit down, they start the process.  Well, I've only done 2 c-sections before this so I'm no pro, but I notice that Amanda is really starting to move pretty violently.  I'm like, what in the world, so I look up and the doctors and are both really pushing hard on the baby trying to get him down so he'll come out.  Amanda and I are just looking at each other wondering what is going on, but thankfully, all that pushing brought us our little man a few minutes later.

They immediately took him to the Pediatrician who checked his vital signs and took some blood and put him under the hot lamps to start to warm the little guy up.  I got to take him for a couple of minutes to Amanda where she got her first look.  They then took Amanda to recovery and Logan to the nursery.  Michelle and I had to wait for almost 4 hours to see Amanda and the baby again.  This seemed like a long time, but we tried to pass the time which went really slowly.  We occupied the only private room in the entire clinic and we were thankful for these accommodations which we thought were really nice.  They finally brought us both Amanda and Logan and they were both doing great.  One interesting thing, they don't have the facilities to wash the baby, so Michelle and I had the privilege to take Logan to our sink and wash his hair.  Things are just different here in the way in which they care for babies, not necessarily worse, just different.  All this to say, we are thankful that God protected all of us during this whole entire process.  Amanda is doing amazingly well.  I was shocked when I went to pick her up in the morning, she was sitting in a chair and moving around just great.  I truly believe we had a great doctor--  so thankful for that.  Both of them are during so good, and it's been fun to share this experience with our church.  We are thankful and proud that our son will be both American and Colombian.  That may not make a lot sense to most of you, but it something that we are thankful for.  We are so thankful for all of you who have prayed for us because God was so good to us during this whole process.  Also a big thanks to Chad and the kids for letting their mommy come to help us during this time.  We greatly appreciate you.

Oh one last thing.  The wonderful people from our church had a surprise baby shower for Amanda.  While we were out picking up Michelle, they set up everything in our house and so many people for the church came to show their love.  Amanda was surprised and we both felt very loved.  Thanks to all those who participated and helped with that.

Our Suite.  Only 1 in the whole clinic

Next Day picture as we are leaving

Back to real life

This is the first time the kids got to see Logan

Parker is taking a good look and trying to figure out what he thinks about little bro

When we asked Parker what he wanted to name the baby, he said, "Johnson Coca-Cola"  This sign made me laugh

Our friend who will be having a baby soon

The boys at the shower

Pastor helping to serve

Making an Impact

This past weekend, we had the opportunity to partner with other SAM missionaries in a neighborhood health clinic.  Our teammates, Frank and Luz, facilitate the OANSA (AWANA) ministry in a poorer neighborhood of Santa Marta.  Through this ministry, they do community outreaches to help the meet the physical needs of the people as well as the spiritual needs.  Jon and I had both helped with this type of activity before, but this was the first time the youth took responsibility with some of the activities. Jon and I had taught our group of students how to share the gospel with braclets and 5 colored beads. This is an activity that Child Evangelism Fellowship uses in their backyard Bible club program.  For several of our students, this was the first time that they had shared their faith. What a powerful thing for these kids to learn and gain confidence in while they are young!  Jon and I were greatly encouraged by the students in our group as we saw them interact and share their Saturday afternoon with young kids they didn't know. There were several kids who made professions of faith and we pray that this will be the beginning of a life-long walk with our Lord Jesus. 

In addition to the evangelism bracelets, we also played games with the kids, sang songs, offered medical consultations and free medications, and cut people's hair. There were numerous volunteers from our church and it was exciting to see everyone working together to show the love of Christ.

Again thank you to all of you that are supporting us financially and with your prayers.  You are apart of the gospel being proclaimed in Santa Marta, Colombia.  We are so thankful for each and every one of you.

Prayer Requests:
1. Pray for those who received Christ as their Savior this past weekend. Pray that they would return and hear more about who God is and His plan for them.
2. Pray for our youth lunches that take place on Tuesday afternoons. We have been having youth from Jon's classes in the school over for lunch. This has been an encouraging time to get to know the kids better, practice English, and pray for them. Pray that it would be a beneficial time for them as we learn more about how to minister to their needs.
3. Pray for our upcoming youth retreat at the end of June. Our theme will be "Your Identity in Christ." Pray that the students' hearts will be prepared and that they would be able to
4.  The cesarian is on the 4th of May.  That time is quickly approaching and we are anxiously awaiting the coming of our little boy.  Please pray for a quick recovery for Amanda and smooth transition for our little American/Colombian boy.

 Amanda helping to get us ready.  Kids listen to pregnant women :)

The bracelets were quite a challenge to put together.  But we got them together 

 One of our youth, Angie, sharing the gospel using the wordless bracelet

 Even Parker is helping put the bracelets together.  He is a really good helper.

 We had a dentist come to help teach the kids how to take care of their teeth

 Some more of our youth teaching some fun songs about God

 Im sitting next to one of the youth of our church... I'm making her explain the gospel to me.  She did a great job.

 Sam was helping with the lice hair washing.  He's a good little helper too.

 One of the Doctors from our Church taking care of a young guy

One of the newer members of our church taking the opportunity to share Jesus with a young mom 

Wonderful godly woman of our church who is also a nurse helping wash hair 

Putting the beads on the bracelet...harder than it looks 

Hair cuts for the prevention of lice 

The psychologist from our school came to offer counseling as well