a lot more road time than we are used to…

During the last two weeks of May, we were sent by GCLA on a fundraising trip for the Total Water ministry water project, with the knowledge that we would probably have a lot more interest if we could meet with people in person. And it certainly was true — we had over 20 meetings in 10 different cities during the trip. It was a lot of driving in our car, parallel parking, drive-thrus and city traffic, which is, of course, something that we are not used to right now! It was a busy burst back into what American life is like. We had the opportunity to meet with churches, engineering firms, businesses, VT Alumni Groups, and to present at events. We are so thankful for the chance for this trip to happen and we are thankful for all those who graciously met with us. As each has to meet with boards and higher-ups for approvals, budgeting meetings and the like, please be praying that God would move their hearts towards giving to the Total Water project.  We currently stand at a little over $20,000 of the final budget.  Praise God!

short term mission teams

Part of our trip also included recruiting new churches to come on short term mission teams to our church in Danli, Honduras or to other locations in Great Commission Latin America to support these churches with their ministries. We were greeted with enthusiasm by several churches that we met with. We are thankful to God for any potential partnerships that may come from these meetings.

We are also excited to now be preparing for Jamey’s home church, Faith Baptist Church in Covington, VA, to come on a mission trip here in July. It is quickly approaching and many people at our church here keep asking about it, as they know that Jamey’s parents, Jimmy and Sherry Smith, will be joining the team from Faith. It will be their first time here and their first time ever leaving the country!

Praise God for the potential new church partnerships and mission teams. Praise the Lord for Faith Baptist Church being a new mission team for Danli this year, and the encouragement this creates for our local church.

cdi prayer requests

Working with underprivileged children, especially with limited resources, can present it’s own set of challenges. We ask that you would join us in praying for our students; more specifically for their health, their education, and their family situations.

Health: So many of our students have fallen ill in the last several weeks with Chikungunya, a virus that is transmitted by mosquitos, which presents itself with high fevers and severe joint pain. It’s so hard to watch our kids even try to walk when they are infected with this virus. There is no vaccine or medicine for Chikungunya, and it can be a long wait until it is completely over. We also currently have a lice infestation that has made it’s way around to almost every family in our program that we are trying to handle at the moment with our CDI families.

Education: This is a constant prayer request, but we have so many students who are behind in their grade levels. As they fall more behind they become incredibly discouraged, but even worse, we have many parents who will either make the older siblings do their work for them in order for them to get their work done faster, which teaches them nothing, or we have parents that believe that their child cannot learn and tell them so until they so deeply believe it as well. We are currently concentrating on our second graders, a few of which have made no steps towards learning to read. Please be praying that we would know how to teach this important skill in our second language well.

Family: The longer we are around our students, the more we come to understand the complicated intricacies of them. We recently had a student, whose brother and sister also attend the CDI, tell us about a very serious problem in her family life. Please be praying for strength and the protection of the Father for these precious children.

Thank you for joining in prayer with us for these kids. If anyone would like a list of names our more detailed prayer requests to help us pray more specifically for our students, please email us. We would be glad to send that to you. Also, if you would like to join us in spirit, the CDI teachers gather to pray for our students together at 9:30am CT on Mondays (11:30am EST) as we don’t observe daylight savings in Honduras. That may be a lunch break time for many of you, and we would be so grateful if you would think to pray during a moment of it.

Thank you so much for all of your prayers, encouragement and support!  None of these would be possible without you.  We love you all!

Jamey & Lesley Smith