Dear Friends:
Happy New Year! What a great year we are hoping this will be! We believe God is calling us to expand our current ministry to 9 additional girls at the orphanage this year! That will be 9 more girls who have a chance to grow up in a godly environment with encouragement in the Lord, an opportunity to re-orient their thinking to seek first the Kingdom of God, and encouragement to excel in school work and prepare for college or technical school and a productive life.
In the Alas program, we currently support about 114 children, providing spiritual and physical help for them and their families so that they grow in the knowledge of the Lord, study hard and seek to do well in school, and hopefully also go on to college or a trade school, so that they can be financially independent and able to improve their lives and their family’s lives. We currently have about 8 local churches involved in the program, and hope to add additional churches this year.
We know that we live in a world full of darkness, meaning it is a world filled with harmful things and harmful people, a world that has turned its back on God because people would rather go their own way instead of seeking first the Kingdom of God in theirlives, (Matt. 6:33), a world which produces a desire for self-gratification, lust, fear, anger, jealousy, hatred, and death, to name a few. But, the Good News for 2022 is that Jesus came to bring light into the darkness! (Jn. 12:46). The great thing about light is that it pushes back darkness! I think about how Jesus commissioned Saul (Paul) to bring that light into the darkness of his world.
Acts 26:16-18 I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will yet reveal to you. I will deliver you from the Jewish people, as well as from the Gentiles, to whom I now send you to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light , and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.' NKJV.
God also commissioned you and me when we were set apart to follow Christ. He has made us ministers and witnesses of the things we have seen and of the things He will reveal to us! He will deliver us from evil, and he calls us to go into our world to open the eyes of those still in darkness, still bound by evil, to free them from the power of sin and to show them their future in a life of faith!
We are called to encourage one another in the path of the Lord, denying our fleshly desires and saying “yes” to all He has prepared for us in our new lives in Him.
Are your ready for 2022? If we will only draw near to Him this year, If we will only seek to make Him our All in All, then we have some great assurances! 2 Cor 1:20-22 Whatever God has promised gets stamped with the Yes of Jesus. In him, this is what we preach and pray, the great Amen, God's Yes and our Yes together, gloriously evident. God affirms us, making us a sure thing in Christ, putting his Yes within us. By his Spirit he has stamped us with his eternal pledge — a sure beginning of what he is destined to complete. MSG
May the Lord fill our lives with His “Yes!” in this coming year! May we have the strength and courage to share the Good News of His promises to all who will listen! Let this be a year in which the darkness recedes and the Light of Christ grows! We especially pray for this in Palomas, that many in our program and the new girls we hope to receive in the orphanage will allow the light and the Yes of Jesus to illuminate them and all the town this year!
We prepared pork and posole to give for all of the families, we put together all of the gifts you provided to the kids, we served Frito pies and Elote (cups of corn with all kinds of goodies to add into the cup), and we spent time reminding the kids about God’s tremendous gift to us of His Son. There were fun and games, and we had a huge pile of clothes for all of the families to go through and pick from. There were plenty of games, and I think the most popular one was Lotteria, which is a game like bingo. The parents really got into it, and we had a hard time bringing it to an end! Some of the kids sponsors showed up to wish them a Merry Christmas!
It was great fun and a lot of work! But many hands make the work lighter, and all of our helpers really made a difference! This year, we held the party only for the families in our program, and we had about 250 people attending. It was a great morale booster! It got the kids and their families in a great frame of mind as we get ready to start the Spring semester of school, which has already started!
God bless you in the New Year!
Berenice