December 2014 Prayer Letter

Dear Friends and Family,

We hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Truly, we all have much to be thankful for. It is hard to believe it is now the end of 2014. November was an exciting month for us. First of all, we have now received our Dimex cards which are our identification of legal residency. Somehow, this make it all feel a bit more “real.” We were also able to cover much new ground in our Grammar class. Up until now, our ability to communicate has been restricted to the grammatical framework that we understand. It is as if many new doorways have been opened in our ability to communicate in Spanish. We are determined to put a heavy emphasis upon this time of preparation because we know it will be essential to our future ministry. We are now near the end of our 2^nd of 3 trimesters. We were also able to attend our first missions conference in Central America. It is exciting to see churches here with the same passion to reach the world for Christ.

As I mentioned in our previous letter, this was our first Thanksgiving out of the country. At our school, we helped plan a large-scale Thanksgiving event for the students and staff. At home, we prepared a Thanksgiving dinner and were able to have some fellow missionaries as well as a family from our church come over for dinner. Lila now speaks and understands much more Spanish than ever before. She frequently will sing songs in Spanish. At times, she easily switches to speaking Spanish. There was a pre-school Christmas program at our school, and Lila gave quite the performance as she sang in Spanish! Ellowyn only knows a handful of words, but she has already said her first Spanish word: Agua! We are very thankful to have this opportunity to learn a language, a culture, and especially to bring the Gospel to those who have not heard.

As you all know, we have had much difficulty with recurring sicknesses since moving out of the states. We have a praise that this last month was much better! This month, please pray for:

1. The Lord to help us in learning the language the best we can.
2. The Lord to give us direction as we plan our transition to Nicaragua.
3. The Lord to open doors for us to serve here during our time in Costa Rica.

In Christ,
Jeremy, Michelle, Lila, and Ellowyn Blanz