Dear
Friends and Family,
We
hope that each of you are doing well. We are still doing our best to
keep pushing forward during the COVID epidemic. We cannot legally
have church services, but we have been doing online services. Jeremy
has been preaching through the book of Philippians and teaching
through the baptist distinctives. He was recently invited to teach a
group of pastors a series of lessons on soteriology. Although we are
very limited during this time, we are working very hard to lay a
strong foundation for future growth. Michelle has been working with
another lady to begin monthly ladies meetings. The social distancing
rules has severely limited our outreach during this time, but we have
been able to use social media to reach out and build relationships
within the community and increase exposure to our ministry. Among
other things, Jeremy was able to run a social media campaign to
freely distribute a book that explains the true Gospel of salvation
by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
As
for our family, we have been mostly confined to the house for nearly
3 months now apart from infrequent trips to the store. Jeremy has
been able to visit some of those who attend with us to try to
maintain those relationships in person. Michelle has been very busy
homeschooling the kids both
with what they need to do for their Costa Rican school, but also for
their English and other US-based courses. Lila recently finished her
2nd grade US courses and Ellowyn finished her Kindergarten courses.
Pretty much all public parks and play places are all closed, but we
have tried to take the kids out on a family day each Friday to visit
a national park or some other type of place where they can stretch
their legs and get a little exercise. We hope that things will return
to normal soon.
Unless
there are further restrictions, churches should be able to begin
holding small services on June 21st. The currently proposed rules are
extremely strict and will reduce our seating capacity from around 30
to about 8-9 people. All outside options are closed and neighbors
have even threatened to call police if children are seen playing near
the parks. Even renting another location is equally difficult because
we would need a very large and expensive location to hold even the
smallest congregation. This month, please pray...
1.
That God will open doors and remove obstacles to ministry here in
Costa Rica.
2.
That God will help us to continue reaching out and seeing souls
saved.
3.
That God will continue to strengthen and build His church here in
Costa Rica.
In
Christ,
Jeremy,
Michelle, Lila, Ellowyn,
and Elijah
Blanz
