October 2021 Prayer Letter

 Dear Friends and Family,

We hope that you are doing well and staying healthy! September was a very difficult month for us. It started out well with all of our normal ministry activity. We continued our focus on evangelism, discipleship, and normal church services. We held a special "children's day" service. We had plans for a special independence day service. We were going to have a special Costa Rican soup called "olla de carne" after one of our services. However, that week Elijah was the first to come down sick... then Lila... then Jeremy... then Michelle. We moved our services online out of precaution. When Jeremy lost his sense of smell and taste, we knew something was wrong... we were likely dealing with covid.

At this point, we had to put our ministry plans on pause and get tested. Michelle was tested for covid and the results came back positive. Around the time that it seemed like we were getting better, things took a turn for the worse and we had to put ministry on a minimal "survival mode" of shorter online services. Ours girls were able to continue their schooling online, and we have done our best to keep pushing forward each day and take care of the family. We were given isolation orders from the government and were unable to leave the house for any reason. Many from the church have offered to help, pray for us, etc. Some have brought us food and medicine. Our isolation orders are now done, but we are far from healthy and are still very weak and sick feeling. The kids have recovered well, but Michelle and I (Jeremy) are not able to eat well or do much of anything. On the bright side, there are some who we have not seen at church very much this year who have begun attending faithfully again. Surprisingly, our online services have been attended pretty well.

We are both young and healthy and it has been surprising how hard that covid has hit us. It's also been surprising how long and slow the recovery seems to be. It is also hard for us to not be able to do the ministry as much as we would like. This month, please pray...

1. For our health... that we can make a full recovery quickly and get back to operating at 100%.

2. For our church plant... that God will strengthen the church during this time when we are weak.

3. For God to guide and lead the church as we seek a better meeting location.

* Thank you for all of your prayers and support during this time. It means a lot to us.

In Christ,

Jeremy, Michelle, Lila, Ellowyn, and Elijah Blanz