Dear friends and family, 

This last week, Toby and one of our minister’s went to investigate a place for a new church plant. There are about 1000 people living in this town. Rent and land are very reasonable. Toby would like to send Henry Perez and his family to live there and start a new church. Henry’s brother, Orlando, moved there recently and would be a big help. Orlando has been almost begging us to send someone there to start a church since he feels there are no churches there. The schools up here are not really teaching their children at all. Kids graduate without knowing their alphabet. Henry has 3 children so we would like for them to be some place where they can get an education.

Toby also met a man who teaches, disciples, small groups of people until he has enough people to start a church. Toby has been praying for some time that someone could come and teach the men this. As is typical for anyone, our minister’s want to do it the old way and have not been receptive to new ideas. Toby plans on having Freddy teach Henry and another minister how to disciple then once the other ministers see that it actually works then Freddy can train the rest of the ministers. Toby told Freddy how talented our men are but that they are unwilling to start new churches. It could have to do with the fact that the places they went to before they were stoned, chased with machetes, curses put upon them … Please pray for this new endeavor and that the Lord would bless it.

The meetings with the men and women are going well. Last night one of our churches held a revival meeting about 150 in attendance in pouring down rain(the village has maybe 300 people in it). Many of the women showed interest in the class so Toby feels there will be a lot more in attendance this week. The women are really excited about what they are learning. One lady who lives in an abusive/bad home situation has seen changes in her husband from the changes in her own life from the things she has learned. What a blessing!!!

Clinic has had it slow and very busy days. It is suppose to be the hot season right now but we have had lots of cold weather and rain which has kept the patient load down. When it is sunny and warm out the patient load has been in the 30’s. Friday was a pretty stressful day. I had 34 patients but it felt a lot more than that. I had 3 women come in who were all told they could not get pregnant again without significant risk to themselves and their child. One lady had an emergency c-section a year or so ago. She has dysentery (diarrhea). The cramping is so bad that she felt like her incision was going to open up. She was to wait for Toby to take her down but decided just to go to the hospital the next day. The second lady has lost two babies between week 38 and 40 with a lot of complications before that time. I really need an obstetrician contact at Catarino Hospital that will see my patients. You almost have to be dead to get seen and sometimes not even that helps. This week I will talk to my doctor to see if he can help this second lady Nolvia since she is in her 3rd month. I had one lady who had an allergic reaction to her epilepsy medicine. Her husband was just murdered Super Bowl evening ½ or less from our house. She has some mental problems. She was invited to stay with family and then her and her children were kicked out. She has no one to help her. We also found out today that a baby I sent to the hospital with severe malnutrition is still living. I hope to see them tomorrow and give them some more milk. They were feeding the baby corn starch.

This is getting long so I will cut off and write again later. We really do appreciate your prayers.

God bless,

Toby, Amy, Cassandra, Sarah, and Jonathan