Thank you all so much for your prayers. We really appreciate them so much. We know when you cover us with your prayer we are protected from any harm someone might try to cause us that is why we asked you to pray. The details are still a little confusing on what happened but I will try to explain.

We normally come down to the city on Thursdays to do our errands. This Thursday was no different from the others. We went down as usually our first errand is the bank. I always go to the post office and Toby the bank since they are right next door to each other. After I was done at the post office, Toby asked me to talk to the bank manager to make sure he understood her correctly as well as to try to get more information. She told us that Yami had come in and wanted the bank manager to give us a message as soon as possible. The bank manager said that someone had seen Yovani hiding outside our house in the jungle area. Someone had told Yami he was not alone and they had machetes. Yami thought he was coming up to kill us. Yami knew the bank would have our phone number so she went there to tell us. She was very worried. It was emphasized to us to be very careful. 

Here is the truth, as far as we know story. Martin, Yami's husband, had come down to the city for something. I guess Yami was seeing him off at the main road which is strange because I don't think she normally does that. Right after Martin left, another truck load of people came up from the city. A guy got off the truck and started talking to Yami. The guy had seen Yovani, on his way up the mountain, hiding with two unknown people. They had machetes. His first thought was that Yovani was coming up to kill us. 

When Yami heard this she took the next truck down to the bank to tell the manager. No threat was actually verbalized. But for Yovani to come up when he knows it is our errand days says something. He knows we will not be home until around 5 p.m. We try to vary this as much as we can but my schedule does not permit this very much. Yami did not know for sure if he was/is in the mountain or not. She told us to be careful. To say Yovani is wanting to kill us is a definite possibility but he has not verbalized that. The situation is complex in all the reasoning but I will try to explain. There are several things that would make Yovani and others no longer want us in the mountain. Everyone in San Antonio del Peru where we live is family. Many of the young men are thieves. A family cannot go to the police if something is stolen because one of their own family members is in the same "gang" (this term is used loosely). If they tried to convict one guy their family member would be convicted in time. Yovani has stolen from two schools near us right before he robbed the house where the girls in the group from Kingsway were staying. These teachers are not from the area and so went to the police. With a third incident the police are ready to put him away. The people are upset with us because we found Yovani walking along the main road around 3 p.m. with a stolen carry-on. They are amazed at Yovani's stupidity for doing that in broad daylight when we could see it. Yovani knows that Toby has no difficulty with putting him in prison. This upsets the rest of the thieves because they know their time is coming. 

Last week, someone in San Antonio decided to put a road in going between our house and our neighbors house on back. The man who owns this property is very powerful and wealthy man in Honduras. We have agreed to watch over the house next door for him and keep it up. The people said it was their right to build it that it was not Don Chepe's land because they are allowed to use it as a walk way (side walk more or less). There is a major difference between a side walk and a road. We do not want to have any problems with Don Chepe. We both tried to talk to the people working on this road to talk to Don Chepe before doing anymore work. Toby started talking in the normal indirect way asking please go talk to Don Chepe first. After a while Toby had to become blunt with them. We went into the house to get the cameras to take pictures of them so if Don Chepe had problems with this road that it would not be blamed on us. That caught their attention. Most of the guys are thieves in the mountain. The "road" goes right along our fence line and stops at our guest house. Which would make it easy for them to rob us. They know somehow that we are leaving soon. We went to the city to talk to Don Chepe. He did not have a problem with it. He basically said if he did anything it would make our lives very difficult so he decided to do nothing. So anyway these guys are now mad at us.

We have to do two more things to get this guy arrested. We have to take down a list of the girls robbed and the teacher from our area. We have a list of the girls who were robbed. The police want us to bring the teacher from our area to testify. Since he is in school it is difficult to do without the whole mountain finding out that we are about to have Yovani arrested. Every time Toby has tried to talk to him, when there is no one around, he is not there. Pray that Toby will be able to get the teacher down to the city to testify.

We really appreciate and need your prayers. With your prayers, we are covered to do the work God has sent us to do. Toby is driving at night a lot now to preach/teach in villages above us. It always seems that something is trying to hinder him. Please pray that Toby will be able to continue the work the Lord wants him to do. Also pray for safety driving at night as well as the right person(s) will accompany. Pray for my safety when he is out ministering. With your prayers, we can continue the work knowing we have God's protection.

We would like to especially thank Joel Agustus and Greg Tracy for all their help. Joel left today to go to the states. He had a lot of work to do and only Thursday and Friday to get it done. He took all day Thursday to make sure we were safe. Joel knew who to contact so we would have a better idea of what to do. He and Greg then went up the mountain to find out exactly what was going on. We were told to stay down in the city for safety sake until they returned. We are so thankful to Joel and Greg for all their help as well as Amable(these men all work with Lifeline. Joel is such a blessing to us we are so grateful for he and Janny's friendship.

God bless,

Amy