Salgado DR Mission Newsletter

Dear mission partners, friends, brothers and sisters in Christ,

We would first like to give thanks to God for our mission partners. Especially during these difficult times. We trust the Lord completely, but humanly speaking, we have had moments when we have been a bit concerned with the hit that the economy is taking in the US, and how that would affect the ministry here. Especially with so many people losing their jobs. But the Lord has graciously continued to provide so far. He has done so in a such a way that since April 6th, we have been able to provide food to 445 families.  We have been amazed at God’s provision in a time when we actually expected funding to go down. And though we don’t know what the future holds, our hope is to be able to continue ministry as usual if the Lord wills.

The prayers and generosity of our mission partners have allowed us to continue the Lord’s work here, and are the means that the Lord uses to provide for our family, the local church here and much more. Thank you again, for supporting and praying for our family and ministry over the years. Those who pray and give to missions play a role just as important as the missionary on the field.

I give thanks to my God for every remembrance of you, always praying with joy for all of you in my every prayer,  because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. – Philippians 1:3-5 CSB

We are still on quarantine here. The children are all doing virtual school for now and will be finishing the year this way. Christen and I are teaching English from home this way too. Sometimes it’s a challenge with two teachers and three students all online at the same time and keeping up with everything. But it’s nice being more involved with their schooling at home again, especially with Yeison. He is learning how to read now and all kinds of new things, so it has been a blessing. They are all doing good in school and seemed to have transitioned well. It was pretty easy for Maya and Nito, since they have done plenty of virtual and homeschooling in the past, even before we moved here.

We have been waiting to see if the Senate of this country approved the President’s petition for 25 more days of a state of emergency. Today 15 more days were approved. This is not good at all. The percentage of people here who depend on tiny daily wages is high. There are already families everywhere with no income or food as it is. I have seen several desperate families, some with children who have special needs,  widows or widowers who are just pleading for someone to help them, anyone. If it seems that we have been posting a lot about the situation here, food purchases and distribution trips, it is because the needs are very urgent. We are trying to help as many as we can.

The borders are still closed, so I haven’t been able to get to Haiti in a while. But we are able to send funds to Leonel for purchase and distribution there. A couple of brothers that he is discipling are helping him with that, and his children help out too. Here on the DR side, Christen has been doing most of the organizing and packing along with the kids. Usually Pastor Victor or another brother comes to help me distribute and share the Gospel with people when we go out. Sadly, it seems like just a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of people who need help. We hope to continue to help as much as we can as for as long as the Lord continues to provide. What’s the alternative, do nothing? We don’t think that is really even an option. It would be hard for us to sleep at night having food in our refrigerator, while ignoring the fact that others nearby that we know, or know of, have families and are in dire need. Of course, we are aware that we can’t help everyone, but we can certainly pray, share the needs and do our best to help some of them.

 If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food  and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, stay warm, and be well fed,” but you don’t give them what the body needs, what good is it? – James 2: 15-16

This has not been easy in one sense, and it brings its own tension as we are always facing the question on how much to share or not share. But the needs are real, and if people don’t know about them, how can they help? The Lord uses ordinary means to provide for His people. And because we have made the needs known and share stories of them being met, more people have been moved to give. We should probably consider the fact that taking up offerings to help the poor brothers and sisters in another part of the world is a practice almost as old as the church itself. Paul shared needs on the behalf of others, knowing that the Lord would use His church to provide for them. And they did. This has been our experience time and time again. To ease the tension we feel there, we are intentional about doing good to others in two different ways:

  1. One way is found in Matthew chapter seven,  “being salt and light” and  “doing good works before everyone so that they may glorify our Father in heaven.” These are things that we share with our supporters and followers on social media who donate to the ministry. And let’s just be honest, many people don’t read newsletters that come to them in emails anymore, but on social media more do. Most people tend to keep up with us that way.  Even then, we share very few pics considering how many are taken for our own records. If a donor wishes to see more, they can be shared with them privately. We do not seek to “sound a trumpet” or “the applause of men,” but sincerely seek to help the church and love our neighbor. If brothers and sisters back home are willing to join us in helping others, praise the Lord! It is also just a good and responsible habit to frequently communicate things with supporters back home. Of course, some will always criticize missionaries for sharing too much or not sharing enough. It’s not such an easy thing to navigate, you get criticized and compared to others often. So we try to do the best we can to honor the Lord, seek resources to help the church here and communicate with our mission partners, sharing some things we do, and keeping other things private. Which leads me to the second way of doing good to others.
  2.  There are other things that we keep between us and the Lord as it says in Matthew chapter six,  so that our giving “may be done in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” I don’t think Jesus is contradicting Himself with what He says in chapter seven. There is a time to do things before others and give God glory so that the world may know Who we serve. There is also a time to do things in secret, when our “left hand does not know what our right hand is doing”  so that we may be humble and not seek glory and applause from men. This is pleasing to the Lord. Pray that the Lord would continue to provide for us and give us the wisdom that we need in all of this.

The church in Hato Mayor continues to meet online for a Sunday message, but we communicate and exchange prayer requests daily. Everyone seems pretty anxious to gather again for worship, but we have many people with health problems in the church. I imagine that some may not come back right away out of fear of becoming sick. With the health issues that some older members have, it’s hard to blame them.

Please remember to take a moment to pray for us. Our marriage, our children, provision and our health.

Pray for the churches here, those who have no way to provide for their families, and the many people who are suffering from more than just hunger during this quarantine.

Pray for the women and children who are stuck at home with an abuser. There has been an increase in cases of abuse since the quarantine started.

Pray for those with special needs or mental illnesses who are suffering.

Pray that the church would rise up during this time and be a bold messenger of truth and hope in the midst of falsehood, anxiety and fear.

Pray that we would all seek to help the brethren in need and love our neighbor in the name of Christ for the glory of Christ

Thank you for your love, prayers and support and God bless.

In Service to our Lord and King,

Antonio and Christen Salgado and family

 

If the Lord so lays on your heart to support this ministry,  you can send your tax deductible gift to:

CENTRAL MISSIONARY CLEARINGHOUSE
P.O. Box 219228
Houston, Texas 77218-9228
1-800-CMC-PRAY (1-800-262-7729)
Office: 281-599-7411
Fax: 281-599-7511

The ministry of (CMC) serves hundreds of missionaries, but they ONLY receive the funds for us and in no way have control over how the funds are to be spent or what we are to do as a ministry, which gives room to be sensitive to the Spirit’s leading and the liberty in making needed adjustments. This is one of the reasons why we went with CMC. There are also three trusted pastors which sit as our mission board.

You may begin sending your support to the Salgado DR Mission at any time at the address above. (Checks should be made payable to Central Missionary Clearinghouse or C.M.C.)

You can also now give to the ministry here in the DR online through the new giving solution called “click and give” at the CMC website.

To get started you just need to click on the link below and register the first time. Just a simple click on the donate button on their page (see link below), and then click the “click and give icon/button”. Look for Antonio Salgado on the list of missionaries there.

https://www.cmcmissions.org/donate

You will then have a private giving solution that comes with many benefits to you the donor. If you have any questions please call the office (tel:1-800-262-7729 or 281-599-7411), and they very kindly will walk you through what you need to do.

You can also donate to this ministry online with Paypal. Click the donate button below and you can send support of any amount directly to the ministry. You can choose the option of doing a one-time donation and this is the fastest option to get funds to us.

Unfortunately through Paypal we are not set up for receiving recurring donations at this time. But the other online giving option above does have the recurring monthly donation option. Simply register one time and that’s it.

For tax exemption, you must send your donation through Central Missionary Clearinghouse (CMC) at the address above or online. 

We do not use a sending agency that gets a percentage of the money donated. Apart from the 2% that CMC charges for processing fees, you can be sure that almost your entire gift goes directly to the mission field.

Whatever you decide, thank you so much for praying for us and helping this ministry. God Bless You!

Salgado DR Mission Newsletter

Dear mission partners, friends, brothers and sisters in Christ,

Here we are, just like most of the world right now under quarantine. This is week four for us. Christen and I have had to go out several times, but the children have not gone much further than the yard. But we praise God that everyone in our family is pretty healthy right now, besides the underlying issues we already know of. God has been very kind and gracious to us.

The church here has also been forced to communicate online (those that can)as many others are,  or through a phone call. But the situation here is getting urgent pretty quickly. Although there have been deaths due to Covid-19 and cases near us, what has been worse than the virus itself has been the mandatory lockdown. The curfew here begins early, at 5pm, and many of even the essential places of business are closing early. That is causing all kinds of serious problems.

Seeing what was happening all around us, and speaking to brothers from other parts of the island, we realized how many people were already out of food and in need. Since we are plugged into a network of churches here, we are joining their efforts to help some poor and struggling Dominican and Haitian churches, many that are in difficult and isolated places. But we are also doing our part on the local level in the two communities (Hato Mayor, San Jose Las Minas) that we are working in. We hope to help other local churches we know of in and around Santiago, and in the next few days be able to send some help towards the national effort. Pray that the Lord would provide for us to do so and help as much as possible.

We are seeing many opportunities that the Lord is giving us through this difficult situation. Just a few days ago, I was able to purchase a large amount of basic food items. We also had a few boxes of soaps and shampoo that was donated to give away. So our family was able to put together some decent care packages for 40 families.

Pastor Victor and I loaded up the mission van the next morning to begin distribution. We covered a lot of ground and still were able to make it home before curfew. I went out again near our home, and again with Christen yesterday to some people who were a little farther away. Everyone received eggs, rice, beans, sugar, milk, oil, tomato paste, sardines, salami, corn flour, seasonings, soap, shampoo and a very good Gospel tract. We had several opportunities to share the Gospel with unbelievers. Please pray for those who heard the Gospel, and for those who read the tracts they received.

We definitely heard some heartbreaking stories along the way from several people who have families but don’t have anything to eat during this time and are stuck home unable to work. Many of these people live hand to mouth as it is, so this lockdown has been the hardest on them. Their homes are tiny, many in bad conditions, and it would be impossible for them to go out and stock up like many of us can. 

We are thankful for the opportunity to serve the Lord and fellow image bearers, and pray that the Lord would bring life through the seeds that were sown along the way. We are thankful for God’s provision through our mission partners that made this possible. We have seen people come to Christ in the past through difficulties such as this. It was through the preaching of the Gospel of course, but God worked through the difficult circumstances to humble people, which created an opportunity to help them and share the Gospel with them. We pray that many more would learn to number their days, seeing their sin, and the frailty of their existence and turn to Christ for forgiveness during these times. Pray for us and those we come in contact with.

A supporting church recently helped us to purchase some new equipment we have been needing for our open air preaching ministry. I am currently working on a message for that but prefer to memorize the general message and do that kind of preaching without notes and be prepared to engage with onlookers. People are just sitting in their homes, their front porches and some even still gather on the street corners in the barrios. Pray for me, that the Lord would use those efforts despite my weaknesses, and that the message may be given to me when I open my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the Gospel. Pray for those who will hear, that they may turn and be saved and that we can follow up with them as well.

We can already see how God is using the quarantine in our personal lives too, as we spend more time together as a family. We have time to think and reflect on many things as we do some self-examination and refocusing. We are reminded of God’s grace, the work of the church to proclaim the Good News and to help the needy and all that we have to be thankful for.

In spite of all the bad news and suffering, we do see God being glorified. Some churches that do have some resources are reaching out to help smaller churches. Some are already are working together and seeking to help bring relief to their own people. A few Christians have taken to the streets, others the internet, proclaiming the Gospel and more involved in their communities than before. Others are being humbled as their worlds are now crumbling before their eyes, and they are forced to reconsider their priorities. This is making some people seemingly more receptive to the things of God.

Although we are distanced from each other for a time, we still  have opportunities to teach, encourage and bring comfort to the church here. I recently recorded message in Spanish that was shared to many people, and we have done bible studies with those able to connect. We stay updated daily as to how the church is doing, especially those who are at high risk and poor brothers and sisters.

Recently I had the privilege of sharing a message and update of the ministry with a church via video call. Lord willing, we will do the same with another church this coming Sunday. We’d be more than happy to take advantage of this time to do the same with other churches, families and friends who support us. Just email us at salgadodrmission@gmail.com, and we can arrange a date that works for both sides. We would love to connect and be able to update friends and mission partners this way.

We are still teaching English, although virtually now. Our kids are all finishing their school year online too. Many other plans have sadly been put on hold fro now, and I have also had difficulty communicating with Leonel in Haiti. This has us pretty concerned, although this has happened before when his phone broke or has had issues. But with the border closed, and now being unable to reach him at all, we ask that you please pray for Leonel, his family and the churches there. I hope to be able to speak with him soon.

Other prayer requests:

Pray that we would stay healthy. We aren’t good to anyone if we get sick. But we can’t just sit home when we are able to help people who really need it. We are taking all the necessary safety precautions possible.

Pray for Christen and Tonito and Yeison. Since the quarantine, their follow-up doctor appointments have been cancelled until further notice. They are fine for now, but we are a bit anxious to see if the medication have helped to shrink a growth on Christen’s thyroid. If not, she was supposed to get it biopsied. That has been put on hold for now.

Pray for Christen’s father (Ed) and a visa for Yeison. Christen’s father has end stage coronary heart disease and Lewy Body Dementia among other things. He also became sick recently with fever, and though he tested negative for Covid-19, he does has E. Coli, sepsis and some other infection. Back in February they gave him 3-6 months to live. Now we are concerned he may have less than that. Only God knows. But we made another appointment and requested an emergency visa for Yeison to travel with us. Pray that he will get approved this time.

Pray for me as I continue teaching and preaching online and in the streets. Pray that lost souls would turn from their sin and throw themselves upon the mercy of God in Christ and be saved. Pray for the saints to be edified, challenged, comforted and encouraged. Pray that this situation would cause others to rise up to serve as never before. The harvest is ripe and plentiful but the laborers are still few.

Pray that we will continue to be able to continue working as we have been. With the negative economic impact that the quarantine has had on so many, there is a real concern as to what our ministry may look like in the coming months. We live and work through the generous giving of the saints back home. We trust in the Lord and continue to work as much as possible, but we do ask that you pray.

Pray for the Lord to bring on new mission partners too. Pray that  He will move others to walk alongside of us in prayer and giving during this time. We will continue to do what we can for as long as we can, but we will need help and ask you to pray for us, and about partnering with us.

There is much more we could share, but to avoid this update from being too long, we will leave it at that for now. You can see more frequent updates and prayer requests for the ministry and our family at Salgado DR Mission on Facebook.  Thank you again for your faithful prayers and giving towards this ministry that allow us to do what we do, preach the Gospel and make disciples, to the glory of God. Those who pray for and give to missions, play a part just as important as the missionary on the field. Thank you and God bless.

In service to our Lord and King,

Antonio Salgado Jr.

 

 

 

 

SALGADO DR MISSION NEWSLETTER

Dear mission partners, friends, brothers and sisters in Christ,

Thank you all for your ongoing prayers and support. Without your sacrificial giving and prayers we would not be able to do what we do. To God be the glory.

We have committed to a few other things in this new year. One of which  includes another church plant, Lord willing of course. It is a very new endeavor. We are assisting another couple working in the community where they live, a community we are familiar with.  Right now we are with them two days a week doing evangelism and a bible study on Fridays and a meeting on Sunday evenings. It’s in the community of the school we worked with the last two years. Please pray for this.

 

People praying for us back home play a very important role in this ministry and are very important to our family and the work we do.  Here are some other areas that you can help us with by bringing these petitions before the Lord in prayer.

Some prayer requests for our family:

– Pray for Christen that the nodules on her thyroids would shrink with the meds she is on before her next appointment in a couple of months. She is feeling better, praise God. Hopefully her blood work will get back in normal range soon. She is exercising and eating better now. Actually the whole family is now after the health problems we have had between us. So we all exercise several times a week now and have changed many eating habits. This is important for our health in general, but also for our longevity and effectiveness on the field.

– Pray for Nito. He has been well and active and eating healthy for the most part. But we still worry about him since discovering his condition. The cardiologists say he can lead a normal life and should even exercise and should not limit himself, but he may need a procedure in his fifties or sixties.  The fact that we never knew about this since his birth still kind of shocks us, but we are thankful it isn’t worse. He should see a doctor every few months to keep an eye on it. He has another appointment in a couple of months.

 

 

Prayer requests for the ministry:

– Pray for the hearers of a series in Ezra that I am teaching through in Sunday School at the church in Hato Mayor. I am moving fast and trying to cover several books of the Bible throughout the year looking at the main themes of the chapters of each book. It’s been a blessing for me studying and going through these books I haven’t taught before.

– Pray for me as I hope to get my bachelors in May. I still have a few things to turn in. My final work will be a paper about 40 pages long, but Lord willing, I can finish everything in time. I am hoping to continue my studies after that.

– Pray for a project I am a part of with several others who are working on a Theological Magazine available in Latin America and the U.S., where I am the editor of the missions section of the project. By God’s grace, my first article got published in the new issue. It was on the topic of the church in Latin America having the potential to send the next big wave of missionaries out to the nations in the coming years, but there is still a need for local churches to teach on and focus on the task. I’m pretty sure I am the only guy on the team without a masters degree, most have their doctorates. I don’t even know what I’m doing there really, but they approached me about helping. Apparently the Lord does use the foolish things of this world!

– Pray for the plans this year at the church of Hato Mayor. We have some outreach activities, conferences and medical clinics planned. Pray for the Bible studies in different homes every Wednesday night, and for more neighbors and family members to begin attending these meetings.

– Pray for me as I begin teaching in a Bible institute here based out of a good local church. I will be teaching homiletics and missions on Tuesdays nights over the course of the next two years. It’s a great two-year program and very organized. It’s a privilege to join the team of Dominican  pastors and professors working together in this labor of love.

– Pray for a conference we are having on the 7th and 8th of February on early church practice in the New Testament with a visiting speaker from Atlanta. Stephen Atkerson is a great Bible teacher and brother. This will be his second time coming to teach for us.

– Pray for the students and teachers of the school we teach English at as we have had many opportunities to share the Gospel with them. One teacher is already attending Bible studies with us. Pray for Jailin’s salvation.

Thank you to everyone who has been so supportive and has chosen to continue partnering with us in prayer and giving in this new year. We have a lot more going on than we have in a long time, so we certainly need your help now more than ever. May God bless you for your prayers and sacrificial giving. Pray.

I give thanks to my God for every remembrance of you,always praying with joy for all of you in my every prayer, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.’ Philippians 1:3-5

If the Lord so lays on your heart to give back to Him by supporting this ministry,  you can send your tax deductible gift to:

CENTRAL MISSIONARY CLEARINGHOUSE
P.O. Box 219228
Houston, Texas 77218-9228
1-800-CMC-PRAY (1-800-262-7729)
Office: 281-599-7411
Fax: 281-599-7511

CMC (who receives funds for us) serves hundreds of missionaries, but they ONLY receive the funds for us and in no way have control over how the funds are to be spent or what we are to do as a ministry, which gives room to be sensitive to the Spirit’s leading and the liberty in making needed adjustments for emergencies and priorities. This is one of the reasons why we went with CMC. There are also three trusted pastors which sit as our mission board.

You may begin sending your support to the Salgado DR Mission at any time at the address above. (Checks should be made payable to Central Missionary Clearinghouse or C.M.C.) But please include a note on a separate piece of paper that says Antonio and Christen Salgado / Dominican Republic.

You can also  give to the ministry here in the DR online through “click and give” at the CMC website.

You can also donate to this ministry online with Paypal. Click the donate button below and you can send support of any amount directly to the ministry. You can choose the option of doing a one-time donation and this is the fastest option to get funds to us.

Unfortunately through Paypal we are not set up for receiving recurring donations at this time. But the other online giving option above does the recurring monthly donation option. Simply register one time and that’s it.

For tax exemption, you must send your donation through Central Missionary Clearinghouse (CMC) at the address above.

We do not use a sending agency that gets a percentage of the money donated, so you can be sure that your gift goes directly to the mission field.

Whatever you decide, thank you so much for praying for us and helping this ministry. God bless you!

Salgado DR Mission Newsletter

Dear friends, mision partners, brothers and sisters in Christ,

Forgive the lengthiness of this month’s update. As we draw to the end of one year and enter another, we reflect on everything that we have experienced, the good and the bad and we feel compelled to take the time to express our gratitude to those who the Lord has used to provide for our family and every ministry need met. We are extremely grateful for each and every person who has taken time out to pray for this ministry, for the church, for our family. Especially those who take the time to personally reach out to us on occasion for much needed encouragement.  For every person who has donated any amount throughout the year. Thank you, we love and appreciate your love for the Lord and the desire to be involved in mission work.

Anyone who has followed us for any length of time has probably read in a newsletter, or a post on social media, or maybe has heard me in person speaking somewhere say that, “Those who pray for and give to missions play a role just as important as the missionary on the field.”  I say it often, especially when doing some speaking back home or talking missions with anyone. I say it a lot because we really believe that. The church or person who gives any amout faithfully over time, or the grandmother who wakes up early every morning to pray for the missionaries that she has pictures of or names of on her fridge. Both play a crucial role in this long term partnership in the Gospel we call mission work.

When it comes to funding a missionary, some would say very simply that if it’s God’s will He will provide, and they take the position of not seeking to share needs or raise money. They firmly believe that in this way they are truly trusting the Lord. That’s fine, if it is their conviction, and I believe that if it’s God’s will then He will provide too. But to leave it so simplistic would really be to miss something important on the other side of the same coin. Something clearly revealed in the Scriptures that should not be avoided. We understand and believe that God has ordained all things, absolutely. But He has also ordained the means by which to reach those ends. One confession puts it well when speaking on the decree of God. It says that: 

“God hath decreed in himself, from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably, all things, whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby is God neither the author of sin nor hath fellowship with any therein; nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established; in which appears his wisdom in disposing all things, and power and faithfulness in accomplishing his decree.   

And it wouldn’t take long reading through the epistles before you would start to notice a couple of things:

First, Paul absolutely depended on God and prayed expecting God to answer, and God often did. 

At the same time we see other examples of Paul making his needs known to the churches. He also expected the brethren to help him with his needs and the needs of others. Both are true and they go together.

Yes, at times he worked with his hands out of a conviction and even necessity. In Philippians he writes that at one time “in the early days of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving except you alone.” (Philippians 4:15) This is incredibly astounding. Consider the great Apostle Paul, the Apostle to the gentiles, the great missionary. Now consider churches that he himself and perhaps others had planted, unwilling to give or help Paul so that the Gospel may go forth in other places?! If we lost all of our support, and only one (fairly young) church supported us, we would have to do the same. We too have had to do a little tent making  as of late until we acquire some new mission partners to help ease the burden of new needs and to prepare for future plans we have. But that hasn´t always been the case.

One realistic downside of bivocational missionaries to consider, is that it is easy to become overloaded and overwhelmed, and hence comes the possibility of becoming less effective and their longevity on the field may then soon be in play. Unless somehow, they had established in the past a business, or a high paying career before they moved to a foreign mission field, and they were able to somehow keep it going and make money for their family and ministry without sacrificing all of their time. But those are exceptions, and often bivocational missionaries usually end up spending less time working for the Lord (of course everything we do is unto the Lord, but I mean specifically mission work and ministry here) and more time working just to survive and make ends meet. 

And as the Lord opens more doors, it also comes with more expenses and needs. In the past we taught English at another school free of charge for almost two years. We still even recently have helped that school. But there are seasons of life and ministry when you just do what you gotta do. So we are teaching at another school now. We are willing to do it and even enjoy it in many ways. Sure it is a blessing and the opportunities to share the Gospel are many. But, add a wife and children in that mix of a very demanding work load, both in ministry and secular work, and you will eventually have a recipe for burnout. Especially on the field where the needs are often much greater when working with the poor, and people aren´t so individualistic and private, but need and desire much more attention and time spent together with them. Often needing more time and resources than you have available, and need more than most Americansdo. It is this way with ministry in many other cultures, it’s just different. And if we are honest, most people culturally as Americans just like thier privacy and in general are better off financially. And that’s ok. I say this to mean that just because something is common and or easily done in the States, it doesn’t mean it will be so in a different setting. And though bivocational ministry is always difficult, it proves to be even moreso where the people are poor, often sick and less educated. In those situations, things usually take much more time, energy and money.

But why do some missionaries seem to always need money? Well, first we would certainly agree that the most loving thing we can do for a person is to share the Gospel with them and point them to Christ. To this we say yes and amen. Yet at the same time, it would very unloving to preach the Gospel and ignore someones obvious urgent, basic needs, especially if we were in any position to help them. Of course we cannot help everyone, and the “poor will always be with us.” But this is no excuse for not being as generous as possible and we must remember that we were saved not just from something, but also for somethings, 

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.” Ephesians 2:10

Time and time again we see in Scripture the duty of the believer to compassionate, merciful and generous as we saw exemplified in the life of our Lord and the Apostles and the early church. When the other Apsotles extended the right hand of fellowship to Paul and Barnabas as they were getting ready to go off to proclaim the Gospel and make disciples of the gentiles, they reminded Paul of something that was important to them beacuse it was important to God..

“Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.”  Galatians 2:10 

In the book “Controversies in Missions,” a compilation of essays written on various controversial topics in missions, a chapter on Carl F. H. Henry’s regenerational model puts it this way:

“The particular eloquence of Henry’s position is this: one need not deny the important biblical commands regarding social justice in order to arrive at prioritism (the Gospel proclamation is the priority), and the way one does this is by understanding the full weight of the doctrine of revelation within Christian theology. When this is done, it becomes clear that there is a direct correlation between the doctrine of revelation and the priority of proclamation. However, such a prioritist position by no means renders what the Bible says about social justice as irrelevant or unimportant. In fact, the opposite is true. A high view of the doctrine of revelation, especially concerning Scripture, also gives rise to a robust social concern because the moral imperatives for God’s people are divinely revealed.”

This is in no way a “social gospel” as some understand it. But rather biblical ministry centered on God’s revelation and the ethical demmands put on those who are transformed by the very same Gospel proclamation. The latter (compassionate generosity) actually gives evidence to and establishes that the first and main thing, (Gospel proclamation and salvation) actually took place to begin with. One is a priority, yet both are necessary and biblical. The author offers a very helpful illustration from every day life to help us understand how both are necessary, while rightly keeping the main thing, namely Gospel proclamation, the main thing. 

“I might say that I am going to go to the bank to make a deposit and then to the post office to mail some bills. I furthermore declare that the bank is my top priority because if I do not deposit my paycheck, then the bills cannot be paid. Clearly, one has here a case of priority in which both things remain necessary. I still must deposit my check and I still must pay my bills. Yet one of these takes priority because the second thing depends on the first thing having taken place. It is the same with evangelism and social concern. The gospel must first be preached before converts can be discipled and, indeed, the content of Christian discipleship remains mired in obscurity apart from the proclamational foundations of the apostles and prophets, which is divine revelation. Thus, the logical priority of evangelism does not render compassion as optional. It simply affirms the ultimate place of Scripture and the unequivocal role given to proclamation in the life of the church.”

Consider this text in James:

“If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, stay warm, and be well fed,” but you don’t give them what the body needs, what good is it? In the same way faith, if it doesn’t have works, is dead by itself.” James 2:15-17

But now back to my first point on the funding necessary in order to do both of these things:

So we have the Apostle Paul, who was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write and explain the mysteries of God being revealed, praying to the Sovereign Lord, and at the same time He makes his needs known to the churches and seemingly expected them to meet those needs. We see true dependence on God through prayer, AND communicating to the churches his own needs and the needs of others. Why? Because He understood that the means to reach the goal of the church, IS the church. Specifically, the emphasis in the NT is overwhelmingly on the local churches. 

God´s people have a mission, to go and make disciples of all nations, baptize and to teach all that Christ has commanded. God´s people also have the real responsibility to be intentional in going, sending, praying for and providing for that mission and showing mercy and compassion to others in the process. There are ethical demmands that are put upon the beliver through the commands in the NT. It´s not rocket science, but for some at least, its hard to stay balanced. Many people error and fall off of one side of the horse or the other. It just isn’t as black and white as some would like. We live in a tension in this area. Consider the beautiful mystery of God’s Sovereignty and the will and responsibility that man has. His decrees and His means to reach His intended purpose.

Who´s mission is it?   God´s. 

Who has He commanded to fulfill the mission?   God´s people. 

Who´s doing the calling?   God. 

Who´s Word are we preaching and teaching?   God´s. 

Who did He choose and inspire to write and preserve it? God´s people.

Who is the one preaching and teaching?   God´s pèople. 

Who is forgiving sins and doing the saving?   God. 

Who is being saved and who is He using to proclaim the Gospel?   God´s people.

Who is opening the minds of people, illuminating them to understand the Scriptures? God is. 

Who does He use to do this?   God´s people. 

To Whom belongs the cattle on a thousand hills (and everything else in the universe)?   To God. 

Who is doing the praying and who is doing the providing?   God´s people.

Who has He entrusted precious resources to, to be used for His glory?   God´s people.

At the same time, who is really doing the providing and Sovereignly answering specific individual prayers of provision for His people who are doing His will on His mission? God is.

I could go on and on, but hopefully you get the point by now. His plans will be accomplished and cannot be thwarted, no doubt about that. But He has revealed and commanded how it is to be done as well. And we are very much responsible for being about the will of God in the work of the church. He will do it, and He will do it through His people. Paul knew this. But many who lean too much in either direction fall into error and become unbalanced, inconsistent or worse, unbiblical.

To deny the real responsibility we have before Him would be somewhat foolish and would require the systematic focusing on some particular texts of Scripture, while at the same time ignoring of a lot of other texts. Or putting Scripture against Scripture versus putting the two things together. It would be akin to an error as in saying, God will provide for me but I refuse to work. Or that God will cause me grow in knowledge but I refuse to read or study. For the above mentioned reasons, we have come to the understanding that it is ok to ask for help and make needs known for us and for others. We simply say “these are the needs, pray about helping.” If the Lord puts in someone the desire to help, then praise the Lord! We have examples of it in the Scriptures and we simply accept it and live in the tension between the Sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man. There is no need to even try to reconcile the two, we see both in the Bible and they do not oppose eachother in any way.

Why even address this? I feel the need to expalian this mainly because of our critics, who themselves are of an extreme position and choose not to communicate or share needs out of their conviction. Unfortunately, the same often suffer need more frequently and unnecessarily. God has blessed and given the specific gift of helping/giving to some. (1 Cor. 12:28)  People who desire to see the Gospel taken forth and to help the poor and others. There are people and churches somwhere, right now praying about which mission to give to. We could testify time and time again about how the Lord in His providence would bring such people across our path through their own prayers in seeking who to help, while at the same time answering our specific prayers for provision. Many of who we have never even met or had any prior contact or relationship with! The Lord really has provided and answered an innumerable amount of prayers like these. And He always did so through His people, whether a church as a whole or through individual brothers and sisters.

Having said all of that, we are extremely grateful to God and to our mission partners who pray for us and support us. Especially those who have done so faithfully over time. Without your prayers and donations we just wouldn’t be able to do what we do for as long as we have done it. That’s a fact. Thank you and God bless you.

There really is so much more I can say on the topic, but I will leave it there for now. 

But in other news:

Nito seems to be better and is much more active now, but still experiences ocasional headaches and dizziness. The doctor has been unavailable for a few days but the results of the holter are ready and we should have another appointment very soon. We will update soon after we have that apppointment and know more. Pray for Nito.

Since we were unable to have the surgery done for Yeison’s legs over the Christmas break, the surgery has been pushed back to the Summer because of school. He will need casts on both legs for a little while and need more therapy afterwards. The summer is the best time to take care of that. We have already done all the tests that the doctor who will perform the surgery requested. Perhaps one or two may have to be done again due to the time that will pass from now until then, but this should not be a problem. Everything else is in order. Pray for Yeison.

We brought in the new year as we usually do here, with a fellowship meal with the church in Hato Mayor followed by worship and a message. It was a wonderful time.

Pray for me as I have several things on my plate these days. Lord willing, I will be in Haiti again in the next couple of days. I will be meeting with Leonel and others, do some teaching and to take some food and clothes to some of the brethren from the market there on the border. The plans to help teach and prepare men from a few local churches we are partnering with there continue. 

At the end of the month we have a brother coming (Pastor Stephen Atkerson) to teach for a conference on early church practice. He has come in the past and has taught all over the world, literally. and the teaching on early church practice are a tremendous blessing to the church. I have slowly been translating his book on the topic with another brother helping in the editing process. Lord willing the first chapter will be done and printed to distribute during the conference as a small introduction on the topic. 

A few months ago I was approached by a theological magazine that is now available all over Latin America to be the editor of the missions section of the work. This month my first article on the need for Latin American countries to train and send out more missionaries was published in the magazine. I am the only editor that doesn’t have a doctorate on the team and have no idea why they sought me out, but a brother who is a seminary president, a pastor, author and the general editor of the work contacted me himself and well, here we are.  They like my Spanish to English translations as well. To God be the glory.

I was also recently approached by a small Bible institue ran out of a local church that we fellowship with to begin teaching as one of the professors. I like the idea that it is a ministry of the local church and the pastor and I are good friends as well. It looks like I will be teaching hermeneutics beginning in March. Please pray for me. These projects mentioned that we collaborate with others on are completely labors of love. To God be the glory.

Please keep all of these things in prayer. Our family, the needs, the church and for the strength and grace to persevere through the many difficult moments of life and ministry, and above all for God to be glorified in this new year. Thank you and God bless.

If the Lord so lays on your heart to give back to Him by supporting this ministry,  you can send your tax deductible gift to:

CENTRAL MISSIONARY CLEARINGHOUSE
P.O. Box 219228
Houston, Texas 77218-9228
1-800-CMC-PRAY (1-800-262-7729)
Office: 281-599-7411
Fax: 281-599-7511

CMC (who receives funds for us) serves hundreds of missionaries, but they ONLY receive the funds for us and in no way have control over how the funds are to be spent or what we are to do as a ministry, which gives room to be sensitive to the Spirit’s leading and the liberty in making needed adjustments for emergencies and priorities. This is one of the reasons why we went with CMC. There are also three trusted pastors which sit as our mission board.

You may begin sending your support to the Salgado DR Mission at any time at the address above. (Checks should be made payable to Central Missionary Clearinghouse or C.M.C.) But please include a note on a separate piece of paper that says Antonio and Christen Salgado / Dominican Republic.

You can also  give to the ministry here in the DR online through “click and give” at the CMC website.

You can also donate to this ministry online with Paypal. Click the donate button below and you can send support of any amount directly to the ministry. You can choose the option of doing a one-time donation and this is the fastest option to get funds to us.

Unfortunately through Paypal we are not set up for receiving recurring donations at this time. But the other online giving option above does the recurring monthly donation option. Simply register one time and that’s it.

For tax exemption, you must send your donation through Central Missionary Clearinghouse (CMC) at the address above.

We do not use a sending agency that gets a percentage of the money donated, so you can be sure that your gift goes directly to the mission field.

Whatever you decide, thank you so much for praying for us and helping this ministry. God Bless You!

Salgado DR Mission

Dear friends, mission partners, brothers and sisters in Christ,

Our family:

We are so thankful for the prayers and financial gifts of the many generous people that helped us during Nito’s sickness due to the dengue fever and a bacterial infection he had in his body. The doctor’s think that due to the infection he had,  his immune system was weak and that is why the dengue hit him so hard. There were a couple of very scary moments to be honest. The doctor said that at one pint he was in a delicate and critical state. That is also the reason they kept him in the hospital an extra few days to observe him. Even after the worst part seemed to be over, the fever kept trying to come back.

But praise God he is much better now and still improving. His appetite is better, and he seems to have more energy now though he doesn’t seem to be 100% back to normal yet. He started going back to school today though he did complain about being more tired than usual. But we are thankful he is getting better and his heart rate is getting back to normal. That is definitely a good sign. We were concerned when we heard of a case of dengue in a girl here that affected her heart rate for a whole year before it retuned to normal. Usually it is much quicker than that and only lasts a few weeks when it does happen. That seems to be the case with our son. Praise God for that.  We will be following up with a cardiologist in about another week or so just in case.

Please also continue to pray for Christen who is going to the doctor trying to figure out why her hair is falling out. It’s quite a bit and hasn’t stopped. She has a few appointments set up and a lot of tests to run yet. Pray for my dear wife.

In ministry:

I was recently invited to a biblical institute here that meets at a local church that is presently giving a course on missiology. I was asked to give my testimony as a missionary and share some of what I’ve learned and some of my views on missions with the students. Please pray for me. I will be speaking there next Tuesday night.

At the school I have many opportunities to share the Gospel and Scripture with teachers and students. I was asked to do a project with the high schoolers. They are mostly catholic but a majority believe in God. I decided to do a debate and have them research evolution and creationism. In the process of preparation I had many opportunities to share the Gospel and also speak on the evidences of the glory of God in creation. Because of that the students saw the foolishness of  neo darwinian evolution, an atheistic worldview.

The debate then changed to theistic evolution vs. creationism. Any professing atheists in the class eventually abandoned that position and at least understood that without God, nothing made sense. Praise God for that. Nothing can come from nothing, of course. But, just because they acknowledge that there is a God doesn’t necessarily mean much.

The Bible says,

For though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools .. – Romans 1:21-22

You believe that God is one. Good! Even the demons believe—and they shudder.- James 2:19

Of course, they still need to come to repentance and saving faith in the person and work of Christ. Please pray for them.

But, this stimulated good conversations, challenging questions and even philosophical problems they began to see for themselves. I was impressed at the level of deep thinking of some of them. A couple on the creationism side spoke of Jesus quoting and confirming Genesis as real history. They spoke of morality, absolute truth, and more. But more importantly than the debate itself, they are listening. I have a voice with them, and they are always asking questions now. Questions like what do you mean someone has to pay for our sin? What does a missionary do? How do you know the Bible is true?

For English comprehension exercises I use texts of Scripture and together we ask questions of the text. My class often becomes a Bible study! And often there are other teachers and assistants in the class listening, sometimes intently. It’s kind of crazy how much the Director, who is a liberal catholic, allows and approves of me doing this with the students. Pray for her too. Pray for these students, that the Lord would use these Gospel opportunities and exposure to biblical  truth to save some there. The seeds are being sown. The Lord has Christen and I there for a reason.

The church is doing well and on Wednesday nights we have been meeting for prayer and Bible study in homes instead of the church building. In the past this has brought growth that comes through inviting neighbors and family members of those hosting the meeting. We pray to see this happen again. Pastor Victor is doing a great job and himself has a growing love for missions and missionaries which we now pray for every Wednesday night. That has been beautiful to watch happen. Pray for him, his family and for the church to grow in knowledge, holiness, love and in numbers.

Pray for BCMS too, that we can do more in supporting and equipping the nationals we work with and the necessary resources to do so. We have plans in January for a conference with a visiting expositor. We have many plans for the church of Hato Mayor and for working together with other small churches that we have relationships with. We have plans working with Leonel and a few churches in Haiti. All of this comes with expenses. Pray for our family, for the health issues we’ve had, pray for continued provision for our family’s personal  needs as well. Pray for perseverance in trials and difficulties. Pray.

Pray also for me, that the message may be given to me when I open my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.- Ephesians 6: 19

In service to our Lord and King,

Antonio Salgado Jr.

Salgado DR Mission Newsletter

Dear mission partners, friends, brothers and sisters in Christ,

As I write this I am sitting in a hospital room. Some of you who follow us on Facebook may have seen the updates we have shared about our son Antonio (Nito). Seven days ago he began having a high fever. There are a few viruses going around and the emergency rooms are full around here with many sick. But his fever was very high consistently around 103-104 degrees. We took him a couple of times to a few hospitals which were all full as well. We ended up taking him back home each time and treating him as we usually do. But this fever was relentless and we began to worry. We finally got him into a hospital and they began treating him for dengue fever, a mosquito-borne illness.

He has been in the hospital now since Wednesday and the bloodwork showed his platelet levels dropping significantly each day. We have been through this before with Christen getting dengue when we lived in Esperanza pretty bad. She had a fever for eleven days during that bout. Maya had dengue a few months back but was able to bounce back fairly quickly. But there are four different strains of dengue. Two of them that basically cause fever and some mild symptoms, but can easily be treated at home with fluids and electrolytes and Tylenol to keep the fever under control and prevent dehydration. The problem is you don’t know which one you may have and it can get bad quickly you get dehydrated and it can wreak havoc on your organs.

The other two strains are much more aggressive. Nito got hit pretty hard by one of those with symptoms that went beyond what we were used to with the cases of dengue Christen and Maya had. His fever would not let up, his eyes began to swell, he got dehydrated, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea and a lot of abdominal pain with a rash similar to what we have experienced with chikungunya. He also got very pale. But we were opimistic and happy to have him receiving fluids and in a decent hospital. The plans were for Christen to spend the night with him and for us to switch in the morning.

We prayed over him as a family and then I headed home with the kids. It was shortly after that I received a call from Christen who clearly sounded worried and upset after asking the doctor several questions.  She put the doctor on the phone who told me that he was actually in the critical stage of dengue and it was considered serious and had the potential to get very bad. Christen was nervous and asked me to come back right away so we both stayed here through the night with him.  What concerned us quite a bit was the bradycardia which is a slower heartbeat than normal. It is still a little slow in the ’40s even when he is awake. The cardiologist said it could last up to two weeks but that it should return to normal after that. But thankfully his blood pressure remained stable which was a very good thing.

We just prayed that he would not get to the point where he would begin to hemorrhage. That is when it kills people. There is a dengue epidemic right now, even here in the city. A little six-year-old girl died just yesterday from dengue.  We are thankful that there were hundreds of people praying for him. A missionary in Indonesia (Trevor Christian Johnson) who is very knowledgeable and experienced with tropical diseases took the time to talk with us and encourage us, and let us know that he was praying for our son,  as did a pastor friend who is a doctor here and an uncle back home who is a nurse. Several brothers and sisters messaged us and people from the church here have visited him all day long. We are blessed and very thankful for how God’s people respond like this in prayer and support.

By God’s grace Tonito seems to be doing a little better. He isn’t completely out of the danger zone yet, but hopefully,  tomorrow his platelets will continue rising, and he will continue improving. Pray that the nausea he is experiencing goes away and that he will start eating soon and drinking fluids to get his strength back. He was dizzy and weak just getting up for a shower this afternoon. We still don’t know when he will get out of the hospital, but hopefully, it will be soon. The doctor also said that we shouldn’t be surprised or worried if he seemed tired and sluggish for a little while until his heart gets back to normal.  A secondary concern we have is that since he is still being treated, we don’t know what the hospital bills will be like yet. So any help towards that would certainly be needed and very helpful.

Thank you to everyone who prayed, reached out to us in a message, phone calls and even those who offered to help us get him home if necessary.  It was very encouraging for our entire family. Those expressions of love and concern bless us in such ways that make it difficult to put our thankfulness into words. Please continue to pray for Nito and for our family. God bless.

In Christ,

Antonio and Christen Salgado and family

 

SALGADO DR MISSION

I give thanks to my God for every remembrance of you, always praying with joy for all of you in my every prayer,  because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. – Philippians 1:3-5

Dear friends, mission partners, brothers and sisters in Christ,

We are forever grateful for your support through giving and praying. May the Lord bless you for your acts of love and service through supporting this ministry. We have some important prayer requests for our family and ask you to please join us in praying for the following needs. We have no doubt that the Lord has heard your prayers in the past to help us, provide for us and protect us. Those who pray for and give to missions play a role just as important as the missionary on the field. We are thankful for you.

A couple of important prayer requests:

Please pray for the medical outreach this coming Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We will be In Piedra Gorda, the school in Las Minas and the church in Hato Mayor. There will be free medical exams, free meds for the patients by our friends Anthony and Stephanie Willis who came and served here with us last year. We will be sharing the Gospel with as many as possible.

Carry one another’s burdens; in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. – Galatians 6:2 

Please also pray for provision. We have hit a financial hard spot and are not sure when we can get back to the States to do some fundraising. When donations drop, any emergency or traveling funds we may have gets quickly eaten up in order to keep things going. Our family’s monthly needs, the kid’s schooling and many financial ministry commitments remain. That’s where we are at unfortunately. As of right now we can’t afford to pay the kid’s school for the month and couldn’t make a trip home even if we wanted to.

Still, you did well by partnering with me in my hardship. And you Philippians know that in the early days of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving except you alone. For even in Thessalonica you sent gifts for my need several times. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the profit that is increasing to your account. – Philippians 4:14-17

It has always been a struggle raising money from out of country. By God’s grace we have gotten by in the past. And since Yeison’s visa hasn’t been approved, our past trips have been very brief. That doesn’t give a lot of time for travel and needed fundraising for family and ministry. The ideal situation would be to have new churches or individuals come on board as monthly mission partners. Sharing the needs with others who may be able to help, or a one time gift of any amount is also very helpful and very appreciated. But it is the faithful monthly supporters who help get us through the year.  And right now we are in urgent need of several new mission partners to get  where we need to be financially and finally get “out of the red.”  We ask that you share these needs with others if you can.

Please pray about how you can help. Thank you and God bless.

And my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. – Philippians 4:19

In service to our Lord and King,

Antonio Salgado Jr. and family

 

If the Lord so lays on your heart to give back to Him by supporting this ministry,  you can send your tax deductible gift to:

CENTRAL MISSIONARY CLEARINGHOUSE
P.O. Box 219228
Houston, Texas 77218-9228
1-800-CMC-PRAY (1-800-262-7729)
Office: 281-599-7411
Fax: 281-599-7511

CMC (who receives funds for us) serves hundreds of missionaries, but they ONLY receive the funds for us and in no way have control over how the funds are to be spent or what we are to do as a ministry, which gives room to be sensitive to the Spirit’s leading and the liberty in making needed adjustments for emergencies and priorities. This is one of the reasons why we went with CMC. There are also three trusted pastors which sit as our mission board.

You may begin sending your support to the Salgado DR Mission at any time at the address above. (Checks should be made payable to Central Missionary Clearinghouse or C.M.C.) But include a note on a separate piece of paper that says Antonio and Christen Salgado / Dominican Republic.

You can also  give to the ministry here in the DR online through “click and give” at the CMC website.

To get started you just need to click on the link below and register the first time. Just a simple click on the donate button on their page (see link below), and then click the “click and give icon/button”.

https://www.cmcmissions.org/donate

You will then have a private giving solution that comes with many benefits to you the donor. If you have any questions please call the office (tel:1-800-262-7729 or 281-599-7411), and they very kindly will walk you through what you need to do.

You can also donate to this ministry online with Paypal. Click the donate button below and you can send support of any amount directly to the ministry. You can choose the option of doing a one-time donation and this is the fastest option to get funds to us.

Unfortunately through Paypal we are not set up for receiving recurring donations at this time. But the other online giving option above does the recurring monthly donation option. Simply register one time and that’s it.

For tax exemption, you must send your donation through Central Missionary Clearinghouse (CMC) at the address above. 

We do not use a sending agency that gets a percentage of the money donated, so you can be sure that your gift goes directly to the mission field.

Whatever you decide, thank you so much for praying for us and helping this ministry. God Bless You!

Salgado DR Mission

Dear friends, mission partners, brothers and sisters in Christ,

We are forever grateful for your support through giving and praying. May the Lord bless you for your acts of love and service through supporting this ministry. We have some important prayer requests for our family and ask you to please join us in praying for the following needs. We have no doubt that the Lord has heard your prayers in the past to help us, provide for us and protect us. Those who pray for and give to missions play a role just as important as the missionary on the field. We are thankful for you.

Concerning our family:

First, we ask that you pray for Christen. She has had health issues for a while now. She is on blood pressure meds, but her hair has been falling out quite a bit and consistently, she is also still having some skin issues. At first the symptoms seemed minor, but the fact that they have persisted for so long does cause some concern. It may be the water, it may be stress, or a combination of both. It may even be something else. We are having the underground cistern cleaned, but if the water coming in is contaminated it will just get dirty again.

We were recently at the city’s water department here and they are having some people come to check things out sometime next week. The water usually looks clean but has come out very dirty several times,  and doesn’t smell quite right. It even has come out brown on several occasions.  The woman we spoke to actually said they have seen this before. Although we don’t drink that water, we use it to bathe and wash with which could potentially make us sick.  Christen did have parasites and a bacteria a couple of months ago.  Please pray that we would finally get her some relief from those symptoms that seem to continue lingering. Her immune system seems to be weaker than the rest of ours since she seems to be the one who has been most affected. Other than that she is ok, but we need and hope to get her healthy and the water issue resolved quickly. Please pray. This brings us to our next prayer request.

Please pray for Yeison. He has been displaying some behavior issues at school. We have had several meetings already with some of the counselors from the school and are having some recommended tests run. He recently had an electroencephalogram. They recommended and MRI as well.  He seems very bright and speaks English and Spanish well, but there are a couple of things that concern us. Please pray for that.

We have been told that there are some conditions that can show signs at 6 or 7 years of age that could be rooted in trauma suffered at birth, the first few months of life or even from when he was still in the womb if the mother had an excessively stressful pregnancy. With his mother’s mental condition and quality of life, I do wonder.  I’m not sure what to think about all of this, but we want to do everything we possibly can to help him and already have several appointments coming up for several different things. . If any of our supporters or friends back home reading this have knowledge and experience with children with special needs, would love to hear from you. Prayers  are appreciated.

Apart from the behavior issue, we also went to the first appointment to begin the process for the surgery on his legs. A few things have to happen before that, but at least we have the ball rolling now. Please pray for Yeison during this process.

Please also pray for our family and for provision. Even though we have insurance now, with  3 or 4 appointments a week between both issues, it can easily be an extra couple of hundred bucks a week which adds up fast, and some things are still not covered.  Christen will also be needing to get some more tests run soon. I am having some trouble concentrating and very foggy minded and even my vision has not been the best lately, so I  will need to get that checked out for that. My workload has increased between teaching, studying, editing and writing for different things. You can see how having difficulty with concentration would cause me some concern. Needless to say, we will be spending a lot of time and money at the several appointments we have in the near future . Prayers and any help financially at all is very appreciated.

All of these things do bring along with them some stress and concern to be honest. But we are trusting the Lord.  Personally, He has taught me (and still is teaching me) to rest in Him more and more. You can read something I recently wrote on suffering on this website. If you scroll down underneath this  newsletter, you will see the English and Spanish versions of that article titled “The Father of Mercies and Comforter in Our Afflictions” or simply click here.

Concerning ministry:

Pastor Victor and I recently taught on evangelism  at the church in Hato Mayor. I am working on developing it into a 2-3 day workshop as a BCMS effort to share with other local churches that may need some help or encouragement in this area.

I am also regularly sharing the Gospel with children and youth at the school and had the opportunity to sit down and explain the gospel to two other English teachers last week. Please pray for the Lord to use us there so that some may come to repentance and faith for God’s glory. It is a VERY Catholic environment, but by God’s grace they seem to like us and have given us a lot of freedom to share. Many are just flat out curious about us and see us as different (apart from being foreigners). Most of my English lessons have some teachings from Scripture where I use short texts that lead into explanations of God’s truth and the Gospel. Pray for the seeds being sown there with students and teachers.

Next week we will finally be doing the medical outreach we have mentioned in past updates. This will be held in three different locations, the church of Hato Mayor, the school of San Lucas and Piedra Gorda where Yeison is from. Please pray for us, our efforts and the workers helping us. Pray for the opportunities to preach Christ and to glorify our Father in heaven though service to the suffering.

We help people because of Christ, we wish for them to see Christ in us and see love in our acts of service towards them. But we also help them simply because well…they need it. A duty is put upon us as Christians to help the needy and glorify God by reflecting His generous and loving nature in being a merciful  and giving people. The Bible has countless examples of God commanding His people to help the poor, widows, and orphans. But, many times as humans we make some good sounding excuses and label them as rational and logical reasons. Praise God that Christ did not make such excuses as we sometimes do in order to not help others,  but He freely gave Himself in service, even unto death on the cross, though He knows what is in man. He showed us what it meant to humbly serve others, yes even those we would consider undeserving. It is interesting how we as humans even often come up with plenty of reasons why it would be “unwise” to be generous to people.

There is a very good article by Matt Perman with notes from a classic sermon by Jonathan Edwards on Christian Charity that you can read by clicking here. I have recommended books like “When Helping Hurts” in the past, and it makes sense it really does. The book makes some valid points that raises concerns. But it is often difficult when using only the Scriptures (which are our supreme authority and rule of faith) to come to the same conclusions about generosity and helping the poor, as reasonable and logical as they may sound. I think we often get it backwards. Not everything we read in Scripture is exactly logical and it is often contrary to the current of the world we live in. To live by faith and not by sight, the first shall be last and the last shall be first, the list goes on and on.

The Bible says…

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding,” 

It doesn’t say..

“Trust in your own understanding with all your heart, and do not rely on the Lord.”

And though many would hate to admit it, that is often what we do.

I am in no way discarding the need to be reasonable and prudent in our thinking and planning, but we must spend more time in the Word to better know when those moments are or we will always live solely according to our understanding. Otherwise we will be inconsistent and contradict ourselves as we profess one thing , but then live and think as many do, like practical atheists. May the Lord give us grace to live more according to His Word, even if the world ( and sadly, even many in the church) see it as foolish and craziness. Pray.

 

 

 

 

Padre De Misericordias Y Consolador En Nuestras Aflicciones (Artículo En Español)

Seamos realistas, todos tienen problemas con los que están lidiando. Y puede ser difícil, muy difícil. Si se trata de malas noticias sobre su salud, un diagnóstico terminal o de cambio de vida de un niño o de alguien muy cercano a usted. Podrían ser problemas de conducta de un niño pequeño o un adolescente rebelde, conflictos matrimoniales, pérdida de empleo o alguna otra crisis financiera que puede agravar y empeorar seriamente cualquiera de estos problemas. Para asegurarse de que puede suceder en los entornos aparentemente más seguros. ¿Cuánto más sucederá en el campo misionero, en un contexto diferente al tuyo, lejos de todo lo que alguna vez fue querido y familiar? Donde el estrés y los peligros se multiplican y la dificultad se convierte en una forma de vida. Son cosas que viene con el territorio. Nuestras dificultades a veces pueden estar enraizadas en nuestro propio pecado, negligencia o irresponsabilidad. O podríamos encontrarnos atrapados en el fuego cruzado del pecado de otra persona. O simplemente los efectos de un mundo caído en las personas más cercanas a nosotros. Todavía puede afectarnos profundamente.

Puede ser suficiente para enviar a alguien a una depresión o algún otro estado mental no saludable que se siente como un inevitable valle oscuro de desesperación. Durante esos momentos, Dios puede parecer distante y nuestras oraciones y gemidos de angustia hacia el cielo pueden incluso sentir como si no fueran escuchados. ¡Gracias a Dios que ese no es el caso! Pero si somos honestos, a veces puede sentirse así. Como creyentes podemos confiar verdaderamente en el Señor durante la tormenta, pero no siempre lo hace más fácil, humanamente hablando. Puede que incluso nos encontremos en el extremo de nuestro capacidad, llorando de miedo como lo hicieron los discípulos en el bote “¡Señor, sálvanos! ¡Vamos a morir!”

Aunque puede llegar una temporada de paz y tranquilidad después (tal vez), por el momento, puede sentirse aplastado como si fuera demasiado para soportar. Algunos sufren por una temporada, algunos lo enfrentan por toda la vida.

Aun cuando yo pase
    por el valle más oscuro,
no temeré,
    porque tú estás a mi lado.
Tu vara y tu cayado
    me protegen y me confortan. – Salmo 23: 4

Muchas “tormentas” en la vida causan estragos y dejan un camino de destrucción a su paso como las tormentas reales. Y al igual que una tormenta real, por lo general lleva mucho tiempo “reconstruir” una vez que se ha hecho el daño. Algunas tormentas pueden cambiar la vida y, para algunos, incluso acabar con la vida. Muchos se encuentran en estado de shock y sacudidos hasta el centro, dejando solamente la opción de llorar por su situación y recoger los pedazos que quedan de su vida a medida que avanzan cojeando de la experiencia traumática e hiriente. Esto les sucede todos los días a muchas personas, por diferentes períodos de tiempo, en algún lugar. No deberíamos sorprendernos. De hecho, deberíamos aprender a esperarlo si entendemos lo que las Escrituras dicen acerca de la naturaleza caída del mundo en el que vivimos y los efectos del pecado mientras vivamos aquí.

Dios, de hecho, nos da más de lo que podemos soportar. Por favor, no seas una de esas personas que dice que no lo hace, o que solo lo hace porque sabe que podemos manejarlo (como si en realidad fuéramos tan fuertes en nosotros mismos). Si pudiéramos hacerlo solos y con nuestras propias fuerzas, no lo necesitaríamos. Gedeón viene a la mente. (Y puedo decir brevemente, es probable que el versículo popular pero a menudo mal citado en 1 Corintios no significa lo que usted piense que significa).

El Señor trae sufrimiento a nuestras vidas con más frecuencia de la que queremos. Pero Él tiene Sus razones y debemos confiar en Él a través de ellas. Debemos. Claro que podemos conocer el plan y la voluntad de Dios en general, pero a veces Sus planes para nosotros como individuos en los detalles de nuestras vidas no son tan fáciles de ver o entender. Los planes de Dios para nosotros a menudo son bastante diferentes de los nuestros.

Pero si nos encontramos realmente luchando mientras sufrimos, deberíamos preguntarnos esto. Cuando las cosas se ponen difíciles, ¿a dónde más podemos ir realmente? ¿De dónde viene realmente nuestra ayuda? Seguro que el Señor usará a las personas como un medio para consolarnos y ayudarnos, pero en última instancia, solo Él puede darnos paz. Verdadera paz.  ¿Dónde encontraremos nuestra fuerza para soportar más que en la naturaleza inmutable de nuestro Señor, las promesas fieles en Cristo y Su cuidado amoroso para con nosotros? Él es nuestra Torre Fuerte, nuestra Roca, nuestro Escudo y Fortaleza a la que corremos para buscar consuelo, refugio y paz. Solo en Cristo estamos verdaderamente a salvo y, aparte de Cristo, no podemos hacer nada.

El Señor es mi pastor; tengo todo lo que necesito. Salmo 23: 1

Me recuerda un himno moderno bien conocido que dice maravillosamente:

Solo en Cristo encuentro mi esperanza

Él es mi luz, mi fuerza, mi canción

 Esta piedra angular, esta tierra sólida

Firme a través de la más feroz sequía y tormenta

Qué alturas de amor, qué profundidades de paz

Cuando los temores se calman, cuando cesan los esfuerzos

Mi Consolador, mi Todo en Todo

Aquí en el amor de Cristo estaré

Bellas palabras conmovedoras ¿verdad? Pero la pregunta es, ¿lo creemos? ¿Realmente le creemos? ¿Realmente confiamos en Él? ¿Realmente creemos que Él es bueno? ¿Realmente creemos que Él está obrando todas las cosas para bien para aquellos que lo aman, incluso cuando no podemos verlo? Es importante recordar que independientemente de lo que creamos, Él será glorificado. Incluso a través de las circunstancias aparentemente más terribles. Pero también debemos recordar que Él es un Padre amable, compasivo, inmutable y fiel y acercarse a Él. Debemos aprender a permanecer en Cristo. Su mano soberana y su amor por su pueblo serán la almohada sobre la que descansaremos nuestras cabezas cansadas.

El Señor es mi fuerza y mi escudo;
En El confía mi corazón, y soy socorrido;
Por tanto, mi corazón se regocija,
Y Le daré gracias con mi cántico.
– Salmo 28: 7

La naturaleza inmutable de Dios es un ancla que nos mantiene aferrados a la Roca que nunca nos fallará o nos echará en esos momentos difíciles,  si estás en Cristo por supuesto. Mientras escribo esto, muchas personas que amo vienen a mi mente. Miembros cercanos de la familia y familiares en la fe que actualmente están lidiando con algunas de las cosas que mencioné al principio, o incluso peor en este mismo momento. Oren por nosotros y por otros misioneros cercanos a nosotros que conocen muy bien estas tormentas. Pero también ore por aquellos en su iglesia que están sufriendo. Un vecino, un amigo o tal vez alguien en su propio hogar.

Bendito sea el Dios y Padre de nuestro Señor Jesucristo, Padre de misericordias y Dios de toda consolación,  el cual nos consuela en todas nuestras tribulaciones, para que también nosotros podamos consolar a los que están en cualquier aflicción, dándoles el consuelo con que nosotros mismos somos consolados por Dios. – 2 Corintios 1: 3-4

Para ellos solo puedo decirles que confíen en Él, Alabadle, permanezcan en Él y Su Palabra y orad. Él es el Padre de las misericordias y el Dios de todo consuelo, quien nos consuela en nuestra aflicción. El Señor es nuestro Pastor, tenemos lo que necesitamos. Si perseveras,  serás más como Jesús al final. Y si lo creas o no, incluso estaremos agradecidos por esas tormentas difíciles pero transformadoras en nuestras vidas. Orar.

 

He aprendido a besar la ola que me arroja contra la Roca de las edades.- Charles Spurgeon

Escrito por Antonio Salgado Jr.

THE FATHER OF MERCIES AND COMFORTER IN OUR AFFLICTIONS

Let’s face it, everyone has problems they are dealing with. And it can be hard, very hard. Whether it be some bad news about your health, a life changing or terminal diagnosis of a child or someone very close to you. It could be behavioral issues of a small child or a rebellious teen, marital strife, loss of employment or some other financial crisis that can seriously compound and worsen any of these issues. To be sure it can happen in the seemingly safest of environments. How much more will it happen on the mission field, in a different context than your own, far from all that was once dear and familiar. Where stress and dangers are multiplied and difficulty becomes a way of life. It  just comes with the territory. Our difficulties at times can be rooted in our own sin, neglect or irresponsibility. Or we could find ourselves caught in the crossfire of someone else’s sin. Or just the effects of a fallen world on those closest to us. It can still affect us deeply.

It can be enough to send someone spiraling into depression or some other unhealthy state of mind or spiritual low that feels like an inescapable dark valley of despair. During those moments God can seem distant and our prayers and groans of anguish towards heaven can even feel to us as if they go unheard. Thank God that is not the case! But if we are honest, it can feel that way sometimes. As believers we can be  truly trusting the Lord through the storm, but it doesn’t always make it easier, humanly speaking. We may even find ourselves at our wits end, crying out in fear like the disciples did on the boat “Lord save us! We are going to die!”

Even though a season of peace and tranquility may be coming afterwards (maybe), at the moment, it can feel crushing and almost too much to bear. Some suffer for a for a season, some deal with it for a lifetime.

“Even when I go through the darkest valley,
I fear no danger,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff—they comfort me.” – Psalm 23:4

Many “storms” in life wreak havoc and leave a path of destruction in their wake just like actual  storms. And just like an actual storm, it usually takes a long time to “rebuild” after the damage has been done. Some storms can be life changing and for some, even life ending. Many find themselves in shock and rattled to the core, left only to mourn over their situation  and pick up the pieces as they move forward limping from the traumatic and hurtful experience. This happens every day to some people, for different periods of time, somewhere. We should not be surprised. We should actually learn to expect it eventually if we understand what Scripture says about the fallen nature of the world in which we live and the effects of sin as long as we live here.

God does in fact give us more than we can handle. Please don’t be one of those people who says that He doesn’t, or that He only does so because He knows we can handle it (as if were were actually so strong in and of ourselves). If we could do it on our own and in our own strength, we wouldn’t need Him. Gideon comes to mind. (And may I briefly say, the popular but often misquoted verse in 1 Corinthians does not mean what you may think it means.)

The Lord brings suffering to our lives more often than we like. But He has His reasons and we must trust Him through it. We must. Sure we can know God’s plan and will in general, but His plans for us as individuals in the details of our lives are not so easy to see or understand sometimes. God’s plans for us are often quite different from ours.

But if we find ourselves really struggling while suffering, we should ask ourselves this.  When things get hard, where else can we really go? Where does our help really come from? Sure the Lord will use people as a means to comfort us and help us, but ultimately only He can give us peace. True peace. Where will we find our strength to endure other than in our Lord’s unchanging nature, faithful promises in Christ and loving care?

He is our Strong Tower, our Rock, our Shield and Fortress to which we run to for comfort,  shelter and peace. Only in Christ are we truly safe and apart from Christ we can do nothing.

The Lord is my shepherd;
I have what I need.- Psalm 23:1

I’m reminded of a well known modern hymn that beautifully says:

In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My Comforter, my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand

 

Beautiful moving words right? But the question is, do we believe it? Do we really believe Him? Do we really trust Him? Do we really believe that He is good? Do we really believe that He is working out all things for good for those who love Him even when we can’t see it? It is important to remember that regardless of what we believe, He will be glorified. Even through the seemingly most terrible of circumstances. But we must also remember that He is a kind, compassionate, unchanging and faithful Father and draw near to Him. We must learn to abide in Christ. His Sovereign hand and love for his people will be the pillow we rest our weary heads on.

The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. Therefore my heart celebrates, and I give thanks to him with my song. – Psalm 28:7

The unchanging nature of God is an anchor that keeps us clinging to the Rock that shall never fail us or cast us out during those difficult moments, or ever for that matter if you are in Christ. As I write this many people I love come to mind. Close family members and family in the faith who are presently dealing with some of the very things I mentioned at the beginning, or even worse at this very moment. Pray for us and other missionaries close to us that know of these storms all too well. But also pray for those in your church who are suffering. A neighbor, a friend or maybe even someone in your own household.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God.- 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

To them I can only say  trust Him,  praise Him, get alone with Him and His Word and pray. He is the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our affliction. The Lord is our Shepherd, we have what we need. If we persevere, we will be more like Jesus when it’s over. And believe it or not, we will even be thankful for those difficult but transforming storms in our lives. Pray.

I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages.- Charles Spurgeon

Written by Antonio Salgado Jr.