Dear mission partners, friends, brothers and sisters in Christ,
First let us say that we are thankful for each of you who pray for and give to this mission so that our family may minister here. Thank you and God bless you for your faithfulness.
It has been a long time coming but we finally celebrated our first wedding at Hato Mayor. There have been two couples we have been trying to get marrried for over a year now. But there were many challenges in getting paperwork done here. Especially when people are from small towns out in the country where old documents have been lost and there are no offices that keep public records in that area. Both couples we have been wanting to marry have had much difficulty in obtaining copies of birth certificates which are necessary to be married by law here. We were forced to make a decision. Allow them to continue to live in sin, or do a ceremony as a church where the two make a covenant together, before God, with the church as witnesses to that blessed and holy union. They understood they had been in sin for too long and wanted to be right before God and be a good example to their children. So as the church, we married them!
This is a couple that has been together for 23 years! After showing them through the Word of God the importance and meaning of marriage, they knew it was time and no longer wanted to live in sin.
This is a very big deal and we wanted to celebrate it, because it is a relationship that is a reflection of Christ and the church, the most important of all human relationships, and for them to be an example to the church and others.
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. – Ephesians 5:31-32
This is in a culture that for the most part does not value marriage at all. They call anyone here living together “married”. The wife has been a christian for some time but the husband may have just come to Christ in his time with us this year. We will still help them with their legal documents and try to marry them through the civil court, but that could be a very long process in proving who they are and where they were born. We have another couple in the same situation we hope to marry soon as well. These are just some of the things you deal with on the mission field.
There are many other things going on as well. We are still adapting to the changes of having the two other girls living with us. Moises the Haitian young man from Esperanza, was with us for a little while as well. He was recently reunited with a sister he hasn’t seen for 12 years. He was very young last time he saw her and did not remember her, but found out she was here in Santiago when visiting his mother in Haiti, who he hadn’t seen either for just as long! When we had him with us we had nine people in our home! That’s a lot of mouths to feed on a small budget.
Please continue to pray for our family. We are stilll being challenged and stretched in ways we never imagined, even after four years here. Here are a few prayer requests:
First and most important is our family’s spiritual lives and health. Pray for the church to maintain spiritual growth and unity. Pray for our evangelism efforts. The Gospel is being shared here by some faithful brothers and sisters on a regular basis. There are other prayer requests as well. Maya is struggling very much in school, the kids have needed dental work, Yeison has been sick a lot and still coughs pretty bad at night, the van is in the shop, giving has been down significantly, and we still have money to raise for our family’s monthly budget and a project at the church building. Please keep these things in prayer.
We are thankful for the Lord’s gracious provision and He has been so very kind and faithful to us. Please continue to pray about giving and share these needs with others as well.
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:
Romeo Baptist Church 20545 SW 5th Pl. Dunnellon Fl, 34431.
*Please be sure to write Salgado DR Mission in the memo.
You can also donate to this ministry online. Click the donate button on the home page and you can send support of any amount directly to the ministry. Unfortunately we are not set up for receiving recurring donations at this time.
For tax exemption, you must send your donation to our sending church 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 God Bless You!