Ministry Getting Done and a Big Challenge

Hello my brothers and sisters!

After a busy time of 4 weeks having groups back to back, I’m writing again to let you know what’s going on at our Envision Site.

First of all, I want to say that it’s been a blessing to have 3 teams with us during these past weeks and to see how God worked in the lives of everybody that is around our ministry (staff, interns, residents, pastors from partner churches, kids at schools and other communities, the ministry center itself, etc.)

We had the chance to share the gospel with nearly 450 kids. We also have continued building those good relationships with the football players and we have seen new people come to the services/bible studies of Hungry Church. So, thank you so much if you’re reading this update and were here hands on doing all of this work. Thanks also to those that from a distance are lifting us up in their prayers all the time, BIG THANKS!

Community Heights Alliance
Church sharing God's love
 with a local school.

I want to also let you know that we were finally able to witness the in-take process that migration does here with the people that are arriving from The States when they return (are deported). Myself and 2 more of our volunteers from the Diaspora program went to see that. Even though it was tough to see (not because they are treated badly, but because we are hearing different stories from these folks) it was very revealing from God in terms of the great needs that there are among these people. First of all there are spiritual needs, but also there are emotional, physical and material needs. So, we are a bit closer to partnering with the government to help our returning brothers and sisters at least according to our possibilities. 

Hope Hmong Church serving at a
 VBS with the local church.

On the other hand, we as a site are facing a big challenge. As you know we are the only site of Envision world wide that is run by locals. For us to be able to do the ministries full time it is necessary to have a salary otherwise we could only do it voluntarily and it wouldn’t be as efficient and consistent as it has been so far. I'm explaining this to you because there is a down side in being a site of this nature. We as locals are not allowed to raise funds from people in The States according to the policies of the C&MA, which we are ok with since we believe in God’s

Hope Hmong Church serving at a VBS with the local church. sovereignty. He has guided the leadership of the C&MA to do this on well-based valid reasons. So, as I’ve mentioned before we basically depend on short-term teams, interns, and residents also with financially sustaining our site. The challenge comes when we have only had 1/3 of the groups that we were expecting for this year, so that leaves us in a very difficult situation (very big deficit). Thanks be to God that we have had a good number of interns this year and that helped us to reduce the deficit. If you are reading this update, it is because you signed up to receive them either through email or Facebook and you have become one of our prayer warriors out there. So, I come humbly to you to ask you for your prayers on behalf of our ministry now to ask God to help us to solve this hard situation. 

Gospel Alliance Church teaching
English to the students at our
after-school program, La Fuente.

We started a week of fasting and prayer today for God to reveal to us his guidance and give us clarity in what steps to follow. We are going to continue to fast from Monday through Friday next week in the following times (EL Salvador time): 9am, noon, 4pm. If you would like to join us from a distance we are more than glad to welcome you. We know that there is power in turning to God in unity and “Who knows?” (just like the king of the Ninevites said) if God will do a miracle in the following week. We for sure know that God is going to do something, but we just don’t know what is it. The only thing we can have rest on is that his will is always “Good, Pleasing and Perfect” regardless of if we go through good or hard times. If you would like to know more about this to help in a more direct way feel free to email me to escalante.nic@gmail.com  

One more time I say, "thank you!" for reading this update and lifting us up in prayer.