August 2019 Prayer Letter

Dear Friends and Family,

We hope that this letter finds each of you doing well. Last month, we have been focusing on strengthening the core of the church to help prepare for future growth. We have seen some make decisions to be more faithful in church. One young man has expressed desire for baptism and discipleship. Another man believes the Lord has been working in his heart to serve the Lord in a greater capacity. Tomorrow, we will spend some time visiting together. It is always time laboring together in the work of the Lord. Last month, we had a special family fun day at the church. It was a great time of fun and fellowship. We have seen some who have attended in the past become more faithful as well as a new family that has now been attending for about a month. Bro. Rick Dove, the missionary who started the church, will be returning from furlough at the end of August. We have agreed to work together with his family for a few more months to strengthen the church. It should be a blessing for both of us as we make preparations for our next church plant.

As for our family, it was a bit of a difficult month. We had a couple rounds of sickness that slowed us down a bit. We are still working on attaining legal residency. All of our documents have been accepted, but we still had to wait for our appointment to do our fingerprints with the government offices. We also had to take an unexpected trip to the Nicaraguan border. Although we are legally in the process of legal residency and are not required to make these trips to abide her legally, there is a different law that requires us to renew our visas at the border to be able to continue driving legally. Thankfully, we were able to accomplish that on one really long day of driving! Otherwise, our family has been doing well. Both Lila and Ellowyn are doing well in school and are both learning to speak Spanish much as children here do. Even Elijah has been making some great strides in both English and Spanish. Sometimes, he surprises us with words we never taught him!

Throughout the month of August, we would greatly appreciate your prayers. Please pray:

1. That God keep us healthy so that we may have little downtime due to sickness.

2. That God will open doors in the community and open hearts to the Gospel of Christ.

3. That God will save souls, edify believers, and strengthen His church in Costa Rica!

In Christ,

Jeremy, Michelle, Lila, Ellowyn, and Elijah Blanz