August Newsletter

Dear Friends and Family,

July certainly has been a full month! As well as one with an unexpected change for us, but I’ll get to that later. For now, I want to say that God is so good at opening doors, amen!? July was just one day after another of open doors— literally. The beginning of the month was similar to previous months— fairly uneventful (aside from celebrating Mario’s birthday!), as well as a weekly Bible study with Mario’s family. We also asked a friend of ours who owns a small business in La Venta if he would allow us to do a small home group sort of thing at his house, to which he enthusiastically responded “yes!” We lost electricity just before starting, which I felt was an obvious attack on our intentions, but God totally redeemed it and in the end worshipping the Lord and praying in the dark ended up being even more rich than it would have been had the lights been on. One of the women that had been there that night pastors a church in La Venta and she excitedly began programming daily home groups in different houses around the village, so since then we have been busy with that every evening. And, as I mentioned before, literal doors have been opening daily. So many people have joyfully opened the doors to their homes and invited us in to lead worship, have times of prayer, and take turns sharing what God is putting on our hearts. It has been so filling and such a joy to see the way God goes before us and how He invites us into this and to really practice being the Church in this time of so much need. We also were able to do another project of handing out food to around 50 families in La Venta, which was such a joy for us!

Getting back to what I mentioned about an unexpected change, I had to leave the country. Due to most government-related businesses being shut down due to covid, I still haven’t been able to get my residency in Honduras, so in the beginning of July, the people in immigration announced that all foreign citizens had to leave Honduras by August 4th. We tried getting a special permission for me to stay through FSI stuff, but sadly it didn’t go through, even after countless tries and paying the fees and jumping through all of the hoops. So here I am, currently writing this update in my parents’ house in Cody, Wyoming. God knows what He’s doing and I have complete trust in His plan, but we would appreciate prayers for things in Honduras to improve and start opening up so I can get back down there, because currently the borders are closed to anyone that is not a citizen of Honduras. Mario will continue with the home groups and is trying to do some discipleship, and I will be working and hopefully do some FSI stuff on this end.

We also have some exciting news! We have always wanted to go to some sort of Bible school and the FSI board has been really supportive of that, so we started looking into our options and found a bilingual YWAM (Youth With A Mission) DTS (Discipleship Training School) that starts in January and is in Harpenden, England. Obviously we don’t know if things will improve enough by then that we’ll be able to go, and in October we’ll have to do the visa applications so there’s still a possibility that it won’t work out, but we were accepted and we’re praying that things open up enough so we can go to it. Please be praying with us! And, as always, I ask for prayers for Honduras and its people, especially in this time of crisis and so much uncertainty. The country is really suffering right now. Thank you all for your support, we truly can’t thank you enough.

Blessings!

Mario and Katie Velasquez