Desert Streams Ministries

Note: A PDF version of the newsletter is available here.

Dear Friends and Family,

The river is flowing in the desert, and God is doing great things among us! His mercy never fails us.

Online Bible School

This summer has been a very busy time for us with the online Bible School. Although our students were not in classes over the summer, Anna and I worked hard on getting a new course recorded and ready to go, and I also made some important changes to our online software.

During the second week of July, Anna and I recorded our Covenants course together, alternating lessons. In this way, we each taught 12 lessons, for a total of 24 lessons in the course. Anna is a fabulous Bible teacher, and we were able to flow together very well. Students are enjoying the teaching sessions because of the variety. They don’t have to listen to me for every lesson!

Anna and I together created the course notes, and she made most of the quizzes, reviews and exams. She is also a great content creator.

Over the summer, I also made some important changes to our online platform software. First, I added some AI functionality to analyze the students’ profile images. Many of their pictures were taken from far away or were difficult to see clearly. With this new feature, the profile pictures are now checked by AI to be sure we can actually see the person’s face clearly. This is nice, because now, we are able to clearly see all of our students. The second improvement was with the editor the students use to do their essays and other assignments. Many of them began using ChatGPT to help them with their homework. This is not necessarily bad if used in a way which will actually help them to learn. With the new editor, they have access to several functions which help them improve their writing skills, form bibliographies, and help with formatting, all without allowing AI to do the work for them.

In mid-August, our students started the fall semester of classes. We had another good turnout for enrollment! We are offering 12 different courses and our facilitators are working hard, connecting individually with their students to guide them through their learning experience.

Finally, last week, we had missionary Mark Simpson with us to record a course called “The Church’s Purpose in God’s Plan”. This material, written by Bill Scheidler, was brought to life through 24 sessions of Mark’s teaching, which we recorded in both video and audio. Mark did a great job of covering the material, but also bringing many of his own personal examples and testimonies into his sessions. We plan on offering this new course in February of next year.

Our Church

We are very thankful for our local church family. We have been enjoying getting to know some of the families that have started attending recently, sharing meals together. Every other week, we serve food after services and have meals together. The children enjoy playing in our church yard while the youth get together at tables to talk, and the adults meet and mingle with other families. We are using the Sundays on which meals aren’t served to invite certain families to have lunch with us, so we can get to know some of them on a more personal level.

I have been teaching each week from the Gospel of Mark, trying to get through a complete chapter each Sunday. It has been a challenge because there is so much great preaching material in each chapter! We have been hearing good reports about how these messages are impacting the lives of our congregation.

As you probably know, both Anna and Sara participate very much in our congregation. Anna is a regular Bible teacher and worship leader, and Sara often helps by directing our programs, meeting with different women, and supervising the organization of events. I am thankful for a family that loves to serve!

Family Time

Over the last two months, we also enjoyed some time with the family.

First, Daniel and Elisa came to visit us with their daughter, Ella. It was so nice to finally meet Ella! She is a sweet 10-month-old girl, and her parents are doing a wonderful job setting her routines and training her for life by creating a disciplined lifestyle. Sara especially enjoyed holding her and playing with her during our week together.

After they went back to Vancouver, WA, we headed to Michigan to spend some days with my parents in Grandville. We really enjoyed our time there away from the busyness of our normal routines. Although I still connected daily with our online students, taking care of any urgent situations, it was very good to spend the days with them. Sara and Anna enjoyed reading Amish books that my mom had there, a bit of shopping (Anna loves bookstores), and a visit to Indiana Amish country. I especially liked the ice cream!

Prayers and Thanks

We are thankful to each of you who pray for us and give financially to support us. Thank you for supporting our online Bible School, making it possible to have guests like Mark Simpson here to participate as teachers, and for helping us to create new courses, run the online platform and reach students from all across Mexico and other countries.

Please pray for the following needs:

• Wisdom and open doors for new accreditation options for the Advanced School of Ministry and our Online Bible School, Fundamentos Ministeriales.
• Preparations for the Advanced School of Ministry seminar. I will be working many hours on the preparations for this conference during the coming months.
• The Advanced School of Ministry conference in Tijuana October 15-17. I will be teaching several of the sessions there.
• For the establishment of the Kingdom of God through our local church in Tulancingo.

Thanks! It was wonderful to connect again. If you can, please drop us a note and let us know how things are going for you!

With love,

David and Sara Lont with Anna

Note: The update is available as a printable PDF here.

Dear Friends and Family,

Summer has arrived and with it, many exciting activities in ministry and opportunities to see family! We are so thankful for the Lord’s faithfulness and for each of you who stands with us in prayer and support.

I would like to share some updates on what has been happening in our ministry and family life over these past couple of months.

Local Church Ministry

At the end of May, we celebrated a special breakfast for the women of our church and their friends. Gabriel and Paloma, a wonderful young couple from Morelia, Michoacán, joined us for the weekend to minister. Paloma led a beautiful ministry time with the ladies that included creative activities such as Bible journaling and hat painting. We were blessed to have a large turnout, and many women opened their hearts to Christ and His Word during this time. Paloma did an excellent job sharing the Word of God and guiding the activities.

The following Sunday, Gabriel and Paloma were with us to preach to our congregation. It was truly a fruitful weekend, and our church family was greatly blessed by their ministry. Gabriel and Paloma have been part of our online Bible School for several years as students, and more recently, as course facilitators. They have done outstanding work, and we’re hoping to have them soon as Bible School teachers as well. Both are excellent, well-grounded teachers who share the Word boldly.

Online Bible School

June 16 marked the closing meeting of our spring semester with our online Bible School. Well over 200 students successfully completed their courses, many working toward either a degree or a certificate program. There’s been particular excitement about our new certificate programs: 1) Certificate of Basic Old Testament Studies and 2) Certificate in Fundamental Theology. We concluded our semester with a special Zoom meeting where Pastor Ofir Peña shared a beautiful word on discernment. The meeting was so well attended that Zoom warned me our space was almost full on our current plan—a first for us!

We are now working on recording new courses—one on the covenants, and soon, another on the Local Church with Mark Simpson. I’m also using this summer break to make several improvements to our online platform. With AI going mainstream, we need to take this into account as students write essays. I’m integrating changes that will allow them to use AI but simultaneously require them to think critically through their answers. We believe these adjustments will help students improve their writing while keeping them academically honest (not copying and pasting or generating answers with AI).

Our fall semester begins in August, and we’re hoping that at least 100 of our students will graduate with a certificate when the semester concludes. We’re also looking forward to having Mark Simpson with us in early September to minister to our church and record the course on the local church.

Family

We are eagerly anticipating a week with our son Daniel, his wife Elisa, and our granddaughter Ella. We’ll be meeting Ella for the first time at the end of July when they come to spend about a week with us. In August, we plan to visit my parents, and then in November, our son David Jeremiah will join us for Thanksgiving. It will be such a blessing to spend time with family.

Thanks to Our Supporters

We want to sincerely thank each of you who prays for us or supports our ministry financially. We believe we are truly making an impact both in our local town of Tulancingo as well as across the nation through the online school and the Advanced School of Ministry. We appreciate your prayers for the Lord’s provision and safety as we and our guests travel this summer.

With love,

David and Sara Lont with Anna