Dear friends, family and supporters,
Happy 4th of July! We hope you are having an excellent holiday today. We’d also like to give you a short update on our family and ministry activities.
Children’s Day celebrations
Since our last update, we have celebrated “Children’s Day” here in Mexico. This is a special day designated to celebrate all the children in the country, and many churches take advantage of this day to organize celebrations and evangelistic events to attract young children and their parents.
We participated in two events this year. The first was held in the city of Tula, Hidalgo, in a church we have ministered in several times. Our children’s praise and worship group participated, and Anna and David shared a short message with the group.
The second event was at our own church. Our children’s church leaders organized this celebration, and as you can see, the children had a really good time with all the games and activities.
Bible School and Local Church
During the months of May and June, we have spent much of our energy and focus on the online Bible School and the activities in our local church. During Sara’s time resting after surgery, I took over her Bible School group for a while. I also continued working on the online software, developing the modules that have to do with accounting, receiving payments, transferring funds, etc. As we look to expand the school, this is going to be a big help, as I had been doing everything manually up to this point.
In June, our group of about 120 students finished their first semester. They are now on a short break before starting classes again August 15.
We have also been focusing on our local church. We’ve been having meetings and study times with some of our leaders, worship practices each week and time to study and prepare for each service. For me it has been especially rewarding seeing Anna grow and mature in ministry. She even preached with me in May about reaching the next generation with the Gospel. My only regret is that Sara wasn’t able to be at that service because of the surgery.
Our Family
As you probably know, our two oldest children, David and Daniel, are both in the U.S. to study. David finished his first year at Western Michigan University and is spending his summer working at a local Starbucks Coffee shop and also helping prepare presentations for the online Bible School. Daniel finished his first year at Portland Bible College and is staying on campus during the summer to work a custodial job at the church and the school. We sure would love to have them here for the summer, but they need to work in the U.S. in order to pay for their upcoming fall tuition bills. Both of them are doing well, and we see them almost weekly via Facetime.
Anna recently finished 9th grade and is spending her summer reading many books, studying some French, and translating one of Pastor Frank Damazio’s books on leadership from English into Spanish.
Sara and I recently celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary. We went out to the town of San Miguel de Allende to celebrate.
Getting ready for Africa
Sara and I will be going to Africa with Anna toward the end of August. We will be involved in a large women’s conference and a pastor’s conference. Anna will be doing some children’s ministry as well. We went to Mexico City a couple of weeks ago to get some of the “hard to find” vaccines that are needed in order to visit Uganda. I ended up getting a slight fever as a reaction to one of the vaccines, but am doing better now.
We are also working on getting together our teaching sessions for the conference.
Please pray for us especially as we prepare for this upcoming trip.
- For health and protection from illnesses and other dangers
- For an exact word from the Lord for the pastors and the ladies who will attend the two conferences
- For a good and blessed trip there and back
Thanks! We appreciate each one of you and pray that the Lord will abundantly bless you and your families. We’ll be in touch again soon. Have a blessed summer.
In Christ,
David and Sara Lont