In the states

We travelled to the USA on August 29th and have been blessed to be in a lot of places. We started in Little Rock and were able to see our little grand daughter - Camille - her mom and dad too. That weekend we met with the Chenal Valley Church to talk about TORCH Missions and the work in Honduras. We have made some great friends at Chenal and they are already excited about the 2009 mission to Honduras. On Tuesday we were able to have a dinner with several of our friends before heading to Mississippi on Wednesday.
Wednesday evening we met with the Lee Acres church in Tupelo - they have been a part of TORCH for several years and we are blessed that they are one of the primary supporters of the church in Santa Ana. Thank you Lee Acres!
Thursday we were in Columbus and made a quick trip over to Starkville to meet with Wesley and Natasha Thompson - the TORCH leader there. Wesley and Natasha have a new baby so we were able to see their new bundle of joy. The Starkville Church will be adding to next years team by including the MSU college group. This could easily mean that Starkville will be 35 to 40 strong. WOW!
While in Columbus we were able to meet with a lot of folks. We spent a morning with Allan Bazzell to plan out the 2009 mission for Mississippi. The team looks to be as large as 35 to 45 strong. We met with Wally Sweedenberg to survey the work on our clinic bus. Looks like it may be put together and ready to ship this fall. Thank you Wally!
There are so many folks in Columbus that support, encourage, and lift us up in prayer. We are blessed that we lived in Mississippi and even more blessed that the people there are such a big part of our lives.
From Columbus we headed back to Tupelo to meet with the Trace Crossing Church. The group is teamed up with Lee Acres and they will likely grow from 9 in 2008 to 35 to 40 in 2009. WOW!
After Tupelo, we travelled to East Tennessee to see our friends the Bulle's. Tom and Lynn are our great friends and they want to get their church involved in Honduras. We met with the minister, youth minister, and several people from their church. The time together was awesome. We are very excited about the potential of adding another team from East Tennessee.
Right now, the summer of 2009 is filling up and it looks like our God is laying out His plans for and amazing work. Terri and I will be leading or helping lead 6 teams - from May 21 to August 2. Additionally, there are other TORCH teams that have been coming for a number of years that will be working across town.
Some of our plans for 2009 include the planting of 2 new churches. It has been 3 years since our last - from the ground up church plant so - this will be a great summer. We also plan to start up a feeding center - close to the Honduras / Nicaraguan border. This is also one of the church plant locations. We will be taking some of the TORCH teams on a road trip to participate in this work.
I am excited about what is ahead of us. Please pray for the workers and the funds that will provide for the planned work.
Be a blessing to somebody today.
Marc