Thus ends the most challenging year of our lives. December naturally has the most events of the year with Christmas and New Years. Additionally, we conducted my first Lord’s Supper as pastor! We added new members to our church! We had many new visitors! I also ended up preaching every service for two weeks while our other preachers took some much-needed vacation time! It was very challenging, but was very encouraging to see how far my Portuguese has come. Our ministry was very fruitful, and this month we have noticed incredible spiritual growth amongst our members! Without any prompting from Joneia or myself, they have expressed desire for further outreach, and more involvement! We are seeing incredible fruit at the end of the year. After such a challenging and heart-breaking year, seeing the fruit that our members are producing has been the biggest blessing for a young, new pastor.

Our other old horse has been fighting cancer for almost a year. This had taken a major toll on our time and emotions this year. A week before Christmas, it finally overtook him. We called the vet, and our only other old horse was put down this month. Unlike Fudge, our other horse who passed away in September, this time was a lot easier because we had been expecting it to happen for months. We are still very sad that Socks has passed away, but now it has saved us a lot of time. We have two young horses under 4 years old, and we are excited to begin training our new generation of horses to give rides during our camps, help with gospel illustrations, and give us opportunities in our ministry like their predecessors.

Miracle of miracles, OUR BRIDGE IS FINALLY FINISHED! After four months of climbing a hill of mud to take care of the Yelle’s house and pets, the bridge project is finally complete! The original bridge had washed away partially in the major storms we had in May, and was unstable. After the Yelle’s left for furlough, our contractor began the project, and now in December has just finished! It has been a blessing to drive across to their house again, and also to let our horses cross to help mow the incredibly overgrown lawn.

We then ended our year…in the vet emergency room. Our Doberman hurt herself badly, and we took her to the emergency room on New Years Eve… We met a new vet! Please be praying that as we see this vet in the future that opportunities will open to give the gospel an invite her to our church.

We only have one meeting left in our discipleship with Robson and Sabrina! They have FLOURISHED in our discipleship program, and we are so proud of them. Robson is consistently teaching for Sunday School; they have a more consistent routine of reading their Bibles and praying; they have started tithing! When we began discipleship, they had addressed tithing as one of their major difficulties. When we arrived at the chapter on financial stewardship, we helped them to understand that we are just stewards of God’s money, and that we must give our first fruits to him. When the started giving their tithe BEFORE anything else…they quickly realized that somehow, they still had enough money! Before, they always seemed to barely have enough and were scared to give 10%. But now they have learned that even though they are giving 10% first, they somehow still seem to have plenty! And God has even blessed them with more money, bonuses, and better job opportunities! We are so proud of them and are excited to see them continue to grow even after discipleship is finished.

2024 had many heart breaking moments…but as we look at our ministry and blessings, it was incredibly fruitful. Our Christmas Cantata was very pleasant! We had teens playing instruments, a choir special, poems read, and special music sung. We were overwhelmed with the involvement of our members! We also had a good number of people come to church on Christmas Night. Our ministry opportunities are increasing. Please be praying as we enter 2025 as our membership involvement grows. We have a lot of dreams and plans that our God can do…what we really lack are people who are willing to teach and preach. Please pray that God will touch the hearts of our men to get involved in our ministry, and that they will be willing to take the time to invest in their spiritual lives. Please pray that as we introduce new programs that they will flourish. And please pray for our next group of discipleship students. We look forward to this new year and its new opportunities.