[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Hi Lighthouse Church Family!
Thank you all so much for all your prayers and support for our counselor training trip to Mexico. It’s hard to believe that our trip to Ixtapaluca came and went so quickly. For three short days (May 24-26) we had the joy of fellowshipping with three sister churches and the missionaries who planted them: Rod Fry and Jim Cottrill.
The biggest challenge of the trip was preparing the training material. In the past, when we’ve done counselor training on the mission field we’ve had two or three days to teach. For this trip we condensed the training into one full day of teaching. By God’s grace we not only were able to prepare for the trip, but Laura Prieto and Manuel Rodriguez translated the entire manuscript (almost 20,000 words) into Spanish.
We arrived on Friday and spent all day Saturday teaching. Our training focused on telling the story of fictional one woman, Maria, who struggled with stress and anger in the midst of great suffering. As we told her story, we discussed with the churches that attended what it could look like to faithfully walk with her and help her grow in her worship of Christ.
By God’s grace, Maria’s story and the need for biblical counseling resonated with the people who attended the conference. Then Sunday afternoon we had a Q&A session to help clarify ideas and answer any questions people had from the training.
There were so many people who sacrificed a great deal to help make this trip possible. Rodrigo and Catalina Merino worked so faithfully and diligently to translate the student notes into Spanish. David Wong joined us for the trip in order to help with vision and planning for future short term trips involving biblical counseling. Prior to leaving, we spent all day Thursday having a practice conference and Manuel Rodriguez came to continue helping with the manuscript translation and to help Laura with some of the Biblical Spanish. Laura Prieto took time off of work, school, and sacrificed many hours to translate the manuscript into Spanish and to come with us to translate all day Saturday and Sunday afternoon.
We are so blessed to have a church family that supports and cares for its people and the missionaries it sends out. Currently, we are planning to do a similar trip to Ensenada, Mexico this November. It’s always a blessing to be sent out but we’re thankful that we have a church family like to you to come home to. Thanks again for all your love and prayers!
Love in Christ,
Tim & Mat[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”11880″ img_size=”full”][vc_single_image image=”11879″ img_size=”full”][vc_single_image image=”11881″ img_size=”full”][vc_single_image image=”11878″ img_size=”full”][vc_single_image image=”11877″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column][/vc_row]
