Greetings in Jesus’ Wonderful Name! We trust this letter finds each of you faithful, serving, loving your work for the Lord and in good health. We need to start by thanking the Lord for each of you and your patience in waiting for this prayer letter. We have much to tell you again and thank you again for your prayers.

Let us start out with a huge Praise the Lord because we have had the best and at the same time, the most trying, painful and violent of times in the 16 years we’ve been in Central America. 

I say the best because 5 years of much work, sacrifice and combined prayers are now paying off. In these past months we have seen some of the hardest and cold hearted young people come to the Lord for salvation. When we came to ALP in El Hatillo there were no Bible Studies for the young people, and now we have 8 Bible Studies going on throughout the week plus 7 are being discipled one on one. Our year started out with the Lord allowing us to take almost 300 of the most educated and well to do young people in all of Honduras to three days of retreats and just good preaching and fun. Through “Living in the King’s Palace” Ministries, God has opened some door that knocks us off our feet just to think what HE is doing. I had two parents come to me a say that the only way their child could go is if their guard could be with him 24/7. I told them that would not be possible because of policy but that if they would trust me to take an armed guard with me to watch him all of the time, and then he could go…they worried, they prayed, they said YES! And he went and got right with God and rededicated his life to the Lord. They later told me that was the first time in his life he had gone anywhere without them and a personal guard. I tell you these things because you need to understand how incredibly hard it can be to reach this group of people and God has opened the doors for us to establish a foundation here for others to follow…and others are following…at present the Lord has people training and preparing to come here and do what we do in Central America.  

The Bible Study at our home continues to grow and we now have some of our young people teaching it. Please pray for Diego de la Vega as he is our first young person to take that role and we are praying that God will give us more like him. We also had the MOST wonderful Spiritual Emphasis Week with Mick & Rick Vignuelle. We had a genuine Revival with many getting saved and even many more rededicating their lives to Christ. We now have 2 of our young people that are having Bible Studies in their homes on their own! This brings our Bible studies going on at any time during the week to a total of 10. The feeding Center Ministries continues to grow and we have more teams now than we have ever had and hundreds are being saved there also.

Please pray for Marimundo Rescue Center for Young Mothers, Mrs. Laparra and our daughters. The government is threatening to close it down so they can put a Drug Rehab Center in its place. Pray for wisdom for Mrs. Laparra as she finds someone to turn that ministry over to. Not only have they learned about Jesus Christ but they have taught them the responsibilities of a wife and mother; how to cook and bake and personal women’s hygiene, etc.

On a sadder note, God has also been working in us through some hard, trying and painful ways: These past months have been the roughest, most violent and deadly in 16 plus years. We thought living in Guatemala for 11 years would prepare us enough for it but it has been growing here at an alarming and peculiar way. The mother of a student was kidnapped and murdered several weeks ago; we have had 24/7 police outside our door for weeks because there was an attempt on our neighbor and his family, they are diplomats; we’ve had to send 1 student out of the country and another into hiding to protect them from being killed or kidnapped. To add to it all, two families were slaughtered in a machete attack, one of them was one of our staff, Mrs. Nolasco and her husband, 15 year old daughter and their 5 year old son were killed in a brutal attack.  We have spent weeks counseling hundreds of students and the surviving family…and these are only a few of what is going on!

In closing, we want to let our churches and supporters that we are coming home on furlough around the middle of July. We’ve been missionaries for over 16 years and we’ve only been home once for a furlough. We’re looking forward to some rest from the work, the violence and from not seeing our families. Please pray for our needs in this order: We’re coming home to rest, visit our churches, seek some lost support, for a place to live and a vehicle for transportation. On other great news, our son Nicolas will be getting married in August to Rebecca Lynn Barnhart.  

On a last note: Our home church has a new address and we need you to do an update. Some of your support is not making it because of this and we’re feeling it: 990 Manitou Rd. Hilton, NY. 14468 / 585-392-0777. Thank you again for your faithfulness, your cards, special offerings, phone calls, gifts, etc

The Laparras