Renewed Fire to Preach

It has been a difficult time here in Lubbock, Texas as we trust our

sponsoring congregation (the Sunset church of Christ) that taking

some time off from the mission field would be a good decision and

our family would benefit from it tremendously. As we are now ap-

proaching the final stage of our sabbatical and we are clearing see-

ing the fruit of taking this time off because we as a family are feel-

ing encouraged, loved, and excited to dive back into the greatest

work in the world. My wife and I truly believe we will be better mis-

sionaries from this day on as we have been able to reflect and

learn from our mistakes and build on the things we were good at

while working in Cuernavaca, Mexico. While we were on the field

we felt lots of pressure to work hard for our supporters and take advantage of every opportunity God

placed before us. It is really difficult to evaluate yourself and see how tired

you are while working because things are happening so fast but after being

outside the work we can appreciate and realize the value of resting. We

have had to constantly reevaluate the family and the desire to be missionar-

ies and return to Mexico. We are without a doubt that we want to return and

help the Kingdom of God advance in Mexico, We are convicted Mexico is in

desperate need of the gospel. The fire Is burning just as much as it did

when we left to Mexico, maybe even more. We praise God for those who

support us and want the gospel of Jesus Christ preached to the lost people

of this world, God is good!

March / April 2015

Recardo and Monica Reyes 2406 96th ST. Lubbock, Texas 79423 Vonage # 806-577-4922

Sponsoring Congregation: Sunset church of Christ 3723 34th Street Lubbock, TX. 70410

The Reyes Family

Palmeres, Costa Rica One of the families we studied with at the Sun-

set International Bible Institute (The Melendez

Family) invited my wife and I to come and do a

evangelistic campaign in Palmeres, Costa Rica

where they have been working for the last five

years planting a new congregation. We called

the campaign rompiendo cadenas (breaking

chains). The campaign was focused on inviting

the community to hear about how a person can

be freed from the slavery of drugs, alcohol, vio-

lence, crime, and any other addiction. The mis-

sionary Luis Melendez had informed me that

drug and alcohol use is on a rapid rise in Costa

Rica and they even have members who are

suffering from loved ones that are now addict-

ed to drugs or alcohol. We first passed out fli-

ers, talked to people in the streets, and then I

preached three nights on how we can be free

from the slavery of any addiction through Je-

sus Christ. I also shared about my past life as I

am a recovered drug addict and alcoholic of

now 11 years, I also shared some practical

things a person must do to break the chains of

addiction. Luis, Mayra, Ashley, and Daniel are

a wonderful family who are working diligently

for the Lord in Costa Rica. What a wonderful

blessing it was to see the fruit of this families’

labor for the Lord. Let’s win souls for Jesus!

The Melendez Family

Bible Class

Church Leaders

Preaching during Campaign

Preaching during Campaign

Teaching Others to Teach Others God had blessed our family so much during our time

of working in Cuernavaca, Mexico. One of the ways

He blessed us was by providing us with lots of Bible

Studies with lost people. Through my time in Cuerna-

vaca I developed my own method of teaching some-

one the gospel. I recently had a couple from Sunset

(Ray and Brenda Hall) ask me if I had interest in

helping others learn how to teach their friends the

gospel? There is only one thing that is as exciting as

teaching some one how to be saved, and that is training people how to teach the gospel to others.

We are currently meeting twice a week as we go through each verse and talk about how to present

these verses to a lost person. This type of study really encourages and energizes me as I see peo-

ple become more confident and have a desire to share what they are learning with lost people.

Encouraging Visits On our way to Costa Rica we had to stop

in Mexico City which gave us a wonderful

opportunity to see some of our brothers

in Christ. Two families my wife and I in-

vested ourselves into learned we would

be in Mexico City on our way to Costa

Rica and came to see us. We were only

able to spend a few hours together but it

was such a blessing. We invested our-

selves in many families during our time in

Mexico but through these two families we

feel we were able to bless two congregations. Both Mario Salgado and Julio Hernandez are leaders

of the Lord’s church in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Julio and his wife Yesenia serve at the Rio de Vida con-

gregation where our family did our one-year internship and Mario and Adriana serves at La Fuente

where we worked for three years helping to establish the congregation. After not being in Mexico

and seeing our brethren it really reminded me of what Paul said to his brothers in Philippians 4:1

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand

firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends! Before I went to the mission field this verse did not have

the same meaning that it does now. As we were able to sit with our brethren and eat tacos and talk,

it was one of the biggest joys a missionary could have. Our family in Christ who we love, serve,

spent time with, and even cried and suffer with are some of the biggest blessing a Christian could

ever have!

Strengthening the Church in D.C.

My wife and I were presented with an amazing

opportuning in April and the Lord blessed us tre-

mendously. A Spanish congregation that meets

in the building of one of our supporting congre-

gations (Falls Church, Virginia) invited us to

come and do a marriage seminar and then

speak at a gathering of all the Spanish speaking

congregations in the Washington D.C. area.

What a blessing it was! The numbers grew eve-

ry night. My wife also taught a class to the

Spanish speaking women about the inner beau-

ty of a Christian wife. It was a blessing to once

again work with my wife who is my mission part-

ner. She always does a good job working and

mentoring other women. All the brothers both

English and Spanish speaking received us and

loved us as we served the Spanish speaking

congregations for a week long campaign. We

had no idea that there was such a huge Spanish

speaking community as we met people from El

Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Ecuador, and

Mexico. I even met a man at a taco restaurant

who was from Cuernavaca, Mexico. My wife

and I have been working on materials to teach

and preach in Mexico to help encourage and

strengthen existing works, we want to be a king-

dom resource not only to the congregation we

are working with but all those around us. My

wife and I really enjoy working with Spanish

speaking people, both lost and saved!

Me with church leaders Me with church leaders

Lunch with Jackie

Marriage Conference Congregational Gathering

Preaching at Conference Mission Deacon

Jose and us Ignacio and I My wife with her Ladies’ class

Loving God’s Children I have been so proud of my family as they have loved

and cared for many children while we are here on our

sabbatical. God has sent many families into our lives,

in my previous newsletter I spoke of how these won-

derful children come from hurting families, many of

these children do not have fathers in their lives at all.

Our goal has been to provide a love and be light in

their lives. Some of the children have gotten used to

us praying before we eat, or one young girl asked her

mom to pray for her when she was sick. I have re-

cently been impacted by a few of these children as

they have at times started

calling me “dad!” Of

course this had given me

a mixed feeling as one lit-

tle boy said this in front of

his mother. It does make me feel

good that we have put a good ex-

ample and have treated these kids

as if they were our own. But at the

same time it hurts because the

reason they have said this is because they don’t have a father in their lives.

Our hearts were recently broken as one of the little boys name Kardaye sud-

denly moved away, but that is the price we pay for loving others, love is a

powerful thing! In Mexico we learned if you love people’s children you can win

people’s hearts and they will be more open to hear what you have to tell them

about Jesus. We as Christian parents need to see the value of being involved

with our children and we as a church need to make it our mission to love the

lost and live differently so others can see there is something better for them,

that better thing is Jesus Christ and His church!

Cor. 13:13 So now faith, hope, and love

abide, these three; but the greatest of these

is love.

Kardaye and Zadin

Baby Erika

Serenity, Erika, and

Damian

Luis & Dominique Luis and our daughter Dominique are coming up on

one year of working with the Crosbyton church of

Christ. They have been mainly working with the

Spanish congregation but are also involved with the

English congregation as well. They have started a

Monday night bible study and have about 10-14

people attend, they have a fellowship meal first and

then a bible study, and afterwards they open it up for

questions of any kind. Luis and Dominique went to

L.T.C. (leadership training for Christ) to help with the

youth group; they did a puppet show, art, and bible

bowl. They have a new goal to try

and organize a youth event eve-

ry 3 months. Luis and Dominique

also spend a lot of time with

three children (Jazmin, Mia, and

J.J.) who have almost no paren-

tal guidance in their lives

Jasenia College is a struggle, let me just tell you that, but af-

ter endless nights of studying and tears my first year

of college is over. Oklahoma Christian has opened

my eyes and filled my life with blessings. Moving

away from home was probably the most exciting yet

scariest thing in the world but thankfully God blessed

me with a group of friends that made it a little easier.

My whole life I have been fascinated in the medical

field so lord willingly, by 2016 I will be accepted into pre-

nursing school. OC not only let’s me do what I love the

most by helping kids but they also let me travel the

world while doing it. I am excited to see what God has in

store for me in the next three years. By Jasenia Ryes

OC is Home.

Small Group

Bible Class

Puppet Show

L.T.C. Group

Deasha First of all I wanted to thank you for supporting my family and I, we would not be

able to accomplish the things we have without y’all. I am most thankful that y’all

have continued to support us even though we have taken a little break from the

mission field. The family has been really able to refocus, get some counsel,

learn new things, and light that fire that made us want to do mission work in the

first place. I personally have been able to work on a lot of things I was struggling

with. I am able to work on myself, spend more time with my family and start

working at a preschool. Kids are something that I love to be

around and work with. I can’t wait to go back to the mission

field and teach little children about Jesus like I was before. It

has been an eye opening last couple months, and I can say

we as a family haven’t been more ready to go back to Mexi-

co than we are now. God has blessed us with people that

love us and even though I may not know you, I want to say I

appreciate everything you do, if it’s supporting us financially or something as sim-

ple as praying for our family, Thank you so much. A little prayer can do big things.

- Love ya’ll and God bless.

Deasha

Serenity Being here in Lubbcok, TX has been

a hard thing for me. Having to leave

my home (Cuernavaca, Mexico), and

my friends, and even my best friend

Yeal. But it has been good for my

family to have a rest. I think we are

ready and excited to return to Mexico

when it is time.

-Love

Serenity

Desire for A.I.M. Last summer a young man named Isaac Yeal Hernandez started to ex-

press an interest in the A.I.M. (Adventures in Missions) program after a

team from the Let’s Start Talking program came to Cuernavaca to teach

English. The team consisted of almost all teenagers who were seniors in

high school. Isaac had been involved in a few campaigns with the A.I.M.

program when they came to Cuernavaca in the past. He and his family

have been leaders for several years in the Rio de Vida congregation that

was planted by Doug and Sandy Holcomb. Isaac has been involved in

the youth group, leadership, in the teaching and preaching in the congre-

gation where his family attends for sometime so hearing him say he has

a desire to go to the A.I.M. program is re-

ally exciting. He has already completed

his A.I.M. application and is seeking sup-

port, I know he has already found some

support but is still in need of the amount

he needs to go to the program. Please

keep him in your prayers. Our goal in

Mexico was to train people so they would

take God’s mission to be there own...

Rio de Vida Iglesia de Cristo

The Hernandez Family

Yeal preaching his first sermon

Love for Our Supporters We praise God that our supporters have cared for the emotional well

being of our family and have allowed sometime to rest, renew, and re-

tool. Now that those have been successful-

ly completed we have moved on to our

planning to return to doing mission work in

Mexico. Unfortunately this process has tak-

en longer then expected but we know God

is helping us put things in order and we are

very excited as we are seeing everything

come together. Again we could not be

preaching God’s word to the lost people of

this world with people praying and supporting us. The brotherhood is a

beautiful and powerful thing, God is good, let’s win souls for Jesus!