Oh Me of Little Faith!

I just got word that indeed the poster was hung on the announcement board at the WIC offices and not only that, but they made photocopies to distribute to their clients!! This is GREAT news! These offices are a great place to come in contact with Spanish speakers in need - I am ecstatic! Praise the Lord!!

Praise! and...Prayer!

This morning I went to the local W.I.C. offices with a poster promoting the Spanish community Christmas party, thinking the odds of getting approval for the poster to actually be posted were quite slim! Much to my surprise the young lady at the desk was quite enthusiastic to hear of the event we're hosting and not only did she believe that her supervisor would post the advertising but that they would also be able to make many photocopies to distribute to their Spanish-speaking clients. This is an exciting possibility and that's why I'm asking for your prayers! Please pray that the supervisor would approve the posting and that copies would be distributed. God be glorified that a government office might be used to bring the lost to Himself!!

Ramons testimony

Your faithful prayers are helping in many unseen ways for people like Ramon, who was just baptized last month! Enjoy his testimony (especially if you speak Spanish!), and prayerfully consider how you might become more involved with this ministry! See our quarterly update below...

December Update

Beloved friends and family,

"…And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace…." Isaiah 9:6

What a delight it was to work with Rebekah as she memorized this verse for Awana -- listening to many different versions of Handel’s Messiah on YouTube. We trust that this Christmas season you and your home will be celebrating our Savior, our Wonderful Counselor…our Prince of Peace!

Last month we joined with the congregation of our brothers and sisters at Evergreen Bible for a very meaningful baptism service. The new believers that we mentioned in our October letter joyfully professed their faith through baptism, as did our precious eight-year-old daughter, Rebekah. Jose performed the service for these three and as you can imagine, our hearts overflowed with blessing!

We have continued the monthly fellowship dinners, which has proved to be of great blessing as those relationships strengthen. Jose is leading the Friday night small group through Focus on the Family’s Spanish version of the Truth Project. In addition, the Ecuadorian couple on our leadership team has taken on a “First Steps” study with the new-believing couple. We are so thankful for this, as it is grows both couples in discipleship and in the knowledge and understanding of the Word.

This month will hold two important activities for our Spanish-speaking group. Saturday the 11th is our Christmas dinner, where each family will bring a special Christmas food unique to their country and culture. Saturday the 18th we will hold our third annual community Christmas party for Spanish speaking children and their families. This year we are ramping up the promotion, increasing the scale of the program and hope to have a larger group from the community with whom to share the gospel. Please pray with us for this outreach event! May His Name be glorified and may He draw many to Himself.

How to pray for us:
*Pray for the Christmas party, that the gospel message would be clear to those who don’t have Christ as Savior
*For Ramón and family, who have only enough funds for one more month
* Strength and energy for Jose as he keeps up with his work, ministry schedule, and bi-monthly volunteer trips to teach at the Bible school in Salem, and for financial provision. Our ongoing prayer is that God would graciously provide so that Jose could keep just one job (rather than two or three) and dedicate the rest of his time to ministry. Would you prayerfully consider if God might use you in this area?
*For our family, that Christ would remain the center of this holiday season in our home and our hearts

Merry Christmas to each of you!
Jose, Ruth, Rebekah, Isabella, and Daniel Alvarez

To send monetary support by mail (Checks made out to “NICE” with our name in the memo):
N.I.C.E., PO Box 64750, University Place, WA 98464-0750

October Update

A busy summer blew by us and with it some really amazing blessings that we are excited to share with you!

Summer park outreach: In our June update we told you about our plans to go to a local park in order to meet and bless other Spanish speakers. God let us have sun and warmth for each Sunday out of the month that we went, and for that we are thankful! The park outreach events were successful in that we were able to strike up conversations with Hispanics, including them in games of soccer and volleyball, sharing hotdogs with them, and inviting them to our Spanish service. Though we have ended this activity for the year due to our typical Washington weather of rain and cold, we will definitely pick this up again next summer, hopefully increasing the outings to several times a month.

More souls won for Christ: Recently three more of our service attenders accepted Christ as their Savior! Take a second and praise God with us for that! One of these new believers had just moved here, and as she and her husband had hardly any belongings, our beloved church generously responded by furnishing their home.

God’s provision for our ministry: We were contacted by a brother in Christ who God has used to send us children’s Bible story books in Spanish – one of the new believers is reading these Bible stories to her young daughters and they are now learning these treasured stories together!

Additions to our leadership team: A beautiful young couple from Ecuador who has been attending the Spanish service since their wedding in March of last year has now joined our leadership team as we plan and pray together – what a blessing to have them!

Alvarez family activities: As mentioned, it was a crazy busy summer, but what a joy to get to visit family members from both sides. In July Ruth and kids flew out to Virginia to be with her sister and family for two weeks, rejoicing in the addition of a new nephew. After that came a fun-filled week with a visit from out-of-town friends. A week later we as a family of five finally made it back to our beloved country of Honduras for a two-week, never-a-dull-moment, fast-and-furious visit with precious family and friends. September brought a big challenge for Ruth in speaking at Evergreen Bible’s women’s retreat – praise God for stretching us beyond our self-imposed limitations and for equipping us along the way! Now that October has arrived, we are one month back into the typical school-year routine. Jose continues to work two, sometimes three, jobs as Spanish teacher, sanitation engineer :), and soccer referee. He has really enjoyed his trips down to Salem to teach at the Spanish Bible school and is forming a great relationship with those students…even meeting a fellow Honduran!

How to pray for the Spanish Ministry and for us this fall:
*Planning and carrying out the annual Children’s Christmas Party outreach – we hope to reach many more this year and work much harder to go farther with this event.
*Discipling the new believers and wisdom in the weekly Bible studies and monthly fellowship dinners with the Spanish speakers
* Stamina and encouragement for Jose as he keeps up with his work and ministry schedule, and for financial provision. Our ongoing prayer is that God would graciously see fit for Jose to keep just one job and dedicate the rest of his time to ministry.
*For our family, that God would be glorified in our home - in our words, thoughts, and actions

We praise God for all of you, our dear friends and brothers in Christ, for coming alongside and lifting us up in prayer! Thank you for visiting our blog, and feel free to join us on Facebook or contact us and let us know how you are and how we may pray for you.

Trusting, obeying, and happy in Jesus,
Jose, Ruth, Rebekah, Isabella, and Daniel Alvarez

To give online, see the link over there on the right!

Or to send monetary support by mail:
N.I.C.E., PO Box 64750, University Place, WA 98464-0750
Checks made out to “NICE” with our name in the memo

Welcome to the Family!

Please pray for Irma, her husband Ramon (not pictured) and their three daughters...may the daughters follow their parents' decision to become Christ-followers.

Also remember Teresa who recently prayed to receive Christ as her Savior.

June Update

Well, here in Washington the saying must be changed - "April showers bring May....showers!" And June showers too! It has been WET! One thing we've learned living here, however, is that the rain doesn't change your plans. Also, umbrellas are optional. Very handy things to know.

Along with rain, April and May brought some exciting events that we'd like to tell you about. In April we held our first park outing with the Spanish ministry team members and most of the Spanish congregation. Our purpose was two-fold: to enjoy fellowship together as a group, and to meet other Spanish speakers at the park. The first purpose was achieved with great success and barely any effort! The second purpose needed some tweaking and fine-tuning in the planning. We were very thankful to enjoy sun that beautiful Sunday afternoon! One month later we held the second park outing, this time trying a different park, and were once again blessed by sun as God held back the rain for us. Some new Hispanic friends joined us and the fellowship we all had together made for a day rich with blessing. Later in the afternoon some other Spanish speakers from the community showed up at the park, and Jose with some other men were able to play a pick-up game of soccer with them. We plan to continue these Sunday, after-church park outings every month, hoping that as the summer progresses we'll be able to make more contacts and form more relationships with other Spanish speakers.

The greatest news we have to share since our last update brings so much joy that I'm told even angels celebrated in heaven! Angela, a young mother of three who has been coming to Spanish service for a few months with Teresa (see blog entry below), prayed to receive Christ as her Savior. Please pray for her, that her relationship with the Lord will grow, and that she will be able to bring Christ into her home with her husband and her little children.

In May Jose began a new and exciting ministry working together with N.I.C.E. He travels once a month to Salem, Oregon, to teach for the Hispanic School of Ministry. This school functions to prepare prospective pastors and church leaders for ministry. The Saturday classes are team-taught by Jose and four other Spanish speaking Bible school graduates.

June will bring a sad goodbye as our friends and ministry team members, the Zavala family, will be leaving us and heading back to their previous home in San Diego. We expect they just might not be as sad as we are, as they trade in their boat paddles and boots for sunglasses and flip-flops!

How to pray for the Spanish Ministry and for us as we move into the summer months:

• For June's Sunday park outing - that it would dry up long enough for us to go, that we would come in contact with more Spanish speakers
• Wisdom as we restructure our ministry team and continue to seek ways to grow and improve the ministry
• Stamina and encouragement for Jose as he keeps up with his work and ministry schedule, for financial provision so that his work load might be lightened
• For Alejandra, one of our members, whose husband just left for Korea with the armed forces and will be gone for one year. They have two small children.
• The Zavala family as they move and travel south
• For our family that we would find quality time to spend together and that God would be glorified in our home

Thanks to all of you, our dear friends and brothers in Christ, for coming alongside and lifting us up in prayer! We would love to hear from you. Feel free to leave a comment here or to contact us by email, phone, or even old-fashioned letter writing.