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