David’s Dialogues

March- Honduras Trip Update & More!

Dear Friend,

While Honduras was definitely the highlight of the month, there are a few other things going on as well.  Each year, I help with a campus-wide unity movement which culminates in a worship night with over 1000 people!  The vtONE Spring Worship Night happened the first Saturday in March.  It was a blessing to use my gifts and talents to help facilitate the body of Christ gathering under one roof for a night of prayer, worship, and Gospel-proclamation.  Also this month was the second Life After College workshop, focusing around finding a church community after graduation.  I love getting the chance to meaningfully equip or soon-to-be-graduates with practical tips on how to continue pursuing their faith after college.  At the end of the month, our entire staff team traveled to the Missio Alliance’s Awakenings Gathering.  This was a chance to spend a few days among like-minded ministers with a passion for bringing God’s Kingdom more fully into their respective contexts.  We were also able to foster deeper relationships with other pastors and leaders in our network of churches called Ecclesia.

Honduras Update
Over Virginia Tech’s Spring Break (March 8-17), I lead a team of 15 people to Danlí, Honduras for our annual mission trip hosted by our local partner church, Iglesia Gran Comision.  After nearly 2 days of traveling, we spent the first full day in Honduras sorting the donations we brought, as well as visiting the site of our water project that has been ongoing since the idea was born in 2016. That same day, we helped with a community meeting regarding the water project where there were 14 community members present.  At the meeting we shared the Gospel message, the history of the project, and what upcoming additions would be made during our week there.  That meeting was one of my favorite moments from the week.  This is because it clearly showed that the project had not faded away, and now the local residents and church were taking the reins and running with things!

On Monday and Tuesday of the week, we spent most of our time evangelizing to students in various school settings.  We formed many meaningful relationships when we visited a university of students studying to be English teachers.  On Wednesday we spent the morning helping finish the installation of an 1100 L water storage tank.  Meanwhile several team members visited the surrounding houses to get updates on their water filters and to replace the filter cartridges.  We were so encouraged to see the number of people still using and seeing the value of the filters!  That afternoon, we visited an orphanage for high risk children of prostitution.  We got to hear the faith-filled story of the orphanage’s development, as well as teach the kids Bible stories, make crafts together, and play some soccer (a local favorite!).  Thursday we finished up our work in Quiscamotes on the water project, as well as shared some similar stories, games, and crafts with the small school there.  In the afternoon we visited a hospital where the local church has a ministry for new-mothers.  The girls visited with and prayed for new mothers, while the guys evangelized in the hallways.  Some people we met had been sleeping in the hallways on the floor for 9-12 days!  To close out the week, the church hosted a movie-night.  Throughout our week of evangelism, we invited people to the movie night, and we saw several people whom we met actually come!

As always, one of the most exciting things for me is to see the life change in our team.  I love to see how students go into the trip expecting to change hearts of Hondurans, but to be so surprised when God works on their hearts in tremendous ways.  Whether it was wrestling through pride, having a new understanding poverty, or the (at least) 6 people on the team who shared the Gospel for the first time; God clearly moved in our team and I had the chance to foster and shepherd them through those moments before, during, and after our trip.

I wish I could share more, but there just isn’t the space in this newsletter that is probably long enough!  Thank you so much for all your prayers for health and safe travels; everything went fairly smoothly.  You all mean so much to me and I’m incredibly thankful to have such an amazing team of prayer and financial partners surrounding me.

In Christ,
David

PS- Interested in staying up to date on NLCF’s events and activities?  Check us out on Facebook, Instagram (nlcfnet), or Snapchat (nlcfvt)!

Missed one of my update emails?  Check out this link for a collection of every one I’ve sent!