Warm greetings to everyone! I hope that everything is well with each of you and your families. God has been blessing our ministry efforts and I wanted to take a few minutes to share some of the highlights. For the first time in several new ministry areas, medical clinics, children’s ministries, and shoe distributions in these villages have opened the doors for introducing the Gospel! Communities see that the Church does care about their quality of life and they are more open to hearing about the Good News of Jesus Christ. Please continue to pray with us that God will open even more doors. I am very excited to announce that Impacto is beginning a new Spiritual Growth effort. We will be asking teams to minister to a different village each week with activities that will enhance and emphasize spiritual growth. Some of the activities will be prayer times with moms to pray for their children to be protected and to grow in Christ; showing the Jesus Film and other Christian films, evening worship services that teams will lead music, preach, share testimonies; youth-specific events for teens; Bible studies, etc. We feel God leading us to really make a concerted effort to help the churches to grow spiritually, and to reach out in more evangelistic ways to their communities. We ask for your prayers and are open to suggestions that you may have to help with this effort. God also is leading us towards opening ministry efforts in Coban (approximately 3 hours north of Guatemala City) by taking teams there. We are planning to take the week of December 5-12 and hold the very first VBS in that church. The pastor and congregation are very excited about the possibility of having teams come to minister with them. They are looking for land to purchase for building their church. One piece of land that is perfect was available earlier this month but it was $37,000 USD and they simply do not have that kind of money. Please pray with us that God will provide resources for this new growing congregation. They are already making a huge impact on their community and the pastor is a great leader. Expect to hear wonderful things happening as God moves in this area. If you’d like to be one of the first teams to go, please let us know and we will make every effort possible to see that it happens! The work in Zacapa continues to prosper and grow. The San Jorge Church is really reaching out and ministering to the community and they are really growing. The effort to put wells in El Morro and San Jorge are moving along and progressing. Pastor Abdulio now has a vehicle to use in his ministry and he is very excited about that! His health has improved and God is blessing his efforts. The churches are really looking forward to VBS in November! It has become on of the highlights of the year for them! There have been ten teams who have come to serve so far this year in and they have all worked very hard and done wonderful work. Fifteen houses have been built; pastor training sessions; Happy Feet events; FLET classes; sewing machines and classes for beginners; advanced sewing classes with ladies who received machines last year; mixers given and cake decorating classes; hand-crank ice cream freezers given and classes held for making ice cream; carpentry tools and classes with students completing small construction and painting projects at Iglesia Adonai; Promised Land multipurpose building foundation dug, rocks moved and cut, sand moved and bagged; lake front at Promised Land improved to prevent erosion; medical team clinics; new ministry points started; and many souls won for Christ! We are really looking forward to the months ahead and ministering with teams that will be coming to serve with us. In June, one of the teams will be working all week in Santa Clara building the new church and restrooms for Pastor Diego’s congregation. This is very exciting and the men of the church have already been working hard to prepare the land for the new building. Another team will be constructing bathrooms for the church in T’zucobol…this is going to be a tremendous blessing to the congregation and they are very excited! Other teams will be reaching out to the other villages around the lake area, ministering in various ways. In August, another congregation will get a church building -- Panabar! A team will be spending the week hard at work to build on the land purchased! God also has blessed us with the gift of a beautiful used four-wheel drive pick-up truck! It will be delivered in mid-June and will be a tremendous help to Impacto’s ministry efforts. We are so excited and thankful for this special gift. Remember that November is fast-approaching … if you can come minister with us for one or more of the weeks of VBS, please let Sarah Poythress know at spoythress@newlifelaplata.org. You also can check our web-site for more information at www.impacto-luismartinez.org. Yes, God is really moving in Guatemala and He has blessed our ministry efforts in mighty ways. We give Him all the praise and glory and look forward to what He has in store for us. Thank you for all that you have done to make all of this possible. Without your prayers, financial, and physical support, it would not be possible. Please continue to pray and work with us to spread the Good News of salvation through Jesus Christ. With a heart full of thanks, Pastor Luis When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ~Matthew 9:36