Hey. It's been too long, way too long. I starting working with a new missions organization, CTEN, an acronym for Christians To Every Nation. One of their requirements is that I communicate more (imagine that?!). So I dug out my old blog that, embarrassingly enough, has not been updated in quite a few years. Don't take that the wrong way; it's not as though nothing has been accomplished. Quite the opposite, actually. So much has happened that I am at a loss as to where to start. I feel like I am in a corny romantic movie when a couple gets so involved in life that they move on without each another and need to be reintroduced; sort of start over and forget about all the time that has passed. Begin anew, so to speak. That is the relationship I have with blogging. I can't even begin to tell you what is new; so much has changed with One By One. What is most is important is that we are still impacting children and youth through church services and our Segundo Paso program. Through the course of this past year we are moving out from under the wing of Discover Church, and continuing on our own. In a way it is kind of scary, but essential for our growth. It has not been the most enjoyable move for me, personally, mostly because of the formalities, meetings, and mountain of paper work, none of which are my forte, but are necessary to determine the direction of our future.

On a personal note, I am in the US right now, until Monday. I am visiting for a week because we had a death in the family. It was one of the few times in many years that all of my family was together in the same spot, and very well could be the only time for years to come. It was a good to see everyone, even if it was not under the best of circumstances. I hoped to get knee surgery while visiting, but a few weeks before I arrived, the doctor I had lined up to perform it dropped my insurance. It is almost impossible to find an appointment with another orthopedist as a new patient with just a few days notice, so it does not seem to be working out on this trip. Well, sometimes things work out the way that we want and sometimes they do not.

Also I would like to thank everyone for their support which helped make things possible. 

    

         So, it has been a while since I wrote, I have been busy. Ministry has been moving along, we are constantly changing and growing. We stopped our bus program to one area which is the market, for safety and for growth reasons, but are getting them more involved during the week we doubled our after school program for them. Then started pushing for having more of the local kids come. We are back to growing again and we think that it is growth in a good direction. As far as personal projects, we have been changing the feel of the adult and leadership program, trying to invite people into a more friendly environment. So we built a bar type area where people can come in and get coffee and other bread type things and have fellowship along with the bar type thing we built 3 tables where they could eat and talk, we don't have the money to just go and buy things new. So I thought that I could make them myself for a cheaper price then buying them new. So, I took some roofing metal and flake board and made them myself. I think that they turned out preaty good for the price.

As far as other projects all of our electrical wires were a nightmare the person who did a lot of our electric in the past, just ran wires through craw spaces and across drop ceilings, we were getting to the point were we were it wasn't uncommon to see sparks whenever we moved things, so I took another week to put all of wires in conduit and cover bare spots in the lines, on top of that I got rid of 60m of wire that were connected, but not going anywhere, they were just laying loose and disconnected. this place was just a fire waiting to happen.

As for other things we have been staying busy with our normal activities, our kids are still always a delightful mess, and take a lot of time and love. We are still taking sponsorships for after school and educational programs. http://theinnocent.org/index.php?location=sponsor