Burgess Road Baptist Church

March 2020

Psalm 28:7
The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in Him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiced; and with my song will I praise Him.

We are finally winding up our Deputation journey. We had our last missions’ conference, had two presentations, and were in six churches. We are still praying that several commitments for monthly support will follow through.

We finished thinning out and sorting through belongings and tools and got everything pre-staged at a mini warehouse waiting on the shipping container. The container arrived in the middle of a thunderstorm on Feb. 6th and 12 wet volunteers got it all loaded including our Jeep in 3 hrs. As our container arrived at the port of New Orleans it was held by U.S. customs for 9 days. $610 later we were cleared and now our container will arrive March 7th and begin the Costa Rica customs process.

Kevin spent February 15-22 in Costa Rica for board meetings. The Association was formed and the initial documents finalized and turned into the national registry. The property where the church and the school building are is now a nonprofit association and Kevin is the Vice President and C.O.O. All of this will be a big help in the community and with the local municipalities moving forward.

In our spare time we got new health insurance, additional life insurance, new FL drivers licenses, got our taxes done and are now in the process of getting FBI background checks for our residency. This law came into affect over a year ago but just last week began enforcement. So mid process more to be done to meet the new requirement. Part of this was Sonya’s fingerprints which had to be done 3 times and hopefully we find out later today if they pass this time. Then we send everything to Washington D.C. for authentication. Pray we get our documents back by the end of the month.

Our family threw us a farewell party. We were able to show our presentation DVD and answer many questions about our ministry and Costa Rica in general. Our last service at our sending church, Gulf Coast Baptist Church, in Cantonment, FL was yesterday. We sang as a family for the very first time and Kevin preached and gave an update on our process. Lots of hugs and tears and some cake too. We will miss our church family.

As soon as Sonya’s fingerprints are accepted we plan to make one more lap to visit family one last time before we leave for Costa Rica on March 26th. We still have much to do and only 24 days to get it all done.

Thank you each and everyone for the prayers and encouragement and financial support.

In Christ,
Kevin and Sonya McCoy

February 2020

Dear Family and Friends,

Thank you all for faithfully praying for our family. It is crazy to realize just how quickly time is flying. Yesterday Blake (our 9 year old) commented to me that this year is already going by really fast. Funny thing is that, for kids, time normally travels slow. Maybe for him it has been flying because of how busy we have been and how much he has been anticipating both sets of grandparents visiting in February. Whatever Blake’s reasoning, I had to agree with him, time is flying.

We have started the year off in some exciting ways. First and foremost has been that as a church family we have had several people trust Christ as their Savior during different services. Praise the Lord! Another exciting advancement in the last several weeks has been that we have consistently been needing to put out more chairs on Sunday mornings. Not having enough seating is a wonderful problem to have in church. Again, we just want to praise the Lord for what He is doing.

In January we were also able to partner with Jonathan Washer and Inside the Lines Ministries to put on an evangelistic basketball clinic. Bro. Washer’s ministry works primarily in the U.S. holding evangelistic basketball tournaments inside jails and prisons. He came down partially to explore the opportunities within the jails in Honduras but we took advantage of him being here and hosted a clinic for teens. The teens enjoyed the time but most importantly one teen trusted Christ as her Savior after one of the evening messages!

As we enter February, we are excited about having both Cori’s parents and my parents visit. We are also looking forward to our Come Away Conference (Feb 6-8), which is an enriching time of fellowship with other English speaking missionaries from different parts of Honduras and some other parts of Central America (we host this conference as a ministry team). We are excited to have Dr. Steve Pettit as our conference speaker. Please pray that the Lord would use this time to strengthen all of us to faithfully serve the Lord in the areas to which He has called us.

Many of you already know that my Dad (Dr. Terry Mortenson) serves with Answers in Genesis as a speaker, and while he is here we will host a Creation Conference. Our ministry partner Matt Goins will translate for my Dad, and both would appreciate prayers for God’s help. We are praying that the Lord will use the conference to help deepen and strengthen our church family.

Sometimes I feel like a broken record when I ask this, but please continue to pray for the Lord’s help for both Cori and I as we minister in Spanish. The process of communicating the wonderful truths of the Bible in another language is a humbling but wonderful privilege. Thank you again for your faithful partnership with us in prayer and financial support.

From Honduras,
Nate and Cori, with Mykenzie, Grant, Blake and Savanna.

February 2020

Dear praying partners,

Visas: It is that time of year again, and we are starting the process of renewing our visas and Mike’s work permit for another year. We don’t have an avenue for a long term visa, so we must renew every year. The process is lengthy and getting more complicated every year. We don’t anticipate any problems but appreciate your prayer for a smooth renewal.

Ministry in Thailand: Mike is working with a Filipino missionary in Thailand to recruit Filipino’s for Thai church planting. We will be using our non-profit to facilitate their visas and work permits, enabling them to minister in the country without substantial startup costs. This endeavor is an exciting opportunity as there are many Filipino’s that are interested in going abroad to start churches. Filipino churches support all of these missionaries with no outside funds. Please pray about this endeavor, especially for Bor. Angeles who is currently in the Philippines on furlough and recruiting new workers. To help relate how difficult witnessing can be in Thailand, I would like to describe a recent answer to prayer. Last week, after more than six years of witnessing, the adult brother of one of our members told her that he realizes that there must be a creator, and he wants to come to church to learn more. He attended for the first time and was surprised at how easy it was to understand. He still isn’t saved, but Lord willing, it won’t be long. This situation is typical of ministry here. We witness and witness with nothing, and then after years of waiting, a light is sparked. Of all the attributes necessary for ministry in Thailand, patience ranks as the most important.

Bible Institute: Last month, we did a nation-wide facebook advertisement about the online Bible School. The responses were encouraging. There were hundreds that engaged with the School’s Facebook page, resulting in five students from around the country registering to study via video correspondence. These results were much higher than we expected. The advanced Bible students are acting as proctors for the online students, which encourages a Thai-Thai interaction. Once these students are firmly in the program, we will do another round of advertising and continue to expand until we reach a capacity of about twenty students. In residence, we have five students in total, three of which attend from a sister church. We are still on track to have our next graduation later in the year and hopefully, another graduation in 2021 and 2022 as well.

Prayer Requests – Salvation: Pray for the husband of a member who has been attending for five years. Pray for the brother of another church member who attended last week. Pray for two members who have not been faithful to church for several months. Continue to pray for Mike’s students and fellow teachers at University.
Faithfulness: Pray for the Bible students to continue steadfast in their studies. Pray for a new couple in our church for spiritual growth in being newly married as well as her visa application to the USA. Please also pray for wisdom and faithfulness while we serve the Lord. The longer we serve the Lord, the more we understand how weak we are.

May the Lord bless you richly as you continue to serve Him.

For Christ in Thailand,
Mike & Francis Frederick

www.thaimissions.org Facebook: thaimissions.org
mike@thaimissions.org
(Skype Phone) 864-640-4654