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The Fredericks’ February Update

February 2023

 

Greetings from Thailand.

It is now the middle of February and we are still in the process of purchasing the property for our church. This has taken much longer than I anticipated, but we are still on track to complete the purchase. The price has been agreed on and we are waiting on the real estate company to complete the transfer papers. Because they are paying for the transfer (saving us several thousand dollars), we are at their mercy. The lady in our church who is dealing with the process feels that we should have the transfer completed by early March. It is frustrating, but we will wait. We were able to have our first service in the new building on Sunday 12 February 2023. We did our Sunday school from the new building and then returned to our old building for our morning worship services. Everyone was excited to have our first service in what will soon be our building. In the meantime, we are getting estimates for repairs and some remodeling and are developing a step by step plan to make the building habitable and then fix and decorate it.

Ministry: I am pleased to report that even though we finally had our outbreak of COVID in our church, everyone has returned and we are back to normal attendance. We have had several visitors recently, of note is the family of one of our faithful members. We have been praying for them for about 15 years. They have been listening intently and Lord willing they will understand and be saved soon. The other man (husband of a member) has been coming for more than 7 years and although he understands the gospel very well, still refuses to get saved. He isn’t belligerent, and even encourages his children to read their Bible and be faithful in attendance. He, however, has yet to respond, even when I have approached him directly. Please pray for him that the Lord would continue to be merciful and continue to work in his heart.

Prayer: Continue to pray for the salvation of those mentioned above as well as those we come in contact with. Please pray for wisdom as we move to our new building and discern our future with New Life Baptist. Pray for Pastor Dtom and his wife Ooy for wisdom and patience as they faithfully serve the Lord. Thank you all for your persistent prayer and support for this ministry.

Michael & Francisca Frederick
Thailand

 

Our mailing address is:
(sending church)
Grace Baptist Church
2745 Martin Luther King Blvd
Panama City, FL 32405

 

February for the McCoys

February 2023

Que esta pasando

 

1 Corinthians 9:26-27

I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

 

These are the words of the apostle Paul, the greatest missionary ever. Paul did not have any quit in him. He only knew how to keep on running his race. We can relate completely. Our race is difficult. There are many obstacles and disappointments along the way. We get to run and count it a privilege. Like Paul we don’t always have the crowd cheering us on. That’s okay. We do have a lot of support from others that see the finish line with us. Prayers, finances, and physical side-by-side co-laborers all working together with the power of God will take us across the finish line. We must keep our focus or fall out of the race and become a castaway-quitter.

Our whole family started off the New Year with sickness. Several days of fevers and flu like symptoms. Better than having the Covid again but still no fun.

One of our heroes of the faith graduated to heaven. Missionary Mary Graham of Bible Time Ministries passed into glory after serving her Lord with husband, Bill, and then with a team of others after his passing. Location, heath, age, nothing could stop Mary. She was such an encouragement to us and is missed. Many times we would receive a call or a card with a check in it from her just because.

We have prayed for almost a year for God to provide us with a house big enough to have school, an office, and extra room for missionaries passing through. We lived in Airbnb’s for 4 months and then in a 2-bedroom mobile home since early May. We have made it work and had what we needed. Although we prayed we didn’t look around much, kind of like leaning on a shovel and asking God for a hole. Start digging! Using our sick time we began looking at rental properties. We found one and signed a 1-year lease. It will be a huge blessing to have more room and have all our belongings in one place for the first time in almost 5 years. Woohoo!! We will move in the next few days.

We continue to serve in our local church and help with the new building process and documents. We need one more engineer letter and should get the permit to begin the actual construction. The utilities are in, the surveyor has been given the locations to stake the building corners, the concrete man has ordered the rebar and steel mesh, and we should be setting forms soon. All the sub-contractors are waiting on go. Pray for things to get going and a smooth flow with no more delays. The church continues to grow and needs a bigger building ASAP.

On that same note Kevin got a call from our sending church Pastor saying a sister church has a need. So Kevin met with Pastor Mike Kelly of Grace Bible Baptist Church in Pensacola, Fl. The church has bought an old doctor’s office and is needing it remodeled into a church. They want to use missionary builders for the labor and most contractors will not take on that liability. We have built and remodeled many churches and provided contractor services for many others and worked with missionary builders too. We have talked with the missionaries and the architect and will do what we can to help as God directs. Jesus said he would build his church and it’s exciting to see some physical buildings being built and remodeled for the church to have a place to worship and train and send out of.

While in Pensacola we had the privilege to be in our sending church for an update and video presentation. We joined Gulf Coast Baptist in July 2004. We served there in many areas- deacon, nursery, children’s church, safety team, buildings and grounds, and contractor for the new building and renovate the existing ones. We got trained there, ordained there, and commissioned and sent out from there. A lot has changed with us over the last year or so and it was good to catch up and answer questions too.

Word is starting to get out to the churches on the training that we have to offer. Several churches have contacted us to schedule training for their people. We do some other things like help churches with their building needs and disaster relief but practical training through the local churches is what we really went all in to do. We have the certifications to train in the following areas.

Vocational– mainly for those in ministry or going into ministry, currently in Costa Rica and in North Florida

  • Carpentry-electrical, plumbing, heating, and air
  • Building technology-solar power, weatherization
  • Landscaping-masonry painting and finishing

Life safety

  • First aid, CPR, AED
  • Active shooter
  • Basic self-defense

Disaster

  • -Emergency response team
  • -Relief and distribution
  • -Recovery and rebuilding

Please if your church or school is in need of any of these contact us at 850-777-0097 or trainingcentercr@yahoo.com

Kevin met with BRACE or Be Ready Alliance Coordinating for Emergencies also while in Pensacola. There are areas in a disaster that seem to lack the resources the big letter agencies bring to the impact zone – the local church and the rural community and smaller third world countries as we might say. To us these are the areas we would try to help the most, those not really getting help and being passed by. BRACE is developing a program specifically for the local church and the rural community and mid-summer an opportunity for an International location that we know well-Costa Rica. We have been asked to do the legwork in finding the local churches wanting to be trained to help themselves and their communities in times of need and be part of the training team. We are already doing likewise on a much smaller scale and can get this training to the churches we choose.

Would your church want training in any of these areas? Again please contact us.
-Emergency action plan
-How/where to apply for assistance
-Community meal distribution
-Coordinating with others
-Relationships with government entities

The ball is rolling in many of these areas. We will continue to kick it and with your continued help and support these will grow and multiply and through these tools the gospel will continue to go forth and many will be saved. This is our heart and we are grateful that you choose to partner with us in these efforts. Please always feel free to contact us.

 

In Christ,
Kevin, Sonya, Bethany and Jon McCoy
Training Center International

Email: Mccoysincostarica@yahoo.com
Kevin 850 777-0097
Sonya 850 698-1694

The Mortensons February Begins

February 2023

 

Dear Family and Friends,

Thank you so much for your faithful prayers and encouragement. God continues to show his grace and strength in this new year. It seems crazy to say this, but January has flown by. We entered the year jumping back into homeschool and many of our normal ministry opportunities, including neighborhood Bible clubs, door to door evangelism, and I just started teaching the 3rd module of the theology class on Sunday nights. With all that is going on, it is little surprise that the month flew by.

Amidst all of the normal things this month, we also have seen God’s hand of goodness in Blake’s type 1 diabetes management. Back in the last quarter of 2022 we were informed by our Endocrinologist in the States that we would remain current patients (not requiring a referral) as long as she is able to see him within a 3 year timeframe. However because he was not being seen every three months, he was being automatically classified as inactive and she is legally limited in what services she can provide till she sees him again. This largely was not a problem because most of the things that we use for daily management we purchase here in Honduras and so don’t need her to prescribe. But his continuous glucose monitors are only available in the States and require a doctor’s prescription. This is where we can see God’s mighty hand providing and guiding. Back in 2017, while we were raising support, we met Dr. Martin at a church in OH. At that time he mentioned that he travels frequently doing medical missions and gave me his business card. He told us that if he could ever help us, he would be glad to do so. Only God would bring him to mind and only God would have prompted me to hold on to that business card all these years. After making contact (again God in his providence) Dr. Martin told us that he would be glad to help us with US prescriptions, especially because he too is a Type 1 Diabetic and fully understands the needs Blake has.  Needless to say the world would say coincidence, but we can clearly see God’s providence. And it looks like with God’s hand of help, be we will be able to set up shipments for the continuous glucose monitors that can then be brought down by our partnership with Medical Missions Outreach. Dealing with insurance and the pharmacy has been an arduous process, but God has been with us through each step.

Again, thank you for your faithful prayers for us.

 

PRAYER REQUEST

  • Pray for God’s blessings on all of the partners in the ministry hear, and that we would have great unity as we labor together for the glory of God.
  • Pray for our Children’s Bible clubs to grow.
  • For wisdom as I teach the 3rd module of the theology class.
  • Continue to pray for wisdom as we grow in our understanding of Type 1 diabetes, and how to best help Blake.

 

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

 

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