Dear Family and Friends,
Hi! This is Vanessa writing this month and I want to share with you about our family and kids. Nathaniel is back in KY and he is being homeschooling this year for grade 11th (first time ever!). He is working at a bicycle shop and has been riding his bicycle for at least forty miles a day!! Isn’t that incredible?? I don’t know what that kid is made out of! But I am really proud of him and miss him lots.
Luciana, my baby girl, is now in grade 8! Can you believe it? I keep on thinking and saying she is in 6th or 7th! She also doing wonderful already. She is also more serious about playing soccer and she scored her first goal last week! It was beautiful! And both Danny and I were there to scream and jump up and cry! Lucy is also going to start guitar lessons with a friend from our mission. Isaiah (a.k.a. Ishi) is loving first grade and doing homework. He is getting along much better with all his friends and loves to read and be read to everyday. He has started the year with lots of energy. This is the first time he has to go to school from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m. and when he gets home he doesn’t even want to take a nap. Thank you for praying for our kids! That alone is worth so much for us. If you have been praying for them, for the protection of their bodies and souls, please keep doing so. It does make a huge difference.
Danny and I are doing great. He is really busy getting a work team ready to go back to the Yuqui village next week. A lot of men from our church are going. They are going to drill a well for the national missionary family that lives out there. Our goal is to strengthen them and encourage them, so that they can provide a good example of agricultural and spiritual development. Later, they will also drill wells for the Yuqui.
The team will be gone from Sept. 8th to the 13th. Please pray for good weather and also for protection on the road and while at the camp. Also please pray the cars will be safe. Since they will have to park the vehicles and do the last hour of the trip by boat. The boats are these huge dugout canoes! So now that I think about it, please also pray for safety during the river trip.
I know I always get attacked by this terrible fear every time the Lord calls us to something outside our comfort zone! But He has been so good in helping with that by providing me with a husband who looks at everything as a wonderful opportunity for adventure! And I can tell you honestly I have never been let down by Jesus even when circumstances have been overwhelming and scary. He has always given us a way out!
I need prayer for my foot. I am laughing as I write this because it sounds funny! But really I think I have broken a little bone in my foot and it hurts a lot! I think if the doctor says I can’t do aerobics or wear high heels I will be a little depressed but I will find a way to continue to exercise and stay in shape. Other than that I feel great physically. Not so much emotionally. I have recently found out that three really close friends of mine were also sexually abused when they were young. News like that send me back into a dark pit sometimes. Please pray for my old wounds to continue to heal. Pray for the Lord to do a huge miracle and give me amazing grace, courage and forgiveness and please pray for my friends. Although you do not know who they are, God does, right? All three are amazing Christian women, who lead other women to follow Jesus daily. Pray for strength and healing! I have been really busy organizing the children’s ministry at our church here in Bolivia. Also translating our mission’s Child Protection Policies into Spanish so we can train our workers. But guess what, a virus attacked our computer last week! Frustrating!
Danny and I have decided to start the girls half-way house ministry by renting a house so that the girls who need to move in there will have a place soon. But of course it sounds easy to do but is not really that easy in practice. I need your help to pray that the Lord will show us a group of people who could become the board of directors for this new project. That way when we are no longer here the half-way house/coffee house will continue without us! After that, we will need to find a Christian couple who would be willing to live with the girls and just monitor the activity around the house. And as always, please pray for the Holy Spirit to just take over these girl’s hearts! Pray for healing and an unbreakable faith to believe in Jesus when He tells them that He loves them! Abuse can be so tricky, although it could have taken place many years ago, it holds us prisoner at crucial times in our lives, even after we know Jesus. Pray for Jesus to break the cycle in our girls’ lives and in mine! If you have ever gone through something similar. And if you are ready I would love to know, just so I can pray for you and in a weird way be closer to you in Jesus!
Really good news—Fernando (one of our Water project’s workers) received Jesus today! Please pray for him and his new life. Danny and Warren (a fellow missionary from our mission) get together with the project’s workers and have a Spanish Bible study every Monday morning. I will give you their names so you can pray for them whenever you can; Danny, Warren, Marcos, Carlos, Fernando, Steve and Rodrigo.
Here are some names of girls that I think would really benefit from a half way house: Estela, Gabriela, Ana Maria, Gaby, Betty, Viviana, Teresa and Teofila. Please pray for these beautiful sweet girls.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read our letters every month. You bless us every time you read them and pray for us! Also, thank you for all your contributions that make our life here in Bolivia possible! And remember that if you need to come hang out in South America our doors are wide open for you!
Lots of love from all the Beams,
Vanessa
Daniel and Vanessa Beams
EFCCM -- Casilla 3740 -- Santa Cruz, Bolivia
Email: beamsclan@yahoo.com
Bolivia Telephone: 011-591-3351-1087
Blogs: www.beamsclan.blogspot.com, www.simplewatersolutions.blogspot.com
Photo Gallery: www.pbase.com/beamsclan
