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September 1, 2005

Dear Friends and Family,

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.”(James 1:2-3) Recently, I’ve been meditating on this verse and have been trying to consider it to be pure joy some of the things that I have been through over the last couple of months. In the last month or so I have had an MRI, an electro-cardiogram, and a 24-hour electro-encephalogram because of some recurring events that have been happening to me during the night. It has not been the most fun experience, and I’ll be honest and say that in the beginning I was scared as to what would come of all of it. For now the doctors have me on some anti-seizure medicine and are hoping that that is the answer. I can’t say honestly that it has been a pure joy to have all these experiences, and I’m still meditating on what Paul really meant by that, but I have realized that through all of this it has been a pure joy to have Thomas, my family and friends in the States, and close friends here supporting me.

Also over the past 3 months it has been a pure joy to have 3 different short-term teams at the sports center--one being from my home church! Each team added to the development of our sports center, and it was incredible how hard they all worked and how enthusiastic each team was in supporting our ministry here. One of the activities each team helped out with while they were here was a clothing sale in one of the local neighborhoods. These sales have become quite popular, and folks in the area are always asking when we will be hosting the next one. They are a great blessing to many families since the clothes are sold very cheaply, and they help us to raise a little bit of money for the sports center so that we can cover some of our monthly expenses.

Another area of pure joy has been through the scholarship program. This year the scholarship program gave 183 backpacks filled with notebooks and school supplies at the beginning of the year (the Nicaraguan school year is Feb. – Nov.). The program also supported 137 children for the 2005 school year, and for half of the year has given scholarships to 14 different university or tech students. In July, I gave scholarships to two gals for a beauty course in which they would learn the basics of starting their own beauty salon. These gals are in their twenties and have only a 6 th grade education, so they were quite excited to tell me that on their first exam they both scored 100. They look forward to being able to use their knowledge from this course to possibly set up a small beauty salon in their neighborhoods. It has been exciting to see how far the scholarship fund has reached, and I am looking forward to it growing even more next year. If you are interested at all in reading this year’s Scholarship Report, please let me know by email.

Seeking Him for life,
Amanda Gutierrez

Pure joy – what do you think of when you think about that? I believe God asks us to live lives that are filled with this kind of joy in everything we do even when we face trials of many kinds. Not that that means we have to be happy and smiley all of the time. I think pure joy is something so much deeper than that and yet not easy to discover and live out. May God guide you daily to find this kind of joy that He desires each of us to have! 

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