Chico and Kathy Chicas Newsletter (Fall 2021)
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior!
We are happy for another opportunity to share with you how the Lord God has been working in and through our family over the summer months of 2021, and also what we are looking forward to this fall and winter.
In our last newsletter, I said that Chico and I would be leading a team to Alaska. Well, at the last minute it was changed to Montana. Although some may have been disappointed, the people in Montana let us know many times how happy they were that everything worked out for our team to go there! And, after awhile, I’m pretty sure we were all glad that we were there, too! We were at Montana Bible College and our main project was painting the students’ dorm rooms and helping them with landscaping projects. The team also helped out at Love Inc., an organization that receives donated items and coordinates with churches to give to those in need. We also had opportunities to share an evangelistic presentation at three day-care facilities and two churches.
We sure do thank you for your prayers as God did answer them, keeping us all safe and healthy. There was a large range of differences among our 24 team members, from quiet to talkative, less to more mature, and everything else you can think of, and we realized that our team was actually quite an accurate reflection of society in the U.S. today. We had our share of difficult moments over the summer for sure, but our prayer is that in some way, something we did or said will have made a positive impact on their lives. As leadership, Chico and I, along with our two assistant leaders, were reminded that just because we don’t always see what God is doing in someone’s life, it doesn’t mean that He isn’t doing anything. In a way, you could say the song, Waymaker, was our team’s theme song!
For those of you who prayed for Daniel and Samuel as they led the Preteen teams, your prayers were also answered! Even though they also had many challenging moments with their team members, God continually gave them the strength, energy, wisdom, and encouragement they needed to keep going. And it turned out that Abi had a great summer in Iowa—so praise the Lord for that!
After the summer teams were over, on August 3rd, we celebrated Joel’s 6th birthday—and that was a lot of fun. We had the other staff kids over to our house and the highlight of the party was when Daniel and Samuel “tossed” them onto a plastic “water slide” set up on the grass! A few weeks later, we had the blessing of being able to take a road trip with all six of us. First, we went to a wonderful creation science museum in Alabama called Dinosaur Adventure Land—well worth the trip, whatever your age and wherever you live! See their website drdino.com for more information. Then we visited family in Indiana and Missouri before returning through Pensacola to drop Daniel off for his last year at PCC. Samuel has transferred from his college to online classes so he is staying with us this semester. Abi and Joel are homeschooling with me so that keeps all of us pretty busy. And finally, on September 14th, Chico attended the USCIS Oath Ceremony to receive his U.S. citizenship! We thank those of you who have been praying for this process all along—it is now complete. And as planned, as soon as Chico receives his passport, we will be returning to Honduras. So, we certainly do praise the Lord for all of these things. We feel that we were here for a good amount of time. We were able to make the most of opportunities to do things while we were here, but we are going back before we get any more established in—or attached to—life here. We are planning to be back in Honduras before the next Boot Camp there, so we have already been talking to the staff there about ways to run a Boot Camp in this world with Covid.
From October 10th to the 17th, we are planning to be in Oregon, so, if this newsletter makes it to you before then, and you would like to connect with us, please contact us! Also, we will be at the Taste of Missions event being held at Salem Evangelical Church on October 16th and 17th, so we can see you there!
Thank you again for your love and support; we pray that God keeps you in the center of His will and is blessing you as you honor Him!
Francisco, Kathy, Daniel, Samuel, Abi, and Joel Chicas
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