December 2010
Dear Friends,
Those of us who are from the US
have just celebrated Thanksgiving, remembering all the blessings
God has brought into our lives over the past year...blessings of
His presence in our lives, blessings of family and friends and
blessings of His daily care! How appropriate it is that this
precedes the greatest reason for thanksgiving: The gift of His
Son, freely given to all and celebrated during Christmas! May we
all keep that foremost in your thoughts and activities as we
enjoy the season.
Bob and I are so thankful for the
ministry He has given us to do! What a joy it is to teach Latin
American's from countries around the world how to study God's
Word more effectively and to see their lives and ministries
grow!
We have been teaching 4 online
courses to approximately 80 students many of which have had no
formal theological training. The second part of our advanced
course, which is made up of 75% pastors from 10 different
countries, will begin the first of February. The students are
very excited about what they are learning. Please continue to
pray for these pastors and church leaders that they would be
disciplined to finish the course and to apply what they learn to
their lives and ministries.
We will also start a beginning
course the first week in February. Pray that God would direct
the right pastors and leaders to this course.
I have been in the process of
creating a new Spanish Bible Study Website with a new updated
program. This is completely different from the program I used to
develop the original Website. Needless to say, it has been very
challenging but God has been opening my understanding and I am
making good progress! I would really appreciate your prayers as
I continue working on this. My goal is to finish it by the end
of January.
Both Bob and I appreciated your
prayers for our recovery from the surgeries we had in the US
(Bob - cataract; Sandy knee repair). My recovering ended up
taking much longer than anticipated because I developed a
pinched nerve in my back, which affected the pain in my leg.
Praise God, this has been corrected and I am doing much better.
Thank you for praying about our
rental contract renewal. How we praise God that we were told
they are not even going to raise our rent!
Praise God with us that we
received word of a friend's desire to begin supporting us for
$100 a month. What a blessing! That reduces our monthly deficit
to $775. We also heard from an additional $100 a month to help
support Ernesto, our new team member in Spain. Pray that God
would raise up others to join our support team.
Unfortunately we also received
word from our mission that they were removing Dental & Vision
coverage from our health insurance and raising the deducible
from $200 for the two of us to $2,500 annually. This is
necessitating the opening of a HSA (Health Savings Account) to
help cover these medical expenses. They will allow us to invest
a one-time start up fee of $3,600 from our mission funds if we
can raise that amount. So if anyone would like to contribute to
this fund as a year-end donation, please send it in our name for
our HSA to TEAM. This can be done via the mail, phone, or
online.
We want to thank each of you for
your continued prayer and financial support of our ministry. We
hope you realize how crucial you are to us and our ministry.
May you each have a blessed Christmas!
Bob &
Sandy Hanna |