Puerto Rico Mission: May 3, 2022

Good morning. We are back! The time between this blog and the last has stretched to over two months. Normally, we publish once every 4-5 weeks. Today, as I opened the blog I saw the last communique was dated the end of February. Sorry for the delay.

Even though we live in “vacation land” for a million plus tourists, we, like 3.2 million residents, have been busy working 😉. From a personal perspective, we have been busy remodeling our home, changing all the windows. After thirty years of use they were becoming dilapidated. Since our home is steel reinforced concrete and plastered blocks, changing windows was no small undertaking. For the last month at 7:00 AM two men marched into our home with hammers, chisels, and power tools and began pounding on our walls to break up the cement and remove the windows. Forms for window seals had to be fashioned on site and filled with cement. The next day the new window would be positioned and then plastered into place. And so it went for a month; noise, concrete rubble on the floor and cement dust coating everything. BUT that is past, the windows are in place and ready to take on hurricanes up to category 4…may that not happen!

Also, this past month we had some guests in our home for around two weeks. Lovely people. One family is planning to move to PR in July and begin ministering in the neighboring town of Hormigueros and, work with the camp project shared by several of the churches in PR. The other guests, a couple from NC, came for a few days of R&R. We also had a visit from our youngest son and daughter-in-law.

Church interior

So, what is going on with ministry? Busy days for sure. We finally moved back into the church building the first of April after a hiatus of twenty-one months. I believe we ALL were glad to leave the outside to the birds and iguanas and enjoy worshipping in-doors again. Attendance continues to lag behind what it was when the COVID mess began. It seems, with few exceptions, all churches are facing the same thing, inconsistency in attendance by its members. Did the virus cause this? I don’t think so. It simply revealed some underlying flaws unnoticed until the virus struck. We have all heard it said, “If we go other places but not to a church service then the problem isn’t the virus.” True. It is a spiritual malady. It is a matter of priorities, a matter of “gods” in our life. I will stop preaching 😊!

Youth/Young adults hike

In the church calendar there has been the following events for the youth: A hike, Christian movie night, then a “Destination Unknown” on a Sunday afternoon after church. Almost thirty (youth and young adults/parents) took off to a site previously unseen to all but one. And finally, they enjoyed a Friday night concert by a guest band.

For the entire congregation, we enjoyed an evangelist speak for a special Friday night service. He did a fine job and moved some to repent and re-dedicate themselves to the Lord. Other services included Missions Sunday, and a Sunday service dedicated to the older members of the church. The day was called “Amanecer de Oro” (Golden Morning/Wakeup). Still another Sunday the focus was on our spirituality as it relates to our health. The message, delivered by a guest speaker, was well received. Two weeks ago, we had a men’s activity after church. We hiked into a state forest and briefly explored a cave.

Men's hike

We also celebrated the church’s 36th anniversary. It was a two-day celebration. Saturday night a violinist and pianist blessed us with beautiful music and song. The service was completed with a guest speaker, a pastor who continues to preach even in his late seventies. The next day, I spoke and after the service we shared a dinner. Thirty-six are a lot of years. We have seen many good things as the years have passed by. All glory to the Lord!

Anniversary celebration

I should close with a word or two about Easter week. Good Friday, is the “biggie” in PR. One of our worship leaders wrote a drama and then set it to music using popular Christian songs. It was well received and spoke of the faithfulness of godly parents (momma especially) who persevere in their faith even when rejected and even ridiculed by some of the family. Some in the church certainly identified with the main character in the cantata. Easter Sunday, we had a 6:30 service followed by a shared breakfast. NICE, and well attended.

Well, I should stop. I have gone a little long with this blog,….and, one of my pet peeves, are long newsletters/blogs. Enough! BLESSINGS!

Johnathan and Mary Reece