Summer on the Road

June has been very busy.  We were in many different churches in different states around the country including Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas!  God has given us favor with churches that desire to partner with us in reaching lost souls in Argentina with the Gospel.  In June, we also had “Our Generation” Camp.  This camp is unlike any other in that we have a direct and strong missions emphasis.  We had right at 30 middle school, high school, and college aged youth surrender and sign our volunteer pledge to do whatever God leads them to do in world evangelism!

We are seeing God meet every need, move in each church, and lead us to more who desire to partner with us!  Please pray for us that in July, we would come into contact with many more who will join us in world evangelism!

Serving Together,

Patrick, Leslie, Lily, Piper, and Ivy Henry

 

In Argentina…

This month, one of the churches in La Plata, Argentina will have their annual mission conference.  Iglesia Bautista El Faro (Lighthouse Baptist Church) is a great church where missions is on people’s hearts.  I spoke with the Pastor a week ago and he asked me specifically to pray that God would use this conference to help the people get more involved in missions in their city.  Please pray for the people of Iglesia Bautista
El Faro and for Pastor Jorge (George).  Pray that more young men will see the need for world evangelism and respond to the call of God on their lives!

Most people have heard of Buenos Aires.  After all, it is the 20th largest city in the world!  As we are raising support for church planting in Argentina, we are studying the different cities in our mission field.  There are over 20 cities in Argentina with a population over 200,000 people.  Some of these cities have churches in them, some we are having trouble even finding a church.  I will be giving a small synopsis of several of these cities over the next few weeks.  For this post, we will look at #18, Lanús.

Lanús is located just south of the capital city, Buenos Aires.  It is in the greater metropolitan area.  Lanús has a population of 212,000 people.  The “partido” of Lanús (the greater district) has a population of over 450,000 people!  This area is known for their futbol team, Club Atlético Lanús.

I wanted to know what the spiritual situation is in Lanús, so I emailed a friend who is a national pastor in La Plata (Argentina).  I asked him what he knew about Lanús.  This is what he told me…

Hello Brother, it is ironic that you asked about Lanús, because last week I was talking to a brother, a young man from our church and he asked me, Pastor please pray for Lanús I have family there, and there are no churches like ours, and I have many acquaintances.  

As our Argentine friends and I pray for the people in Lanús, would you pray with us?  I believe God desires His name to be known and magnified there.

Please pray for Lanús.

 

Ten years ago today (June 19th), Leslie and I were married at our church.  I remember it being a hot day.  I remember a friend of mine and I going for an early lunch that day.  Ironically, the wedding and reception went by so quick that I don’t remember almost any of it.  I remember seeing Leslie walk down the aisle.  I remember talking with her during the wedding ceremony.

Ten years has brought a lot of change.  We were talking last night about who we each were then and who we are now.  We have seen good times and bad times.  We have experienced births and deaths.  We have seen God work in us change that we never would have anticipated ourselves.

I was with a few newly weds the other day.  I was thinking about all the things I would like to tell them.  Here are just a few things that I have learned in 10 years of marriage…

• Marriage is a commitment, not just about a feeling.  You see people today (especially celebrities) get married and divorced in a matter of just a few years or even a few months.  What went wrong?  They “loved” each other enough to get married, what happened?  I think it could be a number of things but one is that it was not a commitment, it was based on a feeling.  In 10 years of marriage, there have been days where Leslie and I have not “jived” too well.  But we made a commitment to God and to each other.  I am with Leslie no matter how I feel, no matter what is being done or not being done, no matter how kind or rude she is (I am normally the rude one, not her).  No matter the problem, we are together.  It is a commitment.
• Don’t go to bed angry at each other.  Right before we were married, the Senior Citizens in our church each wrote down one piece of advice for us.  The majority of them (there were over 20 of them) said something like, “Don’t go to bed mad at one another.”  I thought that was strange.  Out of all the advice these older, experienced folks could give us, they chose, “Don’t go to be mad at each other.”  Again, the majority of them said that!  But in 10 years, I look back on many a night (especially early on) where we went to bed angry at each other (usually over something petty).
• Grow up/grow older together!  Leslie and I both recognize in each other that we are not married to the same person we said “I do” to at Victory Baptist Church on June 19, 2004.  We have both changed so much.  But Leslie made the comment last night, in these past ten years, “We have grown up together.”  I think people change.  That is what we do.  I think that husband and wife should change together.  That doesn’t mean that they change into the same type of person together (although I have seen that happen), but that we change into who we become with each other.  You don’t wake up one day and say, “Who is this person laying next to me?  I don’t even recognize her/him anymore!”  Grow up together.

I am so thankful for these past ten years.  We now have three daughters.  I have less hair and more belly (I liked it the other way better).  Leslie is even more beautiful now then the day we were married.  I am not just saying that.  I know it to be true.  God has been good to us!  This is truthfully a Happy Anniversary!

I wanted to take a post and talk about my Pastor. Derik Lawrence is our Pastor at Victory Baptist Church. Pastor Derik has worked in almost every ministry in Victory Baptist Church. He has now been Pastor for 10 years!  Before that, he was the Youth Pastor, and before that he was serving in other many other positions. He was Children’s Pastor, bus driver, toilet cleaner, “grass cutter”, Youth Pastor, cook, Camp Director, Sunday School Teacher, Assistant Pastor, and many, many other positions.

His desire is to see Victory grow and send out men to reach many others. He has been used of God to train up young men that are now missionaries, soon-to-be missionaries, and pastoral staff. Here are a few (certainly not all)…

• Missionary in Cambodia
• Missionary in the British Isles (husband and wife)
• Missionary to South Africa (husband and wife)
• Missionary to Chile
• Missionary (not clear on location)
• Missionary to Argentina (husband and wife)
• Youth/Assistant Pastor
• Assistant Pastor

These are all products of the ministry God has used him to build. I think that this speaks for itself. But I want to be clear, the men and women above are sufficient fruit in themselves, but Pastor Derik is not done! There are other young men being trained right now to go out and do the same! There are also young men that are coming down the pike that will, Lord willing, surrender and start the process of training under Pastor Derik.

I think the first thing that Pastor would do when responding to this is that he would immediately deflect all of this to Jesus. He would not take any of the credit, but clearly explain it is all done for Jesus and all done by Jesus.

I am thankful for a Pastor like Pastor Derik Lawrence!