Pastor and Praying Friends,
What a wonderful way to begin the New Year! At the beginning of the month, we took our very first group of teens to youth conference. The Sunday before we left for youth conference, 3 teenagers surrendered to full-time Christian Service. The Sunday after youth conference a teenager named Laritza was saved. A few days later her brother Juan was saved also. The teenagers in the church are becoming really excited about serving. The teenagers that surrendered to full-time Christian service are David, Ana, and Kimberly. Ana has one year left in high school, Kimberly has two years left, and David has three years left. Please pray for these special young people.
More adults are making the decision to serve in the church. Each adult that wants to work in the church has to go soul-winning. Right now we have 3 adults serving in the church. Each of them is inviting people and one day soon they should be able to lead others to Christ. Hermano Cesar refuses to work during Sunday services. This is a huge step of faith for the people here. The people are taught that they have to work as much as they can so they can eat. Praise the Lord the people are learning more about faith and practicing it.
I recently surveyed more area around Campamento. There are about 40,000-45,000 people that we can possibly reach. The need is becoming greater and our little truck is becoming smaller. More people need a ride to church. In addition to praying for new property, we are praying for a larger vehicle for our family as well as for the church. Please pray that the Lord would supply these needs. There is a specific property that we are praying for and trusting the Lord to provide. We would use the property for church and the very first and only bilingual, Christian school in Campamento. Please pray the Lord would open more doors to allow us the opportunity to reach more souls for His kingdom. Thank you for your prayers and support of Iglesia Bautista Mahanaim de Campamento.
Your missionary in Honduras,
Daniel Jacobo
Praise the Lord that we have been seeing souls saved, baptized and added to His church. Because of this, we are looking at some property. Our Sunday morning services are averaging 35-40 and Sunday evening services are averaging 20-25. We are currently meeting in our home and the church needs more space to meet. We have found some land that costs $53,000. The property is between ½ acre and ¾ acre. It costs so much because it is in the middle of a business district and there is no more open land in the center of the town. There are existing buildings, but they are only a temporary solution. We need to build buildings for the church and eventually a Christian school. There is no other Christian school or any bilingual in the entire town. We will have the only one. We cannot send any pictures right now because our camera was stolen, and we are waiting on the new one to arrive. $53,000 would only cover the cost of the land. I have spoken to several different people in Campamento who say the land that we are looking that it is a really good deal. Amazingly, there are no other churches in the vicinity of the piece of property which is a rare thing in Campamento. The purchase of land for the church would allow us to continue the growth process. Please prayerfully consider what part you could have in this building project.
We also want to give you a synopsis of what the Lord has done through us in 2010. We have seen 39 souls saved, 6 baptized, started Iglesia Bautista Mahanaim de Campamento, are discipling 10 people, directed our first youth camp where 4 were called into the full-time ministry, and celebrated day of the child where 115 mothers and their children came to hear the gospel preached.
Our goals for 2011 include: We are sending 6 possibly 8 teenagers to youth conference, Friend Day Feb. 13 (Praying for 100 people), Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, our first year anniversary Aug. 28 (This will be our charter signing service), Lord willing purchase property for the church, start our church-wide soul-winning ministry, and have our first annual Missions Conference. We are looking forward to what the Lord will do through your missions giving. Thank you for your prayers and support.
Your missionary in Honduras,
Daniel Jacobo
Dear Pastor and Praying Friends,
This past month has been tremendous. We had been working with one family about being baptized. I had been announcing all month about Baptism Sunday to our church. We found a perfect river to baptize. In order to arrive there the church needed to walk through the shallow part of the river and get to the dry area where we planned to hold the service. We asked each of the families to bring food for their own family and a little bit more for visitors that don’t know. The Lord blessed, and we had fifty-three in attendance with about five or six visitors and six baptisms. Also, there was more than enough food and everyone was fed well. We recently started our Saturday Soul-winning and had seven in attendance for the first time soul-winning as a church. The people are really excited to be able to be a part of how God is working.
We want to take this opportunity to say thank you for your faithful support to our ministry in Campamento. The people are also learning what sacrifice is in their own life. We would not be able to be here and experience the victories without your sacrifice. We know that these are hard times in the world, but we believe your faith will be strengthened more by your faithful giving to this needed ministry in Honduras. Someone told me last night, that they had visited a lot of churches in Campamento, but our church is different than the rest in this town. The churches in this town have a bad testimony with the people. There are some people who are bitter at all of the “Christian” churches in the area. Praise the Lord; He is working through Iglesia Bautistia Mahanaim de Campamento. We are starting to arrive to the point where we will need land and a building. We are looking forward to starting more churches in Olancho to be a shining light. The work here would not exist without your sacrifice. I told one Honduran that I do not understand why they sacrifice so much for the church and she told me it was because of the love of Christ. Thank you for allowing us to have the opportunity to be partners with you as we reach Honduras and the world for Christ.
Your missionaries in Honduras,
Daniel Jacobo
Dear Pastors and Praying friends,
The month of September has been exciting to watch this new church starting to grow and take on its own identity. Only 3 weeks after we started this brand, new church, we had a huge day that we celebrated in Honduras. This day is called Día Del Niño, which means Day of the Child. We asked the church to give what they could to help us reach as many people as possible. It was amazing to see the willingness of this new church and to see God work through them. We had an adult service in the morning, then we had the Day of the Child service in the afternoon because we don’t have enough space. We had seventeen in the morning service and 115 in the afternoon service. Some of the people from the adult service came back to help. We were only 4 weeks old and we have already seen our church attendance break 100. Praise the Lord!
For three weeks straight, we have seen at least 2 saved each service. I have been explaining about what salvation is. Many of them believe they have to clean up their lives before they can start attending church or even be saved. One Sunday, I preached on Beware of the Doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees. God wants to change you first from the inside, and then from the outside. The next step for many of these new believers is baptism. Please pray for us because we have to baptize at a river that is about 10 minutes away in a completely different town. Not everyone has a car so transporting everyone will be challenging. Pray that God would provide property for the church here in Campamento soon.
The Lord has opened another door also. We live next door to a high school, and a teacher asked me if I could teach her English class for her for one week. It is a great opportunity to introduce myself and the church. I had one teacher ask me when are services because he wants to go. It is exciting to hear people walking in the street and call me pastor. Thank you for your prayers and support.
Your missionary to Honduras,
Daniel Jacobo
Dear Pastor and Praying Friends,
The month of August has been an exciting month! We were able to finally move to Campamento. The journey to Campamento was quite an eventful trip. We were unsure if there would be any blockades restricting us from entering the Olancho area from Tegucigalpa. Once we left Tegucigalpa, it started to rain. A lot of our stuff got wet but praise the Lord nothing was damaged and everything was still useable. We safely arrived in Campamento. Thank you for all your prayers for our trip.
Once we arrived in Campamento we had little time to unpack and we quickly began passing out tracts and evangelizing the area. Campamento is a city where a lot of people believe that your works is a requirement to go to Heaven. The belief of salvation by grace is a totally new concept to the people. My daughter Isabel quickly made friends in the neighborhood and was very eager to give each one a tract to invite them to our first church service. I met an elderly woman who is a neighbor of ours. Her name is Santos. I showed her from the Scriptures that it is by God’s grace alone that can take her to Heaven when she dies. After she accepted Jesus as her Savior, tears almost came running down her face.
My family and some of the people that were faithful to the Friday evening services passed out tracts on Saturday to all the businesses and any people that we saw pass by. Some of the people even went through their neighborhood and passed out tracts and we didn’t even have to tell them to do that. On Sunday August 29, 2010 a new church was born, Iglesia Bautista Mahanaim de Campamento. We had 47 in attendance with 20 adults and 27 kids. The people are very excited about this new church. Thank you for all your prayers leading up to this point. There is much work to be done here and we are looking forward to seeing how God will bless the efforts of the people of Iglesia Bautista Mahanaim de Campamento. Thank you for all your prayers and support.
Your missionary in Honduras,
Daniel Jacobo
Dear Pastor and Praying Friends,
June has been an exciting and eventful month for us. We were able to visit Campamento twice last month. We have set an official move date that is August 23, 2010. Praise the Lord, we have found a house to rent. We will also be using the back of the house to have church services. The people seem excited about our arrival. We have talked to people on the streets and they are also excited that we are coming to start a church. The name of the church is Mahanaim Baptist Church of Campamento. The name, Mahanaim, is found in Genesis 32:2. Our first Sunday service will be August 29, 2010. The list of prayer needs that the church has at this time is: baptistery, tracts, chairs, songbooks, land and a building to meet in. The people normally meet on Fridays so the people will need to transition from meeting at night to meeting in the morning. We will be the only missionaries in the entire town and the only gospel preaching church. Please pray that the Lord would use Mahanaim Baptist Church of Campamento mightily. Please also pray for land. We have found some property that would work well. We are praying for the Lord’s guidance and leadership in making this decision.
We have started to transition out of our current ministry in Ojojona. Since we took over the youth group in January, our lowest Sunday school attendance was two and our lowest mid-week service attendance was five. Our current attendance for Sunday school is now 10 and our current mid-week service attendance is 17. The Lord also gave us the opportunity to direct our first youth camp, where five were saved and three gave their lives to full-time Christian service. We have seen twenty-two saved and 3 teenagers baptized during our time here. We are very appreciative to Bro. Jason Tate for giving us the opportunity to be a help to the ministry of Light of the World Baptist Church in Ojojona.
Please pray for more laborers in the State of Olancho. Thank you for your faithful prayers and support.
Your missionary in Honduras,
Daniel Jacobo
Dear Pastor and Praying Friends,
This past month, Tropical Storm Agatha passed through three Central American countries. There was torrential rain for 5 days non-stop. Some of the Hondurans said that the storm reminded them of Hurricane Mitch. Hurricane Mitch stayed over Honduras for a 5 days back in 1998 and did tremendous damage. In our town Santa Ana, there were two confirmed deaths with 18 in total in Honduras. There was a shelter that was set up right across from our house. There were more than 30 people that were living in the shelter. Two people that we witnessed to in the past, Marlene and Osiris, were put in the shelter. We were lead of the Spirit to go to the shelter and just pray with the people. One person accepted Christ as their Savior. We were able to pass out some Bibles also. Marlene is now in her house but a lot of the homes were still flooded. All that she has to sleep on is a soggy mattress. Osiris was able to enter her house also even though everything is still drenched. Please pray for the people that were affected and that they will see God’s grace and be saved.
Please pray for a young teenage boy named Bryan. I lead him to the Lord after seeing a drama with a gospel message. He goes to school on the weekends and is only able to come to mid-week services. Please pray for Bryan that he would grow in the Lord.
In Campamento, we are now discipling Brother Cesar, his family and a young teenage girl named Kimberly. They seem really excited for the Lord and are looking forward to us moving there permanently. There is going to be a lot of work to do in Campamento, but we praise the Lord for the faithful people that God has given us so far. We believe the Lord is going to do great things in Campamento. Thank you for your faithful prayers and support.
Your missionary in Honduras,
Daniel Jacobo
Dear Pastor and Praying Friends,
The Lord has really blessed us this past month while here in Honduras. While working with other missionaries and national pastors we were able to host our first teen camp in Honduras. We had 29 young people in attendance. It was exciting to see the joy on many of these faces as they participated in their first youth camp. Five young people accepted Christ as their personal Savior and 3 were called to the full-time ministry. The teens can’t wait for next year’s camp. It was a blessing to remove them from all the worldly influences of their daily lives and to surround them with spiritual direction and guidance. The young people are starting to get a vision of what God can do with and through their lives.
One young man, Eduardo, felt the call to full-time ministry. While he has only been saved for 3 weeks, God is already using him in a mighty way. We are beginning to disciple him and pray that the strong desire that he has for the Lord will continue.
Dolbin, a national pastor, had never participated in a youth camp and was skeptical about helping out this year. It was a blessing to see his heart change. When asked, if this is something he would want to be a part of again he replied, “Yes!”
We would like to say thanks to everyone who prayed for this endeavor. God did a miraculous work through your prayers. Please continue to pray for these young people. Satan will now start attacking, trying to derail the decisions that they made at camp. Many of them come from very rough backgrounds and Satan would love for them to revert back to their old lifestyles.
Please pray also for our residencies. Because of the new laws, we are able to keep renewing our visitor’s visas every month. This allows us to stay here and not have to leave every 120 days. We are looking forward to the day when we will not have to get an extension on our visa every month. If you have not already given towards our residency, please pray about the possibility of giving toward this need. Thank you for your prayers and support.
Your missionaries to Honduras,
Daniel, Abigail, Isabel, and Gabriel Jacobo
Dear Pastor and Praying Friends,
What a blessing it is to be able to work in Honduras! Every Thursday, we have been encouraging our teens to memorize the books of the Bible. Last Saturday after soul winning we heard them practicing them together. What a blessing to know that the Lord is using us to help these young people grow spiritually.
Last Sunday we had a teenage girl named Escarleth come. She is a girl that our teenage soul winners had invited. What a joy to see on their faces when they saw her come, knowing that she was there as a result of their invitation. After the service, we were pleased to be given the privilege to lead her to the Lord! It is amazing to think that someone reached out to us with the gospel and now we are reaching out to others. Please pray that the teens will keep the excitement for the Lord that they have at this time. We need more Hondurans reaching Hondurans with the gospel.
We are thankful that the Lord is using us in our community. We have invited many of our neighbors to church and two of those families have come. One of the neighbors that we invited is a woman named Isabel. She has been exposed to many different “Christian” churches. We praise the Lord for her salvation testimony. Another neighbor, Alberto and Nancy, recently moved from Tegucigalpa to Santa Ana, where we live. They are Catholic and have never attended a gospel preaching church. Please pray that we will be a good testimony so that we will be able to see them saved soon. Please pray for both of these families that they would continue coming to church.
We are looking forward to our youth camp that will be held at the end of this month. The young people are getting excited. It is our desire that this would be something that the Hondurans can duplicate in the future. We have the guest preacher lined up and he is excited to see what God is going to do with the teens.
Thank you for your prayers during my recent trip back to the states. Praise the Lord we were given an opportunity to witness to many family members.
Missionary in Honduras,
Daniel Jacobo
Dear Pastor and Praying Friends,
What a month January has been! The Lord has given us the opportunity to start a youth group at the Light of the World Baptist Church. We are averaging 15 teens in the youth group. Each of these teens has their own story that they bring to the group. The more involved we become in their lives, the more God teaches us how to pray for them. One teenage boy, Oscar, was the first soul that we had the privilege to lead to Christ in Honduras. Please pray as we are encouraging him to be baptized as this is a big step for a Honduran.
We are currently organizing a camp for our teens which will take place on April 1st and 2nd. There are 3 churches that will be involved. The pastors of these churches have never experienced camp. We are so excited for them to be a part of their first teen camp. We are starting small and are looking forward to see how God blesses in the future. Please pray for these teens that they will gain a greater burden for the ministry and seeing souls saved.
We made a trip to Campamento and we were able to preach in Misiòn Bautista de Campamento for the first time. Right now, it is a mission work and we will be preaching there at least once a month. We are anxiously looking forward to taking this work over in the future. The Lord has given us an even stronger burden since becoming involved in the work. While we were there the Lord gave us another opportunity. I was able to meet the Secretary of Press to the President of Honduras. He wants us to rent his house in Campamento while he is living in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. His brother is also the mayor of Campamento. We praise the Lord that his hand is moving through us in our ministry already. Please pray for this mission work in Campamento that it would continue to grow and God would bless this new work as we endeavor to gain the respect and love of these people.
Thank you for your prayers and support and please continue to pray for our residencies. We have obtained almost all of the paper work needed for these and will be able to submit this paperwork within the next few weeks.
Missionary in Honduras,
Daniel Jacobo
Joining us soon in Honduras!
