Fund raising with a hammock

Sunday evening was a great time with the Alliance Bible Fellowship Youth! They are an amazing group, more than that, an amazing family to me! Lots of them entered the raffle for a Salvadoran hammock to raise $191!! Congratulations Josh Blavatt!!

The winner!

Visits

Only a week left folks! One week from tomorrow I'll be leaving on a jetplane - headed back to my other home! The time at home (in NC) has been wonderful! Full of busyness and challenges, but more importantly full of time with the Lord and people I love and have not seen for a long time. Below is just a sampling of some of those people I got to spend time with!

Tomorrow morning at my church, Alliance Bible Fellowship, we will be serving Envision Coffee in the Commons area for the first time! Since I'm still here, I get to stand behind the coffee pot as people go through the line and tell them about Broken and how drinking Envision Coffee supports it. www.envisioncoffee.org A huge thanks to everyone, especially the missions committee at ABF, for supporting and promoting the Broken ministry in this way. If your church is also interesting in buying or selling coffee to support the ministry let me know!

Fundraising is still going slow. Thank you for all your prayers. Tomorrow night at our youth groups Super Bowl party we are raffling off a Salvadoran hammock to help send me back to El Salvador! The drawing is at halftime! If you are interested in supporting me financially, you can give online at https://secure.cmalliance.org/give/. Go to the "Give to international workers" box and enter "Melissa Lonas  1-47609-49-12".

Hannah Johnson - my most recent visitor who drove down for the weekend from Richmond, VA! She has become a beloved friend since we first met this summer in El Salvador, when she came as an intern for 4 months. She will be returning for a 2 year commitment this May! God really used her this weekend to encourage me. :)

This is my bro and one of my neices, Canaan. My mom and I drove to TN to visit their family a few weekends ago. It was a great visit! Those little ladies sure do grow up fast! I'm glad we got to squeeze in a little more time with them. For those who don't know my brother, Justin, and sister-in-law, Rachel, they're pretty amazing!

My dad and his sista, my aunt Janet. The 4 Lonases took a trip to Georgia the last weekend of January to visit several relatives. 

This is Uncle Bill! He and many of my cousins came up the mountain right after Christmas. 2 of the cousins that came are missionaries to the deaf in Chile. It was quite exciting to speak Spanish with my cuz'n Becky!

Not often do we get to see the Wright twins, Kari and Janell! But usually around Christmas we all seem to be around and get together. These women are some of my role models, including that cute one on the end (my sister Caroline)!

Surprise and slightly spontaneous trip to Minnesota in December. Liz, Becca, and Anna have all interned at Wired in the past 2 years. Anna (the far right) will be coming back for the 3rd consecutive summer this May! I love these friends!

Yes, this picture does not follow suit with the rest, but the weather in Boone and Blue Ridge Mountains lately has been a bit cooooold! This wasn't even the lowest one night. It definitely got down to -7 with windchills up (or down) to -16. I had prayed for lots of snow and cold... God answers prayer! The only problem: living in a tropical climate for 18 months made me a wimp when it comes to cold temperatures now. Thank you Lord for warm socks, fireplaces, hot coffee and thick blankets!

Help me go back!

If you would like to give you can do it online at https://secure.cmalliance.org/give/ and enter: "ENV - 1-47609-49-12 Melissa Lonas". I have to raise $1500 a month, so $18,000. If just 150 people commit to give $10 a month, all my funds will be raised! I'm so thankful that God chose to send me to El Salvador and I'm blown away by the fact that He uses me - little ol' broken me - to spread His glory around the world! Thank you from the bottom of my heart for sending me out. Your love and prayer and financial support are overwhelmingly appreciated!

Support letter

Dear friends and family,

            What a year and a half full of blessing, new experiences, and God’s grace I have had at Envision Wired in El Salvador! I wish I could tell you all my stories of language learning and learning to be culturally correct and cooking with Salvadoran women and worshipping with Christian brothers and sisters, and learning to drive stick shift in a 15 passenger van, and traveling/exploring the country, and, and, and! The list goes on! I have spent the last 18 months growing to deeply love the team that I am privileged to work with (now lovingly known as my Wired family) and growing to love the people and work that God is doing in that country, even more so than I did before. I’ve learned better what it means to be a servant leader being in a position of leadership with the short-term groups that come down. I’ve experienced fresh every day God’s grace in every trial and failure and His loving pleasure in upholding us and giving us His strength when we ask. He has a great plan for each of our lives. I am incredibly thankful that He chose to send me to El Salvador and I’m thankful for all that He has taught me there, the joyful lessons and the hard ones alike!

            The past months have found me continuing to work with the short-term groups, being in charge of the Broken Campaign (contact me or go to www.brokencampaign.com for more information), being a part of Comunidad de Adoracion (my church family there) and serving the Mullinax family. Their family returned in late July after a year of home-assignment, following 3 years serving in El Salvador. Since then, at least 4 days a week, I have the joy of spending after-school time with them, helping the kids with homework, playing, and helping with their family’s evening routine.

            I am writing to you again to let you know that I will be returning to El Salvador on February 9^th, 2014 to continue working at Envision Wired. I’m signing-up for another year, but will be on a year-to-year plan, which means at the end of this next year we will evaluate and decide if I can stay another year. My heart is in El Salvador and I will stay there as long as God allows! I cannot thank you enough for your support during the last 18 months. I am overwhelmed by your generosity and consistency and faithfulness in praying for me. If you would like to give (or continue to give) you can give online at http://secure.cmalliance.org/give/ and enter: “ENV – 1-47609-49-12 Melissa Lonas”. If you wish to support me monthly check the box “make this a recurring gift”. You can send checks to the following address with “1-47609-49-12 ENV Melissa Lonas” designated on the memo line.

                The C&MA/Envision Office        

                Attn: Becky Gorton

                The Christian and Missionary Alliance

                PO Box 35000

                Colorado Springs, CO 80935

            My expenses this year will be $1,500 monthly which adds up to quite a bit. To make it seem more attainable, if I can get just 150 people to commit to $10 a month, I’d be covered! Thank you for considering supporting me financially.

            As I look forward to going back, please be praying for:

- Blessed time spent with my family the rest of this month before I leave again. Also, peace for my family as they send me out once again!

            - Fundraising!! Oh boy!

-A moldable heart as God grows me closer to Him through every situation and I come to know Him better.

- Envision Wired: the work in El Salvador, the staff, the short-term groups coming this next year, the Broken ministry.

            I hope (and will try my very best) to stay in much closer touch with all of you during this next term. Keep checking in on this blog for posts, pictures, prayer requests and more! And, if you would like to receive my email updates, please email me at honeybeehope@gmail.com so that I can add your email address to my list of prayer supporters.

May God bless you richly!

With love,

Melissa

Life 2013: RENEW

Hey everyone who might be reading this! 

Next month, myself, Sharla and Elijah, Richard Mullinax, Liz, Sam, and Christy (all past interns) are headed to the C&MA's LIFE conference that is held every 3 years. "The LIFE 2013 youth conference exists to create an EPIC environment (experiential, participatory, image driven and community focused) where high school students will experience God and are challenged to expand His Kingdom. 

We are all going to represent Envision Wired AND promote the Broken campaign/ministry. Think of it... there may be young adults that come by our booth who, in upcoming years, will be future staff, teachers, counselors, servants for Broken! 

I wanted to mention that we are each paying our own way to get to LIFE, so if you would like to help me get there financially, contact me by email (honeybeehope@gmail.com) or just send in a check to the C&MA office:

The Christian and Missionary Alliance (or just The C&MA)
Office of Donor Accounting
P.O. Box 35000
Colorado Springs, CO 80935-3500

**Put Lonas-LIFE in the memo line**

THE beach day... whew

Sunday was a day of rest for the group. We went to church and then left at 11:15 for the beach. I drove a full van for the first time without even one problem!! We arrived, ate lunch, then headed into the water around 1pm. I was the only senior staff there, accompanied by an intern, Stephen (who'd only been here for 3 days), a volunteer translator, and 13 girls (the group). I stayed on the beach with several of the girls to watch our stuff, but was keeping an eye on the group members in the water. None of the swimmers were more than waist deep in the ocean, but a huge wave knocked 7 or 8 of them over and the undertow pulled them out to the breakers. They could not get their footing and the waves kept pounding them. All but 4 people were able to get out on their own - they were worn out from fighting for air, but were okay in a matter of minutes. 3 of them had to be rescued by lifeguards - they both told me later that they truly thought they were going to die. Thanks be to God, at the moment that they were not able to fight the water anymore, the lifeguards reached them! All of them were shaken up badly and one of them was hyperventilating and had swallowed a lot of sea water. She (Sarah) ended up going to a nearby clinic and then to a hospital in San Salvador for over 24 hrs. Back to the story: Once I had all the girls out of the ocean, I had a moment of relief right before I realized that Stephen was missing. We looked up and saw his head WAY out past the big breaker waves. (At this point, he had been struggling on his own for about 10 minutes). Thankfully, lifeguards were already close to him. When they reached him, he had just about given up. Because of the current and waves, they had to stay out there for another 20 minutes holding him up, until finally a boat made it out to them. When they got him to shore he was out of it. He threw up a couple times. He was talking to me, but was still out of it a little. Within a minute, the guys who rescued him placed him in the back of a police pick-up truck to take him to the clinic. I had to make a split second decision to go with him and leave the group in the hands of the volunteer (who had also been stuck in the waves). (I'll add that while all this was taking place, about 200 Salvadorans were crowded around our group, making things more nerve-racking...). To speed up the rest of the story: We got to the clinic, the police went back to get Sarah, brought her to the clinic as well. I had been in communication with Tony, Ness, and Elijah during this whole time, so I had Ness, Anna, and Vlady already on their way to help. Ness and Anna went straight to take charge of the girls left at the beach. Vlady came to the clinic. The doctors at the clinic told me we HAD to get the 2 of them to a hospital, so they put Sarah in an ambulance and I left with her, then Vlady followed in another with Stephen. (Speed up again...) Sarah was held Sunday night and all day Monday for observation mostly (she was dehydrated and extremely exhausted). Stephen was in the hospital until the following Saturday (6 days) mostly for the doctors to monitor his creatinin (don't know how to spell that...) levels in his kidneys and, because he had a lot of water in his lungs, they were monitoring his oxygen saturation levels as well.

That's the story in a large nutshell. I'm so thankful that everyone is okay and thankful, thankful, so thankful for the Wired team that jumped up at my first cry for help and came to the rescue. There's no doubt that God was orchestrating all of what happened on Sunday!

More Pictures from El Salvador!

More pics for your viewing pleasure!

We spent a day at Tia Ana's house (one of my favorite things to do) with the Crown College/ Simpson University group. I was trying to make Bruno laugh ...

Liz and Sam are back!!! Along with Anna - all interns from previous years! We are so blessed to have the three of them and now we've added Stephen, Jennifer, Rebecca, and Daniel as our new interns. Each of them are here for 3 weeks to 1 year! 

The group from Crown and Simpson helped with VBS at several different churches and schools during their almost 3 week stay.

All thirteen girls (Crown and Simpson)

Camilo and Edwin - my volcano-hiking buddies/bodyguards

Right after the Crown/Simpson group, a group from Missoula Alliance  (one of Envision Wired's most-involved partners in the States) came to help with an evangelism campaign. Many people came to the Lord! This pic is from a visit to a university, where over 50 students had the opportunity to hear the Gospel.