No dream is completely isolated from all others.

It´s something I believe is very important to remember, so we don't get caught up thinking only about where we are at and forget about Jesus' body as a whole, because God puts dreams in all his servants' hearts, and He expects us to work together to reach them. God says what we sow we reap. So if we sow time and effort into other people's ministries, He will bring people into our lives who will sow time and effort into our ministries, so that they can be enriched. For 2 years now, I've had the opportunity to teach music theory on Saturday mornings at an evangelical church just outside the beltway. Their music school is called Instituto corazón de adorador (Heart of a Worshiper Institute). I can tell they are motivated to raise up worshippers for God's kingdom in their area of the city and that they value their teachers, so I was happy to prepare and play an arrangement on the violin at their end-of-year celebration.

Melina and Yasmín are progressing well. Here's a video they made with their dad.



Melina has completed Suzuki book 1, although Yasmín has had to miss some classes because Stefanía has been too bogged down with high school to teach her. Please pray that high school studies don't get so demanding that my students don't have enough time for their musical development in God's kingdom. Also pray that God protects my students from physical harm. This year 3 good students of mine in our church have had to miss classes because of injuries to their left wrist (Stefanía, Miguel, and Melina). Also pray that God uses our music to reach new people this Christmas season.

Extreme Christmas blessings!

Here are a couple of songs we played in the park on the first day of Spring. Here the seasons are reverse so the first day of Spring is on Sept. 21. Spring day is like a holiday down here because when it doesn't fall on the weekend, students take the day off from school and have fun in the park which makes it a great opportunity to evangelize. We also did a drama and shared testimonies.

The Twinkle Twinkle Little Star variations for all beginners:



I also put Nothing but the Blood in my teaching repertoire.



God bless, and to all the Canadians, Happy Thanksgiving!!

Here´s one of our recent presentations.

For our last youth service I got a pickup for my cello to amplify it and show people what it can do in the band. Praying that it will inspire people to take up the instrument for God´s kingdom in spite of what it costs to buy one. This month we are preparing a special evangelism event for the first day of Spring when everyone will be out in the park. 

Last Saturday we had a very special event: Yasmín, Melina's little sister, is four years old and had her very first violin class! She had been wanting learn how to play for quite a while, so I got one of our old one-eighth size violins from storage and gave it to her to start on. But I didn't teach her. I'm having Stefanía do it to provide her with her own experience as a violin teacher. Stefanía is my most advanced student, and she already has some experience helping out my other students, so I feel led to compliment that with her own classes that she teaches so she can be trained as a violin teacher. She is thrilled to have this opportunity. Pray that Yasmín will grow up to be an excellent musician in God's kingdom!

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This past month I've taken charge of the youth band which does one worship service the last Saturday of every month. I've been very busy preparing all the sheet music and arrangements for them and leading their rehearsals. They are all fairly new musicians, and did a very good job in the last service.



We had a guest speaker and a great ministering of the Holy Spirit in that service.

Here's a minuet by J.S. Bach with a different type of accompaniment I made for it.

I'm planning to have my students play in the plaza this spring (September). I'm arranging several songs to play, one of which I've already finished. I believe that using the music to evangelize is key to the success of our ministry here. Aside from being something that can attract a lot of attention, it will really put the students to work in building God's Kingdom and show them that the time they spend practicing matters a lot.

We've felt really led to focus diligently on having intercessory prayer every Thursday night for the future of our church. It's important because the students often get taken up with school, homework, or their job when we must remember to seek God's kingdom first. People have been showing up for prayer and God is moving. Also our last youth service was great.

Pray for the personal development of each of my students. Currently I have 9: Stefanía, Tomás, Jónatan, Rocío, Marcela, Sebastián, David, Melina, and Miguel. I'm also expecting to have some cello students soon. Pray that they really learn what it means to do their best as musicians in God's kingdom and to put God's work first in their lives.

I'll leave you with a little rendition of ours of a classic Suzuki piece, Perpetual Motion:

Here I'll show you one of our recent presentations: Joyful, joyful.



I continue having group classes with my students every Saturday to teach them to play together.

Stefanía's hand has improved. She can play almost normally now, but there is still some pain. Within the few weeks or so, she will get an MRI of her wrist. Please continue to pray that the studies will show her wrist completely healed.

While my mom recovers from her knee surgery, I've been taking over teaching Personal Evangelism in our extension of the Bible school for now. Also a big thanks to Bernabé for helping us out on the piano in the services.

Last month we had the 9 year anniversary of our church and had a really special time celebrating it. We shared the experiences and feelings we've had since since we started off renting a conference room in the Apart hotel. I truly believe that this is hardly the beginning, and that God has so many more great things to show us in His work.

Summer is over and we're kicking off the school year now. Here it feels more like the New Year starts in March since that's when everyone is returning from summer vacation to get back to work, education, and their life projects. Very soon we will start preparing for our Easter presentations, and in 2 weeks we return to our Bible study workshops on Saturday evenings.

I have another new violin student, Miguel Balvín, who is enjoying practicing.

Since Stefanía has returned, she has been unable to play violin due to an injury in her left hand that she got while riding a motorbike in Paraguay at the end of December. Some drunk driver hit her. Fortunately no bones were broken, but there's still real problems in the tendons and ligaments in her wrist and fingers. She had it looked at here and the doctor says it will take months to heal. This is especially frustrating and discouraging since she is my most talented and dedicated student. Please pray earnestly that God will work a miracle in healing there and restore her hand to the way it was before the accident with absolutely no loss in movement or flexibility. It would be wonderful if God allows for her to participate in our Easter presentations.

Raquel, my first cello student, feels called to return to Paraguay to study business management. I feel kinda bad that I have no cello student at the moment, but I figure it's for the best and is part of God's plan. Pray that God brings someone to fill her space who has a passion for excellence on the cello and who can get the necessary funds to buy one. They're much more expensive than violins here. With God all things are possible!

The New Year has started off really well with the return of my 2 top violin students from Paraguay, Stefanía and her brother Tomás. Their dad said he didn't want to lose a single day in making up for last year that they lost in their musical education. So I'm piling on the violin, piano, and music theory classes, and my ministry is getting the help it needs from 2 veteran students who know what it means to be a musician. Stef also had her b-day last week which we celebrated at Starbucks, and we gave her the lastest Newsboys album Restart which is one of their best.

Stefanía and her dad
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Stefanía's younger brother Tomás
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Aside from that, it's been a somewhat typical January with things moving slow during the summer and several people on vacation. Pray that God really teaches us to put in our best this year for His kingdom, because the best is yet to come.