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.

Hi everyone. Merry Christmas and happy New year! Jonathan invited me to his school to see an end-of-year presentation. He played a minuet by Bach and did an excellent job.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SokAHTj-qbg

Since I lost my most advanced students this year, we had to keep our presentations simple, and yet it turned out very well.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVBn35vEkkU


Fortunately, I have someone else who wants to start violin next month.

The Bible workshop that I teach on Saturdays has gone well and grown considerably. Often, the young men cannot fit into the office for the class.

Overall I feel it's been a challenging year for my music ministry, but I'm praying God will bless and surprise us in a whole new way in 2014.

This past month has been good. I enjoyed very much my time up in Canada for my brother's wedding and getting to know his in-laws.

(Click to enlarge)

We also ministered in my uncle Gary's church Evangel Temple and also in Toronto Gospel Lighthouse. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there and and thank you very much for your continued support. Shortly after coming back, we spent the American Thanksgiving with our great missionary friends here and good food.

CPC Ministries has a new member: Marisol Reyes! She is Raquel's older sister and has just decided to take up the violin for church ministry.

(Marisol on left and Raquel on right)

On to the Christmas presentations. . .

I've set up group classes every Saturday afternoon so we are always working at playing together and can discuss ideas for new presentations. Thankfully more students showed up this time for the monthly presentation. Luis, the dad of one of my younger students is very proud of how is son Jonathan's technique is improving. His sound is much stronger. I'm still making arrangements of our church songs. Joaquín is practicing them up and should be playing several of them with the band soon. I can't wait for the day our church has its fully-developed string section ministering in every service, because I believe that musical creativity is one of the most important ways to reach the lost. Pray that God develops our faith and opens our eyes to His amazing plan for us. Also continue to pray that our neighbor living above us will no longer get in the way of our ministry of praise and worship to God.

P.S. I'm getting ready to visit Canada for my brother's wedding on Nov. 9. I haven't been there in over 10 years. I'm sure it'll be nice to see my family up there again.