Everything is bigger in Texas

Hello Friends and Family,

We are excited to be into our summer mission season in full swing!  We just hosted a "LARGE" Young Life Team from the University of Texas (And they were some big boys, lol).  In 2 days, this team cleaned and pressure washed a local school in Aguada, they scrapped and painted a house in Aguadilla, painted classrooms at Carib Christian School and helped with some chores around the guesthouse.  We are so thankful for all they've done in a short amount of time!  They came in and were a huge blessing to the people of Puerto Rico.  

At the house that was painted, the woman that owns the house was SO thankful to have the guys there working that she walked around laughing and saying,"My house looks beautiful!  You guys are my super heroes!!!  I just can't believe it!"  Her response to the help she received from the team was worth it's weight in gold!!  The team went there hoping to be a blessing to her and instead they got blessed in return!   

Currently we have Athletes in Action on the ground serving.  They are a college age basketball team who will be playing games and hosting camps.  Through this, they will share the gospel with other college basketball teams and kids here on the island.  They are using the talents and abilities that God has given them to spread God's word throughout the world.   Arriving next week, will be two more Athletes in Action teams that are high school age teams.  They also will be sharing the gospel in the same way as the college age teams.  We look forward to seeing how God is going to be moving through these guys this next few week!

On a side note.....

My (Chandi) parents and sister are coming for a visit and I'm SUPER excited!!  God is good :)

God Bless You

Dios te Bendiga,

Chad and Chandi

Puente Missions

Overdue Update

Greetings and Blessings from Puerto Rico!

This is a long overdue update on our missions here in PR and for that we apologize.  Since our last blog, we were blessed to have been a part of Thanksgiving Puerto Rican style.  We felt very welcomed and loved with our God giving PR family!  We also had the opportunity to invite a new found friend and brother in Christ to spend thanksgiving with us.  Not long after Thanksgiving we were informed that we were going to be able to come back to the States for Christmas to see our family!  That was an awesome blessing and Christmas present!! The Lord had placed a desire in my (Chandi) sister's heart to try to bring us "home" for the holiday's.  Thank you to everyone who helped make that possible for us.  Also, to my parents for housing us for two weeks during our visit.    It was just the boost we needed to get prepared for this year's mission teams.

In January we were blessed with yet another surprise, our daughter Whitney came to PR for a surprise visit!! Noah, Isabella and Micah were ecstatic that their big sis was down for a visit.  After she left to go back to the States, we had a small mission team here helping out with some renovations at the bakery/guest house.  Changes are being made at the bakery to help accommodate our growing number of mission teams and volume of team members.  It's an awesome problem to have when you've got so many people with a hearts desire to serve with us here in Puerto Rico!

In February, Chad, Sadie, Harper and myself, along with Maribel and Cleo, began making preparations for the four mission teams that were coming the month of March.  The first of the March teams was a team from a Vineyard Church in states.  They were here in PR working with Maribel's Church in Mayaguez.  Following them were three Campus Crusade teams from the States, who go to the college campuses here in PR and share God's word with college age population.  Along with going to the college campuses during the day, we were also able to take them to serve at the homeless shelter, Casa San Gabriel, in Mayaguez.  There they were able to meet, serve and pray with some of the homeless population in Mayaguez.  Mixed in with the mission teams that were here, Chad was able to also take a group of 15 high school aged kids from Carib Christian School to Mayaguez to do a homeless out reach in the streets and alleyways of downtown Mayaguez.  It was truly an eye opening experience for those kids.  They were face to face with homelessness, drug addiction and prostitution, all problems that plague the people of PR, some which are only slightly older than the kids that were there serving.

Now that we're up to speed with what's happened between October and now, I'll fill you in on what our summer is looking like.  Beginning in May, we Kick off our summer with Athletes in Action.  They will be here for 2 1/2 weeks playing basketball and sharing God's Word with high school and college age kids here on the island.  Following them will be a team from Lincoln Co. who will working on a sports complex that the Lord has blessed us with.  The complex is overgrown with vines and weeds.  Its in desperate need of the love and attention it will get from the Lincoln Co. group who will be preparing it for the presence of the children who we will get ministered to through this place.   This gets us to mid June with these 2 teams.  Then 3rd team of June is Harrodsburg Baptist coupled with Calvary Baptist in Danville.  July Brings another sports team called Sports Reach.  Sports Reach will be here with 135 people to serve!  Wow... isn't God good?!  Following Sports Reach, we are excited to have a first time team from One Community Church in Douglasville,  Georgia.  Then the perfect ending to our summer will be with none other than our home church, Southside Christian Church.

At the end of the summer, we will have had approximately 350 people on the ground in Puerto Rico serving in some capacity, be it church/community outreach or sports outreach.  Whew!! I told you God was good!!!  I'm also going to get the privilege and blessing of having a 2nd annual women's team here in October!!  Now that you have an idea of what 2014 is looking like for us, please be in prayer for these teams and  for Gods divine appointments.  Whatever we do, we NEVER want to miss a visitation from the Lord!   He's our focus and our goal.  If we're in line with Him, then we won't stumble or miss an opportunity to be Jesus to whomever He has placed in our path that day!

I'm sorry for such a lengthy blog.  My plan is to blog weekly to keep everyone up to speed on what's going on in PR.  I also plan to send out monthly emails so everyone who follows us, supports us, and prays for us will know whats going on and how God's moving here in PR.

1 Thessalonians 2:8

Blessings,

The Mayes Family

First Annual Ladies Mission Team 2013

"Let's do what we do best....Let's pray!"  This seem to be the theme of the week, prayer.  This group of ladies the Lord assembled together were armor bearers and prayer worriers!  Words cannot even begin to explain how much my Faith was increased this week through these ladies and through answered prayers.  We had front row seats to a God lead week of divine appointments and performance of miracles!  If anyone is doubtful that God still performs miracles today, then go talk to Farren Young and your mind will be changed.  If anyone is doubtful that God is still in the business of answering prayers, then talk to Dodi Wilson, Janet Neal, Kathy Gilvin, Debbie Kuhn, Sonya Selby, Karen Machal, Ashely Carter, Kat Carroll and Pat Mayes.

Our God is BIGGER that we could ever think or imagine!  He is waiting to shower us with blessing when we seek His Face and Pray expecting things to happen!  We were Blessed to be a part of things that God had specifically in store for us this past week.  We were able to experience God to the fullest because we removed ourselves and allowed God to be God.  We were obedient to the call to Go and Love the "undesirables" of this world, the homeless, the addicted, the alcoholics, and the prostitutes.  We met the devil face to face in some abandoned buildings used to house the homeless as well as used by the addicts to get their next drug fix.  We got the privilege to stand in these houses and pray to a God that's much much bigger than the problems there.

We were able to work at a place call Casa San Gabriel, that not only works to get the homeless off the streets, but also feeds anyone who needs a hot meal.  What an honor and privilege it was to meet these people, learn their stories and pray for them as the Lord opened doors.  We also served at a children's home called Regazo de Paz.  There we were able to help the staff and children by serving however they needed us to.  At the end of the week, the director of Regazo de Paz sent a text message to Chad telling him that what had been done at the Children's home was "truly and act of Love!"
 

Thank you Ladies for a wonderful week of "Loving God, Loving others and doing something!"

Love Does!!  Ps 34:17-18, James 1:22, Matt 25:40, Isaiah 58:6-12.

Blessings,

Chandi Mayes

Puente Missions, PR