May 1, 2012
Greetings in the Name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! I hope this newsletter finds you well and faithfully engaged in the work of the Lord.
It is hard to believe that April has already passed us by. I am enjoying not traveling quite so much, although I have still made three trips to Latin America already this year. Nevertheless, it’s less than last year.
I was very honored to have been asked to preach a Gospel Meeting at the Calera church of Christ in Calera, Oklahoma April 15-18. It was a great blessing for me and, I hope, for the good brethren of that congregation, as well. The next week I made a very short trip to Honduras (April 23-25). I had not visited the school in Danlí since December and there were some issues that had come up that I needed to address in person, so I made that short trip. As for those issues, three of the nine students have withdrawn from the institute, each with their own reasons. While I am sorry that things developed the way they did, I think the remaining six students are in a better position to be successful in their studies. I wish the best for all nine men and pray God’s blessings on the work the six remaining students are doing.
I am very pleased to announce that the good brethren of the Sacramento Ave. church of Christ in Asunción Paraguay have decided to move forward with a school of preaching, beginning classes in March 2013. We are so very happy to work with this great congregation in training preachers in that part of the world. There will be more on this in future reports.
Upon returning from that trip, Noma and I made a quick trip to Denver continuing our search for a place to live. We believe we have found a place and I’ll give more details on that in the next newsletter. Let me say for now that we are planning, if the Lord wills, to move somewhere around June 1, so that gives us another month here. The following is an excerpt from our last newsletter concerning our move.
“As you may or may not know, the cost of living in Denver is higher than in central Oklahoma. Since we have not had full support since our move here, we are in need of raising more in making this move. Also, Noma has expressed a desire to become more involved in the work by traveling with me when possible and teaching ladies’ classes on the field, taking advantage of her language skills, as well. This will mean raising more support since she would not be able to work outside the home as she has done in the past.
Presently, the amount we are lacking to put us at full support to cover all of this is approximately $1,900.00/month. If you can help with any part of this, please contact me or our sponsoring congregation. The contact information is given below.”
God bless!!
Donnie Bates
Contact Information:
2013 Rushing Meadows
Edmond, OK 73013
(580) 326-1914
Email: dnbates1@gmail.com
Sponsoring congregation:
4th & Jackson church of Christ
P.O. Drawer 549
Hugo, OK 74743
(580) 326-3457