The Peals

Our first home assignment update was sent out today & should be in your inbox! 📨

Hard to believe we are already one month into this new season as a family. Thank you for your prayers, support and encouragement as we continue our journey! 🤍 🌎

We have been doing a lot of bike riding as a family in this new season.

It’s a new found hobby that we are loving as we adventure through new places together.

It feels like such a gift to have found something like this to do as a family!

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Last night after dinner, we rode some trails from Grand Canyon National Park into town for some ice cream.

On the way back, it was dark and difficult to see.

The lights on the front of our bikes would only light up just enough for us to see directly in front of us.

Josie even wiped out in a curve on a pile of pine straw that she saw once it was too late!

After tears and hugs, she jumped back on the bike to press on.

We kept encouraging each other as we made our way back to our camp site.

As I rode behind her and took this blurry photo, the Lord reminded me of Psalm 119:105.

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path”.

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Today marks one month since we have been on home assignment as a family.

We can only see so much of the path ahead for us as a family.

We don’t have all the answers.

We don’t have plans.

We don’t have direction.

We just wake up every morning as a family and commit the day to Him - knowing that we will never regret these days of reconnecting and resting together.

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It’s scary. Just like the bike path last night.

And the truth is, we are going to wipe out like Josie did at some point along the way.

We will have days when we have to encourage each other and get back up after falling down.

Even knowing that & living right now in uncertainty, I woke up this morning with fresh confidence and hope that His word is lighting our path.

He is directing our way.

He is worthy of our trust.

And so we will continue this journey ahead together! 🏔️ 🚲 🤍-LP

As you may have seen in our last newsletter, we announced a new season for our family.

Thank you for continuing your prayers for our family and for the Lord’s work on the island. 🤍

Huge praise! We have received 12 Spanish Bibles, 11 English Bibles & 1 bilingual Bible! 🤍

Please join us … Buy a Bible & change a life!

https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/3180MVM07J8K3?ref_=wl_share

Our students at REVIVE are digging into the Word as they seek answers to tough questions in our new series "Reasons to Believe".

These Bibles will make it possible for each student to begin seeking the Lord on their own!

We have students that speak only English, only Spanish, and many who are bilingual. We have links for all three options on our Bible wish list!

We would so greatly appreciate your support in getting a copy of God's Word into the hands of every student at YFC PR!

Please share this with your small group, your church family, or anyone else that may want to help make this happen!

https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/3180MVM07J8K3?ref_=wl_share

Big day here on the island … Josie is officially old enough to attend our Wednesday night YFC group on the Coast Guard base since she turned 11 last week! 🤍

I told her I wanted to take a picture for her first official night at youth & she said, “Mama, I’ve been going to youth group my whole entire life”.

She’s not wrong. 😂

Believing that this new chapter will be life giving for her! ✨

Excited to share our January update later today!

2024 is off to an exciting start for us as a family and in the ministry.

We’d love to add you to our mailing list if you’re not receiving our monthly updates! Send us a message if you’d like to be added to our list. 🇵🇷

‼️🚨 DID YOU HEAR THAT? 🚨‼️

It was the sound of us rejoicing that the LAST building on the YFCPR property is now officially wired!

💥 💡 EVERY. LIGHT. IS. ON! 💡 💥

The Lord sent an amazing young man down from South Dakota who is a skilled electrician. He finished wiring our afterschool center & knocked out the two story dorm building, too!

We first met Evan in 2016 when he was just 17 years old on a mission trip in Honduras. This was his first time coming to Puerto Rico with a team. It’s been a joy to celebrate the man that he has become and see how the Lord has been pursuing him despite some struggles along the way.

God has been so faithful and we praise Him for sending Evan to Puerto Rico this week!

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What started in June of 2020 is winding down in the final phase of breathing life back into the dry bones of this place!

If you’d like to be a part of the final push to see the YFCPR property fully functional, contact us by sending an e-mail to [email protected].

We have teams coming every month between now and September from 10 different states!

We’d love to have you plan a trip or join a team to be a part of what is happening in Puerto Rico in 2024.

Can’t wait to see this building used as dorm space for mission teams and retreats on the island! 🇵🇷

Three baptisms in the last 8 days.

A stranger turned family.
A teenager here on a mission trip.
A student that we have walked side by side with for 5 years.

The Lord is on the move in hearts all around us.

It is only January 22 & we are already in awe of what is happening on the island.

Thank you for your faithful prayers and support that continue to make it possible for us to live out the call on our lives.

May we never lose the wonder! 🤍

What happens in these circles has eternal impact.

The work that happens in hearts on this property FAR outweighs any work we could do with our hands.

Thank you, Lord. 🤍

And they have defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by their testimony.
Revelation 12:11

🚨 We already have 12 teams on our 2024 calendar‼️

If you have not yet signed up for a mission trip, now is the time. Our calendar is filling up quickly!

If you’d like details on planning a mission trip, please contact us at [email protected]

We’d love to serve on mission with you this year!

https://www.youthforchristpr.org/missionteams

As we wind down the final hours of 2023, we want to thank our ministry partners for another amazing year!

Youth for Christ Puerto Rico grew in ways that we could have never imagined. We celebrate all of the milestones of the year & look ahead to 2024 with so much excitement. Greater things are yet to come! 🇵🇷

Thank you for your prayers, encouragement and support that continue to make it possible for us to serve on the island.

If you’re considering a end of year donation this evening, we’d be so honored if you would partner with us to see the next generation come alive in the name of Jesus!

Happy New Year! 🎉

https://yfcpr.givingfuel.com/yfcpr

Our final update of 2023 is in your inbox today! ♥️

Thank you to each person who has prayed for our family & supported us on mission on the island! We are so thankful for all that the Lord has done for us. Looking forward to 2024! 🎉

♥️🎄🤍¡Feliz Navidad! 🤍🎄♥️

YFCPR’s 3rd annual Reindeer Games was EPIC!

Every year before the night is over, we already start making plans and dreaming dreams for the next year. It is our favorite day of ministry of the entire year! 🎄❤️

Thankful for an incredible team that made all of this come to life for our students! 🇵🇷 No better way to wrap up 2023 than sharing about the GREATEST gift & seeing students respond!

Thank you to every ministry partner who has partnered with us to make nights like this one possible! ⭐️

Hard to believe this is our second to last update of 2023 … time is flying!

Check your inbox tomorrow at 10am EST for the latest Peek at the Peals! 🇵🇷

Today is Giving Tuesday! 🫶🏼

We continue to give thanks for all the Lord has done even after celebrating Thanksgiving last week!

Because of the generosity of so many of you, we are able to continue His work on the island as a family. That is something that we do not take for granted!

Today, as you pause and consider where to give, we thank you in advance for considering Youth For Christ Puerto Rico! 🇵🇷

https://yfcpr.givingfuel.com/yfcpr

Our most exciting newsletter of 2023 … keep an eye out for our update this week so that you can read all about our experience at General Assembly in The Netherlands!

If you’d like to receive our monthly newsletter, send us a message with your e-mail address! 🫶🏼

So thankful for this experience and can’t wait to share with you all of the ways that the Lord was at work in and around us! 🤍

Many of you have asked us how General Assembly was for us in The Netherlands.

After 7 years of serving with YFC, we were able to attend our first global conference & reconnect with so many dear brothers and sisters from across the world.

I have spent the last 10 days trying to summarize our experience & my words keep falling short. It truly was a glimpse of heaven on earth.

One of our YFCPR young leaders wrote this testimony of his time at the conference.

It is a peek at what we all experienced as we gathered with close to 100 nations and nearly 1000 staff, volunteers, & young leaders to declare the praises of our King.

We are forever marked by our time there together.

Lord- Thank you for your faithfulness & provision. You’re worthy of it all. 🤍

General Assembly Young Leader Testimony: Luis – YFCI When I arrived at the 2023 General Assembly, I felt burdened and weighed down. I had come to a realization as we were waiting for our team’s flight to the Netherlands that I had lost sight of the calling God had placed in my heart to serve in Youth For Christ Puerto Rico—to bring the Good News o...

It’s that time again! 🚨

Our September newsletter will be in your inbox tomorrow … with a PEEK at the latest progress on the property! 🇵🇷💪🏽

Thank you so much for your continued support!

If you’d like to be added to our mailing list, just shoot us a message with your e-mail address!

We had a great time today serving with some of our YFCPR fam at Fundación HOPE’s 5K in Arecibo!

Such a joy to partner together to serve … even in the rain!

Our partnerships on the island are a gift from the Lord. Together - we can do MORE!🇵🇷

I remember standing in this barren and broken down room on October 21, 2020.

It was the day that we had finally closed on the YFCPR property.

We just so happened to have a worship night planned on-site for that evening.

We got a call that morning, jumped in the car, & drove 2 hours to close the deal.

Little did we know when we planned that worship night that we would be celebrating His faithfulness over the whole process as we gathered together with prayer warriors who had prayed us through step by step!

We had been waiting for over 4 months to close after raising the funds for a cash purchase. That night was the perfect way to end the long wait!

The world was in chaos and crisis yet the Lord had proven Himself to be bigger than our circumstances once again.

And even after He provided, people called us crazy.

Others said it was impossible to bring this place back from the ruins.

We had so many negative comments encouraging us to throw in the towel & be “realistic”.

Yet, we stood in expectant faith together with the same vision.

We knew what the Lord had shown us.

We could see this space filled with life and had complete confidence that the Lord had invited us to be a part of something incredible.

It seemed crazy. But we knew that with crazy faith, it would happen. So, we took it one day at a time.

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Last night, as I stood in the same room, I saw people from ages 2 to 72 running around filled with joy and laughter.

A room that was once left as ruins now being used to share the truth of the Word and bring people together from all different backgrounds!

Every single Thursday night it is like seeing the vision that He gave us when we first found this property come to life.

Not only has the property become a safe haven for youth on the island but countless others have been touched and transformed by their experiences serving on mission with us here.

Just this week, we had a man on a mission team moved by the devotional time and make the decision to be baptized!

There’s just something about this property.

The Lord is in this place.

We are eternally grateful that we have been given this assignment and have been on the front row of such an amazing story.

The days have been so long and so hard.

But the fruit is worth every battle.

Nights like last night feel like a dream & remind us that we are living out our vision in abundance!

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We sang a song that night in October 2020 that proclaimed the nature of our Father.

And now, three years later, we find ourselves standing on those promises in what was once considered a wasteland that His love has made whole again!

“You bring life to the barren places
Light to the darkest spaces
God, it's Your nature.

You bring joy to the broken hearted
Hope to the ones who've lost it
God, it's Your nature.

There is no desert that Your streams can't run to
There are no ruins that Your love won't make new
You tell the wasteland that it will bloom again
'Cause it's Your nature

You will restore the years that shame has stolen
You keep the promises that You have spoken
I know this wasteland will be whole again
'Cause it's Your nature”

Thank you for every one of your prayers & donations that have made this transformation possible.

YFC PR is just getting started! 💪🏽🇵🇷

One month from today, Lord willing, we will be gathering with hundreds of other YFC missionaries, staff members, and volunteers in The Netherlands for our first General Assembly!

This is not only our first time attending General Assembly as missionaries but also the first time that YFC Puerto Rico will be represented at a General Assembly conference in the history of the organization!

We are still a few hundred dollars short of reaching our "match goal" which will help cover all of our expenses.

Would you please pray today and consider partnering with us? You can give a tax deductible gift at our secure giving site:
https://yfcpr.givingfuel.com/yfcpr

Here is a link for more information about the conference!
https://generalassembly.yfci.org

Thank you so much for partnering with us to continue our journey with YFC! 🇵🇷

Our August newsletter will be in your inbox tomorrow morning!

Don't miss the latest Peek at the Peals! 🇵🇷

Tomorrow, we will be sending out an e-mail to all of our former mission team leaders & anyone who has shown interest in leading a 2024 mission trip to Puerto Rico!

This e-mail will explain the SHIFT that is happening in our approach to ministry on the island with our 2024 teams!

We will be officially opening up registration for 2024 mission trips with this e-mail as well.

So, if you want to lock in your dates for 2024, this is the update that you’ve been waiting to receive!

If you would like to be added to this mailing list, contact us today so that you don’t miss out on this exciting announcement! 🇵🇷

Our latest Peek at the Peals monthly update will be in your inbox tomorrow morning!

Excited to share with you all about the month of July & how the Lord was at work on the island!🇵🇷

It's been a big week for the Peals! Our sweet little guy started school & our precious girl spent a week with her Grammy & Papa in Virginia. We are so ready for her to be back - especially her Bubby!

We are so thankful for both of these gifts from the Lord. Making the most of this season with both of them as we intentionally invest into them as our first & most important ministry!

Thank you for your continued prayers for our family & the work that the Lord is doing in Puerto Rico. Excited about entering into a new school year of ministry with YFC PR students, leaders & staff!