Big news!!!

We are excited to share that we have a contract on our house and should close by the end of May. This is a huge weight lifted from our shoulders, knowing that we could not move to Guatemala until our house has sold. We love seeing how God works things out… The family buying our house is a single mom with two daughters and one of her daughters was adopted from Guatemala.

We want to let everyone know that the address for Catalyst is changing. The new address is:

Catalyst Resources International
P.O. Box 1594
Lake Wales, FL 33859

If you have sent a support check to the other address, it will be forwarded to the new address. We just want to make everyone aware of the new address. Remember to write “Wheeler Family” in the memo of your check.

At this point, we have raised approximately 30% of our financial support. We hope to hear good news very soon about financial support from several churches that we have been meeting with. We are praying that since we have a contract on our house that the remaining funds will come in quickly.

We are so thankful for all of you who are generously supporting our work in Guatemala through your prayers and financial support. We do not take this responsibility lightly. We are excited about how we will be working together to share God’s love with the people of Guatemala.

As we write this, we do not have an exact moving date. While we know that we might need to step out in faith and move before we have raised 100% of our funds, we are also wanting to make wise decisions for our family. If you are planning to partner with us through monthly financial support but have not yet started sending in your contributions, could you help us plan by filling in the response card below and sending it to the Catalyst address? We realize that many people might want to help as soon as we move, and it would be a huge help if you could send your response card in soon. Please know that even if you feel like the amount you are able to give is small, it will be a huge blessing to our family and to the people we will be working with.


Response card (Just copy and paste to a Word document and print.)
Yes! I will partner with the Wheeler family through monthly financial support and prayer.

Mail support to:
Catalyst Resources International
P.O. Box 1594
Lake Wales, FL 33859
Memo: The Wheeler Family

_____ $25 per month Name: _____________________
_____ $50 per month e-mail address: ________________
_____ Other home church: _________________

Encouraging verse for us this month:
“Dear children, let us stop just saying we love each other; let us really show it by our actions. It is by our actions that we know we are living in the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before the Lord.”
1 John 3:18-19

Thank you, Calvary Christian & Williamstown Christian!

This past Sunday we visited Calvary Christian Church in Winchester, Kentucky. Robby and I met with their missions committee a few months ago and were thrilled to hear that they wanted to partner with us through on-going monthly support and possibly send teams to work with us in the future. They welcomed us like family and it was great to meet more of their congregation. We were able to share our story and more about the work that we will be doing in Guatemala with a Sunday School class as well as a group of their elders and members of the missions committee. Their pastor, Brian, introduced our family (Leah really wanted to dance on the stage!) to the congregration during both services and prayed for us as we continue on this journey. It was such an encouraging time for us, so thank you Calvary Christian for making us feel so at home with you!

We also heard great news from the missions committee at Williamstown Christian Church. They have committed to helping us with some of our start-up expenses, which will allow us to purchase a laptop to take to Guatemala. Their support will also cover language classes once we get to Guatemala. We loved meeting with their missions committee and look forward to sharing with the entire congregation very soon!

A few steps back...

This week we feel as though we have taken a few steps back. Before the snow hit, we were excited about meeting with several of the leaders from church and sharing our story. We have been meeting with leaders on staff for quite some time, but this meeting was hopefully going to get everyone who will be making the decision of how our home church will be supporting us together in one room. The snow delayed that meeting and this week we found out that the leaders are not ready to meet with us. Instead they will be meeting and working on long-range mission plans and *hopefully* will know something in two weeks.

Although this news from our church has been very disappointing, we are continuing to talk with other churches about partnering with us. We are confident that God has called us to serve Him in Guatemala and are trusting that He will make a way for us to do that. Will you continue to pray for us as we work to raise our financial support?

A team from Kentucky just returned home from Guatemala and I am sharing one of their pictures below. The girl on the far right is Herminia -- she is living at Mimi's House as a house parent. We are so thankful for her and for all the love and attention she is giving the girls right now. Please pray for Herminia as she works very long days -- taking the girls to school, helping them with their homework, preparing meals, cleaning the house, washing the never-ending loads of laundry, and leading the girls in daily devotionals.

Snow Delay...

Because of the snow, we were unable to have the meeting with our church leaders today. Our serve pastor said that he will call us tomorrow to set up an exact meeting time, hopefully either Thursday or Friday.

We did get some good news today -- Calvary Christian Church in Winchester, Kentucky has committed to monthly financial support bringing our support percentage to 19%. We will be visiting Calvary again soon for a commissioning service and we are anxious to meet more of their congregation. Thank you, Calvary Christian!

We are also continuing to meet with small groups and individuals who are interested in partnering with us in some way. Last week I shared with a group of moms who meet at Crestwood Baptist Church. Thank you girls for letting me share with you!

This weekend we will be meeting with three more small groups. You know I always get nervous right before we share with a group. It is still a difficult thing having to rely entirely on God though the generosity of others to provide the support for our work in Guatemala. But I can think of five good reasons to keep going...

Julissa

Paola

Evelia

Lesly

Lupita

Thank you for keeping us in your prayers! We will update as soon as we have more news!

Please Pray!!!

Leaders at our home church will be meeting to discuss how our church will be able to support our work in Guatemala this coming Tuesday. Today we were told that up until this past Tuesday they didn’t think they would be able to support us at all due to the costs of the church’s new building fund. Something happened on Tuesday that made the leadership reconsider. Thinking back, I realized that this past Tuesday was the morning that my Bible study leader had called to check in with me. I shared with her that we had expected to hear how our home church would be able to support us by the end of November and we still haven’t gotten an answer, so she prayed very specifically with me over the phone that God would work to release the funds that we need.

God has shown us in amazing ways how powerful prayer can be. Remember how He answered our prayer of being able to be with Cohen in Guatemala until his adoption was complete?

Will you join us in praying very specifically these next six days?

•We are praying that God would soften the hearts of those at our church who are making these decisions.

•We are praying that they will either “find” money from other areas of the budget or that they will step out in faith and trust that God will bless our church through their giving to missions.

•We are praying that God will use this situation to bring glory to Him remembering Ephesians 3:19-21:
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

Thank you in advance for your prayers and support! We will keep you posted on any news when we receive it!

Our five girls...

Just wanted to share a picture of the five girls that are currently living at Mimi's House. From the top, there is Evelia, Julissa, Lupita, Lesly, and Paola. They range in age from eleven to seventeen. Now if you had asked me years ago if I would like to live with a house full of teenage girls, I would have thought you were crazy! But realizing how each girl's life will be dramatically changed by living at Mimi's House is such an exciting thought for me!

Fontaine recently e-mailed me pictures of each of the girls individually along with a brief bio on each girl. I just keep thinking about one of the stories in particular... One of the girls was living in complete poverty, but had a relative in the city. Her mother sent her to live with this relative so that she could go to school and have a better future. Instead of sending her to school, this relative used the little girl as a servant.

Each of our girls are coming from some type of difficult background. And although their stories up to this point may seem unimaginable to us, the girls are filled with hope! It is exciting for me to think about how we can help the girls coming to Mimi's House, but I already have a feeling they will be teaching us just as much as we will be teaching them.

We have shared with some of you one way we are building our prayer and financial support. We have a calendar with thirty-one days on it. If you select the 15th day, you will pray for us on the 15th of each month as we pray for you that day. You will also support our work by sending in $15 per month. If you choose the 20th, you would support us at $20 per month. By filling up our calendar, we will have at least one person praying for our family each day as well as almost $500 per month in financial support. If you would like more information or would like to sign up for a day, just email us or leave us a comment. Support can be sent to Catalyst Resources International -- the address and information is on the right side of our blog. Just remember to put "Wheeler Family" in the memo of your check.

Update on our move...

We are still anxious to get to Guatemala and meet the girls at Mimi's House! In the picture above are Julissa, Lupita, and Paola. There are actually five girls living at Mimi's House now, but we don't have pictures of the two newest girls yet.

Robby and I have been staying busy these past few weeks. We continue to meet with churches and mission ministers, but are now starting to meet with small groups and individuals. Our main focus right now is getting financial support that will allow us to live and work in Guatemala. Equally important to us is getting prayer support -- knowing that this move will be an exciting yet stressful time for our family.

We also finished a week of training with Team Expansion, which is another agency that sends missionaries all over the world. We appreciated them allowing us to come to their training even though we will be working through a different agency and felt like the information we gained there was extremely beneficial.

We know that our move will take place in God's timing and not necessarily ours and that His timing is always perfect. I plan to do better at posting updates on our blog, so check back soon for more news!