What is "quiet"?

I was listening to Dr. David Jeremiah today and something touched me which is what I want to share with you today. Have you ever thought of this question?

What is quiet? 
Have you ever thought about that?... Do you like silence?
Silence is loud. Imagine when you are angry at your wife/husband. You come home and the house is "quiet" because you do not say a word to each other, you are mad. (I don't know anything about that :). Or you get into your car and you have quiet. So, what do you do? You turn on your radio to break the silence!
Everywhere we go there is music. Silence truly is a gift!

We NEED quiet time with Christ, that is when God talks to us. That is when God works in our life, he gives us guidance, he tells us well done, he tells us what to do next.

In Joshua chapter 6 is the account of the army against Jericho.
Everyday for six days the army had to be silent. Silence IS loud. and longer it goes the louder it is. Imagine an ARMY being silent marching around the city. God wanted people to understand and trust Him even when it did not make sense. Imagine being a soldier. You would think it was so strange, and even if you wanted to say something you could not because you HAD to be silent.

The Bible reminds us to "Be still and Know that I am God".
Being silent is one of the most hardest things to do.. Right?
We need to have silence for God to talk, to speak to us. We have to be silent to think and make rational decisions.

I challenge you today. Go to your room, your bathroom, your closet. Somewhere that no one will bother you and have silence before the Lord. Sometimes you do not even need to say anything. You just need to come to that place, God knows what you are doing. Just sit there and wait for God to speak to you. He knows your heart and he has amazing things to tell YOU!
God loves us and wants the best for us, we just need to show Him that we trust him and desire to spend time with Him.

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Jonatan and I, Natasha, want to thank you for taking the time to read our blog. We also wanted to share a photo collage with you; we had a great time this summer at the place we love. Our hearts are with the people in the Amazon and we were so thankful that we were able to go.

Amazon June 2014

Hi everyone, here is a small video of the latest events in our lives.

We have been enjoying so much the time in Colombia for a few weeks working in the ministry.
Here is a small video, thanks for your prayers. We still have a few more things to accomplish here in the Amazon before we return to the USA.
More pictures will be coming soon.

 

Setting Goals

Hi everyone, here we are again sharing what is going on in our lives.
From now on we will try to make videos instead of writing a long letter, I know this in more convenient for many of you and we also enjoy doing this.

We always appreciate your time to read and to watch our videos, we feel your prayers and your comments are a great encouragement to keep moving forward, may God bless you in everything. 

We are also very excited to be able to help and send our friend, Sandra Santiago, to help us in the work in the Amazon for a few weeks supporting the teams in different tasks.  Please pray for her as she shares the gospel in different villages and also for protection.

God calls us!

I was reading my devotions this morning from a book I received while I was volunteering with Samaritans Purse/Operation Christmas Child. I will be using many of my ideas from a chapter of this book- "All For Jesus," by Franklin Graham

God calls us! He wants us to have a life worthy to his call and we need to want to have a desire to serve him. Once we do His will is when we are truly happy. One thing I have been struggling personally with is that when God calls you he doesn't forget about you. He loves you and has a perfect plan for your life. As I was reading this chapter it was saying how when God calls us we have times of waiting. 

How many of you have a hard time waiting? Especially when you have to do things you really are not wanting to do in the meantime. 

Well, I feel this is what is happening in my life. I know God called me to missions work and it is hard to sit back and wait for the time to come when Jonatan and I can be full-time missionaries. So I was thinking God, why do we have to wait? In this time of confusion and complaining with God I was touched with something is book said.

In this time of waiting in our life we have to DELIGHT God. He wants us to know that we trust Him. It is so easy to complain and worry but God knows what he is doing.  

We always have to remember that God is teaching us. He wants to mold us into His image and he is putting us through trails to see how we react. Remember God is on our side and will help us go through all we have to go through in our life. JUST TRUST HIM.
And that is what we are doing in our lives. 

Many people may have questions about why we are not leaving now to go to the Amazon. God is molding us and using us now to accomplish things here in the US before we make our move. We hope it will not be much longer.

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We are happy to have had Gonzalo visit us this past week. During this time Jonatan and Gonzalo came together (with others) to form many documents for MiSion/Agua y Vida. We also sent in our application for the non-profit status. We are excited to start getting all organized and in place!

Are you trying to win the approval of men, or of God?

Natasha's Notebook:

I would like to share with you some thing that God has been speaking to me about.

"Am I not trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of God." Galatians 1:10

Jonatan and I have been going through many life changes and people ask us questions about what we are doing now in our life. We want to share with everyone the importance on waiting on God's guidance and His best. I have been wondering about what people are thinking and have started to worry about things too much. Our pastor is starting a Bible study on the book of Galatians on Wednesday's and as I was skimming through the chapter I noticed this verse and it struck me. 

Do we worry to much about what people think of us? Are we trying to get the approval of men though things we are doing, buying, wearing, watching, saying, etc? There are many reasons you could be trying to get approval from men...

God calls us to stand up for what we believe in and what God tells us. His promises are true. We have to trust Him and know that his goodness is in store for us when His timing comes.

I hope that you will pray with me as I go through this cycle in my life. Pray that God makes more promises to his servants, that God will help us not care of what people are saying about us and criticisms that occur in our lives by others, that we keep our focus on Him and what he has promised us.

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MORE NEWS

We started our ministry in Amherst.

We are thankful for the two sisters that have a heart for the ministry and whom are helping us start this work. They live in this trailer park and Jonatan and I are working as church planters in this area. We had our first meeting last Thursday. A man came from one of the adjacent trailers. He had so many questions. He grew up a Catholic in Mexico and doesn't fully understand what it means to be a Christian. We are happy to be able to help him and we hope he comes more.

Please pray for us as we continue this work. God is needed there and we want to be the light.

Another prayer request: Jonatan is speaking this Thursday to Liberty University students and faculty in the Global Health Department. They are interested in the Agua & Vida project. Pray that God will give the words for Jonatan to speak so more people will be interested in continuing the work in the Amazon.

Beginning of a new life

After two months we surely have a lot of things to share, we hope you are willing to spend a few minutes to read about these many adventures.

We have to start with big and good news, we are MARRIED and we have survived the fist month and a half :) it really feels longer, but don't take me wrong, we have that feeling because many things has happened since that day and we are definitely happy in our new life. 

We have to acknowledge the great effort of all those who made this possible. Natasha's family did a tremendous work preparing many things for this special moment, thanks Duane and Rachel Brown, it would have been impossible. As well as Natasha's church in WV, there is so many people who played a very important role for this occasion and we are so thankful for their support. 

We also want to thank Jonatan's family for making an effort coming from Colombia to celebrate with us, It would have not been the same without them. 

And all those who traveled far or near for coming and also the ones that did not come but sent cards, we are so thankful for you, your words of encouragement were well appreciated.

Now we are residing in Virginia and still making arrangements and preparing for when we move to live in Colombia to support the ministry as full time. Our hearts are in the mission field but we know that it takes a while to accomplish that dream. 
We have set goals and want to make sure we get all the training and connections before we depart. 

Natasha has completed her second month at work and she is doing well, getting adjusted to the change and even though this is not what she wants to be doing the rest of her life, it is helping us to prepare for the future. 

Jonatan is trying to study to take the airframe test for aviation maintenance, also waiting for the opportunity to go back to school to complete the studies in Powerplant. He only has three months left to finish. After this he hopes to do more flight training, and basically these are all the things that are holding us here in The States. 

We are also excited about the starting of a new bible study in a close by county which is a ministry from our church, helping a Hispanic community in this location. There is great need and we think God put us here with a special purpose to help them.

At the same time we are supporting the amazon ministry from here, coordinating and making more connections for the future, doors has been opening and we are very happy to see God working in each one of this projects. Currently we are praying and making plans for the beginning of Mission Aviation in Colombia, we know this is a big project and that it why we want to have good foundations for this. 

Thanks again for your time, your support, prayers and words or encouragement.

Getting married

Hi everyone, as we shared in our last post, we were going to share more about ourselves, the plans for the future and the things God is doing in our lives. Remember that the reason for this blog is that we can keep in touch with you, many are asking all the time and are praying, so here is the best way to know what is going on and this is how you can support us by praying for us. The other reason for this blog is to encourage family, friends and people who are walking and want to live a life devoted to the creator. God has great thing for each one, some decide merely to experience and others decide to share God's blessings. And as we encourage people, remembering that sometimes we need encouragement to keep moving forward, thanks.

So, here we are, GETTING MARRIED,  and very soon, after so many years in a relationship we feel ready for this big step, God has helped each one of us. He has given us the opportunity to share with many beautiful people, support different ministries and to get some training and preparation for the mission field. Now we are joining in strength to be able to be more effective and to support each other in the task he has delegated to us, to share the good news. We know this is going to take a lot of responsibility and a lot of faith and dedication, but we are definitely willing.

There are still some things we want to accomplish here in the United States before we return to live in Colombia, such things like: studying more, to make better connection with mission organizations, support to the local church in the U.S. where we are living, fundraising and the establishment of the mission organization here in the U.S. and also in Colombia.

Here there are some of the prayer requests and know that we will keep you updated with things that God is doing in our lives, thanks a lot for your prayers.

We feel so bless to have my parents from Colombia and my older brother just weeks before the wedding, we have had a extraordinary time together and I already think that we will miss them so much after they leave. Hopefully my younger brother and his wife will be here soon. We were able to visit some churches in Florida sharing more about the ministry and encouraging families to place importance in what God established from the beginning of the times to make him known everywhere, the Family.

To know more about our wedding please visit our website : http://www.theknot.com/wedding/Natasha-and-Jonatan

To know more about the ministry you can visit the blog for Water and Life :http://aguayvidaamazonas.blogspot.com/


And don't forget to watch the documentary that will be on CNN this coming December 15 at 8:00pm : http://youtu.be/TJtAaKTq3Pg