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

GOD'S Protection

Previous blog: http://waterandlifeamazon.blogspot.com/

Blog anterior:  http://aguayvidaamazonas.blogspot.com/

Hello friends, we are so excited to share with you our new blog, here you will find many things like information about the ministry, what has happened with us in the last year, what is happening now and the plans to come. We want to keep you informed of the amazon project so you know how you can pray for us.

Some of you may not know that we are getting married in December. We are looking forward to seeing family and friends we have not seen in a long time. We hope to see you there.

In our next post we will bring more information about how we met, our life in college, and what more we plan for our future.
For now we want to share one story that just happened to us, it shows God's protection and provision over our lives.

Traveling home to Virginia from West Virginia for the weekend about 3.5 hours more to go, we were starting to come over some of WV's mountains and it was growing darker and the temperature was in the 30's, we were driving around a turn and got a flat tire. By God's grace we rolled into a church driveway. 

As you can see the car was loaded as well as the car trunk. So we had a fun time unloading all our belongings to find the spare tire underneath. 

Jonatan started to jack the car and when loosening the lug-nuts one got stripped. We didn't know at that moment but later when replacing the tire we realized the bolt was rusted and that caused the lug-nut to be to tight causing it to be stripped. 

As Jonatan was removing the lug-nuts a car pulled up to ask if we needed some help. A man came and looked at the tire and said he would go get a fix-a-flat can. When he returned and started using the can we noticed the tire had three big holes in the back, so there was no way for the tire to be fixed. 

Back to square one, we had trouble taking off the lug-nut so we were worried to make it worse and not be able to take it off. But we didn't have any other option. At that moment the man helping us said "Lord, we need you" and Natasha's eyes got widened. We were so thankful to know that God was watching and sent a fellow Christian to help us. At that moment we cried out the lug-nut loosened and came free, it was amazing.

We were able to finished changing that spare and return on our way.

In the process we found out this man and his wife attended the church we rolled up upon. It is something really simple but we were getting into the middle of the mountains and we just happened to be at the right place at the right time. The man said he was going to the store and saw us, so just imagine if he never went to the store at that particular time, all would have changed and we would not have had his help. That is how God's protection is for us when we honor him and call on his name. He is never late for anything.

Yes, tears were shed that night and we were so thankful to have met some fellow Christians. Today through this simple story we want to remind YOU and encourage YOU to keep trusting in God's and calling on his name. Nothing happens without reason. 

Previous blog: http://waterandlifeamazon.blogspot.com/

Blog anterior:  http://aguayvidaamazonas.blogspot.com/