This year’s International Leadership Conference in Los Angeles, California was not only a great time of worship, learning, planning but also an outstanding time of fellowship. I was blessed to be able to stay with our good friends Will and Lee Ann Neel in San Dimas. Will tried in two days to get my golf game up to speed, which proved itself an impossible task (even to him). . We did however have a great time with Troy Criss and Terry Folker from the Gainesville Christian Church (Terry and Steve Stephenson asked me to come into the ministry 16 years ago in Orlando).

We are very grateful to the many brothers and sisters in Los Angeles who through personal and congregational sacrifices made it possible for leaders from Guatemala, Honduras (San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa), El Salvador, Costa Rica and Belize to participate. For most of the leaders in Central America this was the first time that they had participated in the yearly leadership conference.

Once we got home we were ready for the home stretch of the year which included a blood drive, a marrieds retreat, a Teen camp and a Singles conference all on the same week! It was all made possible by our incredible team of ministry coordinators, most of whom hold secular jobs, who lead Guatemala’s 20 different ministries at a congregational or at a regional level. It is this leadership team that allowed the church in Guatemala to have 85 baptisms/restorations and grow for the first time in four years after laying off 70% of the church’s full time staff.

This year God gave us the opportunity to oversee Guatemala’s teen ministry. It was encouraging to see how disciple’s children were baptized (6 preteens became Christians in 2007) as well as siblings of disciples (4 more teen baptisms) and their friends from school (7 more baptisms) and last weekend a teen boy’s mother was restored. Wendy and I are grateful for how God moved in our region (South). In 2007 we saw 33 baptisms 6 restorations and our membership grew from 223 to 250. God also blessed us with the privilege of baptizing our son Steven and I was able to study the Bible and baptize Roberto Armas, who had been our neighbor for four years.

As Christians we all have been saved by a blood donor, Christ. For that very reason we encouraged the Guatemala Church to save lives by donating blood. 200 volunteers of Hope worldwide Guatemala faced the fear of needles, the fear of fainting and the social stigma associated with giving blood in order to have the most successful blood drive in the history of the Guatemalan Red Cross.

Marrieds Retreat “Moments of Intimacy”

We had a great time as we traveled six hours to Coban, Guatemala in a Yellow School Bus. It was a great weekend as we sang, ate, prayed and studied the word together.

We ended the year the best possible way receiving Mario and Isabel Coronado back into our congregation… as they were restored!!! To God be the glory!!!

ELLIS FAMILY UPDATE

As we finish out the year our future in Central America is uncertain. We have not attained the financial support necessary to continue serving here in Guatemala and we have started to entertain interviews with congregations in the States. Each week that we remain our financial situation becomes more critical.

Presently we are trying to sell our personal belongings to try to cover as much of these obligations as we can, but the two floods of raw sewage in our home have left us with little of value.If you would like to make a donation you can do that through www.paypal.com using the email williamrobertellis@centralamerica4him.org or you can contact me for details on how you can deposit directly into my Bank of America account.

Please pray for our future and that we might preach God’s word powerfully wherever we might be.

Until next month, God bless!

Bill

www.centralamerica4him.wordpress.com