Update from Joseph

It has been a while, but I will do my best to keep this short and sweet! In September, just after our one year anniversary of living in Guatemala, we made our visa run to the States. The Lord blessed us with amazing opportunities to serve and minister the gospel along the way. It was a blessing to visit with our families, friends, and churches who are supporting this ministry in various ways - through loving, preaching, sharing the gospel and sharing in gospel conversations training.

If you are interested, here is a link to the sermon,, "Connecting with Your Purpose", I shared at Spring Valley Baptist Church in Columbia, SC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhyFWdWS7a0&authuser=0

And here is a link to the sermon, "Living with a Right Perspective", I shared at New Covenant Church in Myrtle Beach, SC: https://newcovenantmb.com/?download=%2F2018%2F09%2F2018-09-09-2-Corinthians-5-JS.mp3&nocache 

We are excited to share with you how 2018 will end for the Saleebys, Lord willing! 

1) This week, we have a couple from our neighborhood coming over Thursday night to begin discipleship/bible study in our home. This is a very exciting start to reaching our neighbors. PRAY: Please pray that we grow together in this fellowship.

2) This Saturday, we have a full day gospel conversation training in San Cristobal. Four churches from San Cristobal will have leaders there and Engadi Ministries will have 4 representatives there. This will be the beginning of our working toward a church plant in Zone 18 with Engadi Ministries (www.engadiministries.org). This is going to be a very exciting weekend! PRAY: Please pray for Pastor Julio Arenales and the leaders of Casa Jehovah Dios, where we will give this training. Please ask the Lord to put His passion in their hearts and desire for reaching their loved ones, neighbors and co-workers. 

3) October 22-November 9, I have the great opportunity and pleasure of working with a YWAM (Youth with a Mission) team from the States over these 3 weeks as they work in Nimajuyu (Zone 21). I will not have full-time involvement, but I will have several opportunities for training in gospel conversations. PRAY: Please pray for fruit in the harvest time and for the Lord to guide our steps during these weeks. 

4) In November we have two awesome opportunities to serve: 

• November 10-17, we will have VBS in our church, Vida Nueva Guatemala.  During the same week, we will have the Good News In Action team here for the evangelism campaigns throughout the city. PRAY: Please pray that we see fruit in the harvest (people truly surrendered to follow Jesus) and that we, the church, handle the responsibility of follow-up with discipleship well. Pray: Please pray for strength and wisdom for Pastor Nelson, Pastor Javier, and their families as they lead Vida Nueva Guatemala. 

• November 18-24, I will have the opportunity to shadow Nathan Hardeman, founder of Engadi Ministries, as he hosts a team from the States in their continued work in Zone 18 of Guatemala City. This will help me learn from a veteran in handling large groups as well as help me to become familiar with the area. Nathan and his team believe the Lord has called them to plant a church. We have the privilege of assisting and training their existing employees, starting this weekend. They have been working in this same area for 20 years. PRAY: Please pray for me to learn as we prepare for many of you to join us on future trips. Also, please pray for the Lord to guide our steps in reaching this area further with the gospel. 

5) December... I am working with Adrian Hernandez, the founding pastor of two churches. One in Santiago and another in Xenacoj ("Chin-a-co"). Both are located near to our home and outside the city in the department of Sacatepéquez. We are praying together and discussing the best approach for implementing the gospel conversation tools and training in these two little towns. We are hopeful that this will happen in early December. PRAY: For these two very precious congregations, that the Lord will put His compassion and desire to grow His Kingdom in the hearts of their loved ones, neighbors and co-workers. Please pray for pastor Josh Hill and Adrian Hernandez and their families. 

6) May 04-11, 2019 We are planning to work with God In the Streets (gits) and Engadi Ministries to do street ministry work in Zone 21 Nimajuyu and Zone 18 in Guatemala City. We will have local teams ready for follow up and discipleship. These teams have developed from the trainings done in and around Guatemala City. God In the Streets is a collaboration ministry of Latin American gospel hip-hop artists who will travel from Venezuela, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Houston (TX), etc. PRAY: Please pray for all the artists who will sacrifice their own time and money to join us in ministry here in Guatemala. Please pray for fruit and for workers to rise up for the harvest and be ready to disciple new believers. 

We want you to know that we sincerely appreciate all who are sacrificing and giving to keep us active in the ministry. We ask that you do something for us to continue in the ministry. Share this blog with others so they can know what God is doing here. Share it with your friends and pastors.  Ask them to consider joining us in financial support. We are sincerely committed to doing the work of ministry and we are independent of organizational support. We count on you as individuals to consider giving above and beyond your normal organizational or cooperative giving. If you are currently supporting us and you have committed to two years but you plan to continue please let us know so we can plan well. If you need to discontinue or decrease support, please let us know. We are into our second year of service and believe the Lord would have us stay indefinitely. We are committed to stay and work as hard as we can for as long as we can while we have funding. The forms and information for giving are on the right hand side of your screen (desktop view). 

Again, Thank you very much for your willingness to support us as you do. We love and appreciate all of you and we ask the Lord to bless you with joy as you seek to grow the Kingdom of God in the hearts of those you know and love.

Seeing God at Work

It has been way too long since we last posted an update. Life has been full and busy, and we praise the Lord that we are witnessing Him doing a work that is so much bigger than us!  We are seeing people choosing to follow Jesus.  We are seeing people become passionate about their calling as ambassadors who carry the message of reconciliation to those around them.  We are seeing leaders and pastors who are eager to train and equip those under their care.  We are seeing young men eager to be a part of training and encouraging others.  We praise God for allowing us to witness and be a part of the miraculous ways He is moving here!  If you would like to partner with us financially, please see the info on the right side of our blog page (you won't see this if you are looking at the mobile site).  Also, if you would like to be included in the group that receives real-time updates/prayer requests, see info at the end of this blog post.  Here are some of the things we’ve been up to…

Since the process to get a permanent visa here in Guatemala is long, complicated, expensive and not really necessary, we are living here with only our tourism visa.  This means we have to leave the country for a few days every 6 months in order to renew it.  So, in February our 6 months was up and we visited the States.  We thoroughly enjoyed the time we were able to spend with friends and family.  We also had some great opportunities to share what the Lord has been teaching us and how He is moving in the hearts of the people here in Guatemala. 

We returned home to Guatemala and received some special guests… the pastor of our home church (Faith Baptist in Youngsville, NC) and his wife, Steven and Jenny Wade. It was a treat to spend time with them and to share our new surroundings with them. After their visit, Christy and the girls began their final 15 week stretch of their homeschool year. We also spent the rest of March moving into a different condo in our same neighborhood.  We had been living in the home of some missionary friends of ours that have been in the States for the past year, but plan to return soon.  Joseph, with the help of several brothers in Christ here, worked hard making repairs and getting the new home ready for us.  Praise the Lord for all who are giving so that we can afford a safe and secure home with beds and enough space for all to feel at home. 

The Lord’s timing amazes us.  As soon as we finished getting settled into our new home, new opportunities for ministry opened before us. After being away, having guests and getting moved, I (Joseph) thought the things in ministry where suffering. I was worried that we may have setbacks in the work but the Lord’s timing is always best. With my horizontal view I saw no work being done, but God was working here even still. People we trained prior to this long stint had been practicing and have seen fruit. They have also been speaking with other churches who have heard of the work and are eager to have us come and train. For months, we have been praying for opportunities to train in more places more often and for more trainers to rise up and begin to practice and train. Just a few weeks ago we heard from a pastor in Zacapa, Guatemala (La Majada) who was looking for someone in the NoPlaceLeft/NingunLugarSinAlcanzar network to help him with gospel conversations and discipleship training. I am overwhelmed and excited to tell you that God has provided faithful men who want to join in the work of making disciples and training them to make disciples who will entrust the ministry to other faithful men as well (2Tim 2:2). Right now, we have at least three months of trainings from these organic contacts.

Prayer Requests:

• Rising Leaders: We are seeing the Lord develop leaders in Guatemala City, Nimajuyu, and Zacapa (La Majada and Llano De Piedras). The Lord is working, and the enemy is attacking.

• Luke 10:2. Please pray for more workers in the harvest. We need more trainers to rise up from the harvest and begin to disciple others who will become trainers.

• Effective communication in trainings scheduled for the next few months in Zacapa/Rio Hondo, Villa Nueva (South of the City) and Nimajuyu (where local pastors will receive training).

• Wisdom to know and see where the Lord is working vs. working where we think we should because it is more convenient or comfortable.

• For continued strength to persevere in learning Spanish, homeschool and ministry.

• Continued financial support so we can stay here and witness the Lord’s work. We need more faithful monthly partners to continue the work.

I (Joseph) often send real-time updates and prayer requests to a group chat using the WhatsApp messenger app.  If you get WhatsApp and would like to be added to this group, send me a message at +502 4803-5579 or email me at jdsaleeby@gmail.com.  

This entire family repented and believed in Jesus! Please pray that we will be able to meet with the father (who was not there that day) and be able to share with him as well.

Jhonnatan is a young man from Nimajuyu who is passionate about making disciples and learning to train others.  Pastor Pedro and Jose are church leaders in Zacapa that have opened their home to us and worked with us to train the local congregations.

This 15 year old named Diego realized his need to repent and believe in Jesus during our training at a local school in Zacapa.  Praise the Lord for opening His eyes to the light of Christ!  Pray that he grows in his understanding of the Gospel and what it means to follow Jesus.

Church training in Zacapa (La Majada)

Stephen Frein helping to train.  These are leaders from La Majada that want to plant a church

Another training.  This church is in Llano de Piedras, Zacapa. We had a pig wander in during one of the trainings here!

Two young men in Nimajuyu that are eager to make disciples.  We will be working together a lot in the next month.

Training at a school in Zacapa.

The vision is to seek houses of peace or churches that would like to practice the tools of evangelism for strengthening an existing church or planting a new church.  Please join us in praying for connections in these locations.