Hello all!
in case you didn't already guess it, we have been in Italy one year now (well...almost, July 17 to be exact) and it has both flown by and felt like we've been here forever at the same time. So much has happened in this past year that Paul and I have been reflecting on and just have been amazed how much different it has been than we thought. In fact, as I sit here writing this with Violet down by my feet and Paul across the table working on care insurance, the doorbell rang and what would you know, Violets report of a birth abroad and her passport have arrived!....every bit of that sentence is something I didn't expect to be saying one year ago.
We're so thankful that the church we joined this time last year has been one that is honestly just such a joy to serve and comforting to be around. I would say we've had our ups and downs (because that's what you say when you're serving right?) but I have to be honest...it's been a lot of ups and very few downs (I honestly am having to sit here thinking hard to think of a down aside from the basic culture differences and the occasional homesickness). The Lord has been so good to us and has provided everything we need before we even knew it, He truly has gone before us everywhere He has called us. Which continues to be our prayer for the next year & and we're so excited to see where we will be then!
The last month and a half since the last update has been so wonderfully busy, and also very tiring lol. We had a team from Reno NV out here to help with VBS and pretty much everyone who came in contact with them was blessed beyond measure, including Paul, Violet and I. Together, the CC Feltre and the team put together an amazing VBS and English night, both with the more amount of people attending than times before! July is also set to be the last busy month before August which, as those of you who remember our updates from last year might know, is a very dead month because it's basically the "vacation month" for all of Italy. Which will be a nice little month of rest before we then jump into the Holidays! This month my mom is coming out for almost 2 weeks which we are beyond excited about for the fellowship and the help, and because of this there are a few weekly events that he doesn't usually attend because he's kind enough to not leave me alone with Violet for 14 hours most days! But with my moms help he will be attending a new church gathering that our church has been helping with up in the mountains and a few other things!
Anyways! I know this is a long update and if you've made it this far, we appreciate you! Below I'll go ahead and share our praise reports, prayer requests, and ways that you can support us financially:
Praise:
-Violet is officially a U.S. citizen and has her passport!
-That my mom is able to come out to help us
-VBS was a huge success in that so many kids were open to The Lord and his working, and got to hear the gospel.
-English night is bringing a lot of opportunities where people want to talk about the gospel.
Prayers:
-For the growing group of Christians up in the mountains
-A few kids from VBS come from rough homes, so we would love to keep them in our prayers and that the Lord would just grow any seeds that might have been planted during VBS week.
-We still have to get our car insurance which is a doozy financially and until we do we can't drive. So just that we can have wisdom in the best route to take.
-We would love to come home and visit at the end of summer, but again, want to use wisdom in all that we do.
-Eventually, we would love to move to a larger home/apartment so we can grow our family, host friends/family/visiting missionaries and friends from the church more often. There may be an opportunity for this in the next year or so, so just that if God see's fit that He would open that door.
Dear Friends,
Thank you for your prayers. It has been a month to be remembered, with many blessings and challenges.
Last Sunday’s General Assembly meeting was one of our prayers for the month. This is also a crucial meeting in one way or another, but this year is different. We were learning about new laws to adhere to all year, and as I sat down to fill out some government forms yesterday, I felt we were far from over. That being said, our assembly was small, with just a few people, including some new members but people who are invested in the church’s life. Unfortunately, our treasurers did not meet the deadline to get the books up to the correct level the government requires. This means we must find help and have another meeting later in the year. Even though this was a low point, a high moment eclipsed it all. When it came time to discuss all that had transpired with the other building and the money we raised that had been locked up in the businessman’s account, we hoped to partner with. There was a spontaneous move to seek the Lord together. This is not a church service but a government-required open-book meeting. Hearing from the Lord and praying are more Afterglow activities, but they happened. It was a moment of turning that led to further discussion where we felt the Lord’s hand on us. From that, we’ve decided to focus on more important things like building the church rather than putting pressure on someone who may never pay us back. I believe God is maturing us as a ministry team.
Another precious moment this month was meeting with Pierre Petrignani about a few subjects in Calvary Chapel France, after the general assembly of our larger evangelical association. It was good to reconnect and discuss some of the ways forward for our movement.
We are planning our ministry schedule for next year and hope that the next government will favor our plans. Please pray with us that we will be led by the Spirit as we etch these things out. The midweek Zoom service is doing really well; I’ve been surprised at how many people have made themselves available on Wednesdays at lunchtime to study Daniel!
We experienced one unexpected, completely off-the-radar blessing this month. Esteban Venezuela asked Mike if he would like to attend a meeting he hosted with Ted Leavenworth and Reliance Church in San Diego. I replied, “Interested, of course, but getting to Madrid on short notice is not in our budget.” Three days later, Mike found himself on a flight to Spain. He came back truly recharged. As if that weren’t enough, we were blessed to have Clay Worrell come and preach for us that Sunday and take the family out to dinner. Who would’ve thought that might happen?
As we look into July, we are entering the summer season. This one will be special because of the Olympics, unexpected Legislative change for the government, and an outreach team. It will be a crazy month, but it begins with a few blessings. See the bullet points below. The Lord is good!
We hope you have a wonderful summer and 4th of July celebration!
In Jesus,
Mike and Becky Dente
Blessing 1:
Emma, our daughter, and her boyfriend will visit Paris for about a week. As you can imagine, we are over the moon.
Blessing 2:
We received a gift that will help us get to the Austria conference in Austria and catch up on a few things.
Blessing 3:
Sophie had her prom and graduated on July 8th! Becky is praying about taking her to the When She Leads Conference in London next month. It would be good for them both.
Blessing 4:
We were able to get Dave two internships! Thank you for your prayers. One was with the French Weather service, and the other was with our church.
Blessing and prayer request:
Becky is in her last year of a master’s program; she graduates this April; if anyone would like to help with this, it would be greatly appreciated! We have already seen how beneficial it has been to the ministry, as Mike’s studies have been. Being on the mission field, without the constant communion of like-minded believers, schooling helps minister to us in a way that we could not get otherwise. It keeps us sharp like a good practitioner should be.
When we were praying for our housing need, three years ago, it felt insane to even pray for a house - how on earth could we ever be given a house? We didn't have the faith for that, and honestly, we didn't feel like we were those kind of missionaries (you know, those super holy missionaries that experience miracles all the time). Sure, we serve the LORD full-time, but we don't think of ourselves as special, especially not on the same level as the missionary heroes we look up to and read about from past generations.
As Rebecca and I were struggling in our hearts about whether we should even pray for a house, God sent a young woman from our church to visit us in our living room. We had been spending a lot of time ministering her to her as of late, and this wasn’t her first visit, but this time God sent her to speak to us, and more precisely, to call us back to reality;
"It's not about who you guys think you are, or even about you at all, but it's about who God says He is! God wants to do things because He loves us, and we all need to trust Him!"
This interaction; one part rebuke, another part encouragement; was really an invitation to dive deeper into who God is. Our whole interaction has become emblematic of our journey with God in this house project. It keeps repeating itself in my head.
Months afterward, we received our first miracle--financing to start looking for a house. We started looking to buy a house, but soon pivoted to building a house, and now, two years later, we have our property, our plans, and as of a few days ago, our fully approved government permits.
Now we need another miracle. Last week we got our first bids back for the house build, and the project will cost us $65,000 more than we currently have. This number also feels impossible. Trusting God for our finances has always been a struggle for me, but God is calling us to grow and stretch our faith; but just like before, I am struggling in my head and in my heart to really believe.
So what will we do? Well, we will move forward, despite the feelings that tell us to quit while we are ahead, and we will push ourselves to walk in faith. Starting in July we will start building our house. At the moment we have enough to get the walls and roof up - and we will trust the LORD for the remaining $65,000 we will need to finish things.
July is also the month that our baby Joy is coming. We have yet to raise the money for her birth (our insurance won’t cover the $2,500-$6,000 out of pocket), but we are trusting God for that too. We also need to get a bigger car ($12,000-$15,000) to fit the baby in. The truth is that the convergence of all of these financial needs feels a bit overwhelming, But the bottom line is that we trust the LORD to provide (well, at least we are trying to trust Him).
God is inviting all of us to take our faith to the next level, but that also means that part of ourselves must die to Him. For me, I know God is call me to lay down my pride of feeling like I control and manage my finances and provide for my family, and the pridefull fear of not being seen as a fool for starting to build a house that we can't finish without God’s help. Both of these pridefuly areas in my heart fail to recognize that God is ultimately our provider and care-taker. Only when we awknoledge our struggles, can God come in a fix them.
Thankfully, we are not alone in these challenges, rather, God has provided us with a Spiritual Family that love and support us in this journey, and we are so thankful for every one of you (and those in the church we serve here in El Salvador) for willingly walking this path of faith with us!
What areas of life are you struggling and stretching in? What is God asking you to let go of? What prides and falsehoods does He want to strike down? We pray that He would give you the resolve to let things go, and step out in faith - and that He would get all the glory in the end!
May God bless you richly from the abundance of His love, mercy, and grace!
In Him,
Theo + Rebecca,
Sarah, Daniela, Jan, Ben, and Baby Joy
Hello all and happy June!
We pray and hope the summer months are starting off well for you all. We know here they are quickly getting filled up with every kind of event and gathering possible, and we love it. The last two months have been a lot of prep work for the upcoming weeks and we're excited to see how it pays off. We have both been working on a lot of VBS (here its called "Grest") prep and so far the church has over 40 kids signed up to attend! We also had about 30 people attend out last English conversation night, and one girl who has been attending them lately just gave her life to The Lord in the last few weeks! Praise Jesus!
The month of June is a busy one here, so there will be lots to pray over. Next week there will be a team from Reno, NV coming to help with VBS and a few other things such as a worship night and another English conversation night. They'll be here for about 2 weeks so we're really looking forward to all that they are here to help with.
At the end of this month our sister church will also be hosting an event with main speaker David Guzik, so that will be a great thing to be praying over.
We are so excited to see all that the Lord will do through all these different events as they are some of the biggest outreaches of the year.
On the personal side of things, we are coming to some big points in life this summer too! This month we will have been married for 2 years, and this summer we will have been here in Feltre for 1 year! Crazy how time flies. As for our personal prays we are asking and seeking guidance from The Lord that he might open up an opportunity for a larger house/apartment whenever He sees fit and provide the finances for it, so that we might plant deeper roots here, host more often and grow our family more over the years we are here. We also have a lot of large payments coming up such as insurance and things for the car, so we are praying that we plan accordingly and are wise in our choices. Lastly, we are really hoping, if we are able, to come back and visit the states at the end of summer or during the holidays. We have to first make sure it is doable and then wait to get Violet's passport which we have an appointment for on July 2nd (yay!). It will be our first time back since we've moved, and our family's first time seeing Violet since she was born.
We are so thankful for all our support, prayers and encouragement, and have been so blessed to see our family in Christ just surround us and petition on our behalf for so many things in our life. I often think about Esther and how much effort she put in to protecting people she didn't even know, just because they were her people. All of you are so much like that in your prayers and petitions for us and mostly for the people of Feltre. We know that everyone here is so thankful for you all as family in Christ. We love you all!
With love,
Paul, Rebekah & Violet Fox