It has been a rough week and we are still in shock. The senior pastor in the area died of appendicitis at the age of 53 on Wednesday, leaving behind a wife and five grown children and other family members as well as a church and community.
Rev. Alberto Orlando Rigby Jarquin was baptized at the age of 17 at Zion Baptist Church in Bluefields, Nicaragua.
He began his full time ministry in the community of Haulover in the Pearl Lagoon area and would serve as pastor of the New Hope Baptist Church for 9 1/2 years.
In 1985, he returned to Bluefields to become the pastor of Zion Baptist Church where he would serve for 20 years.
In 2005, he went to Managua to go to Seminary and during this time, he was the pastor of the First English Baptist Church.
In January 2009, he returned once again to Bluefields to once again assume the pastorate of the Zion Baptist Church. Late last week, he came down with severe internal pain. He went to the hospital early Monday morning and was diagnosed with kidney failure and his wife was told that death was certain.
On Tuesday, the doctors operated to relieve internal  obstructions and at that point discovered a ruptured appendix, which was the root cause for the kidney failure. He passed away the next day.
Our prayer is that God will use his passing to encourage others to consider preparing for pastoral work.
As we speak, out of the five Baptist churches, we have three churches without pastors, and one whose pastor is in the US in seminary.
When we came to Nicaragua, we came with the goal of training and supporting leaders in ministry. Pastor Rigby's death only highiights the critical need for this work.
We are currently teaching classes of lay leaders, but part of the vision God gave us was to find young men and women who would commit to full time ministry and provide them with training and a modest amount of financial support so that they could dedicate themselves to ministry and to training.
 This part of the plan has been on hold, so to speak, thus far, but with our support level increasing and with the increased need for leaders, we are now exploring the possibility of starting this program.
Since we have been here 18 months, we have been able to see who would make a good candidate and we will investigate further next week.
We are planning to move full speed into this plan. Our monthly support has been increasing and we are planning to dedicate much of that support to the training and support of these young leaders.
We have been really praying and seeking God's wisdom in our situation. There are so many things to think about. We have been offered an opportunity that will allow us to work a few months per year in the US as needed.
We are willing to do whatever it takes to reach the goal of equipping a new generation of young leaders for these churches.
 How great would it be to present several candidates for ordination in three years. If we can do this, then a few months in the US each year is a small price to pay.
The upside is that it will allow us to spend time with family and friends and it will give us time to work with the churches and who knows what impact God will allow us to have in the workplace environment. It is all in his hands.
We are grateful to those who consistently pray and give because it is really their faithfulness that will make this dream become reality.
It is funny how we plan things in a straight line, on a highway, so to speak, but God always takes the scenic route, with plenty of twists and turns, but in the end, the scenic route is always better.
 In other news . . . the young men from the neighborhood are coming in to work on music, computers and now we are doing some woodworking with them.
If we are able to get our ministry trainees recruited, they will spend a lot of time working in this type of neighborhood ministry.
We seem to have a lot of interest in our Sunday Morning Cafe ministry which will start next Sunday.
Nehemias would like to start bringing in more musicians so he can offer our little studio facilities to them. It sounds crazy, but a little Mac Mini computer, a 8 channel mixer, a cheap guitar amp with effects and a small amp makes it the best music studio in town . . . but . . . if it is a way of reaching out to the music community, it is pure gold.
Unfortunately, the hard drive on the mac mini got messed up. The hard drive is fine, thank God, but the directory structure went kaput (to use a little German lingo), and all the data was lost. It took several hours worth of work, but we have it up and running again.
Lastly, we will be in the US from July 23 to Sept 23. This will give us a chance to spend time with family, spend time with churches (we really miss you guys), and earn a little money. Before we leave, we are hoping to recruit young candidates into ministry training so that we can begin a new chapter in ministry when we return.
God bless you,
Tim and Kim
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