New Church Plant in Santa Rosa de Copán
 For the past five years, since coming to Santa Rosa, we have been working with the same congregation. When we arrived there were 30 people attending church including adults and children.
Since that time we have enjoyed some great numeric growth with the congregation averaging more than 150 people in attendance on Sunday. In addition, we successfully purchased, with cash a large building lot and built a building that is free and clear of any debt.
Beginning about a year ago a number of us here at Mission UpReach, that have been worshipping and working in the local congregation, began to feel the need to open up a second congregation in this city of 50,000 people. After a year of discussions, prayer, and fasting we came to the conclusion that the time was right for us to launch out with a new congregation. This past month we began having worship services where we are inviting our friends and neighbors to attend.
Please keep this new congregation in your thoughts and prayers. We are presently meeting the garage of the Stacy family and are looking for an adequate venue to rent.
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UPWARD Basketball League Play Begins
 Many times in past newsletters we have shared with you how effective our afternoon youth basketball league has been in helping our DESEO team with their work with the public schools. This past month the basketball season kicked off in one of the villages, called Plan San Jeronimo, where we planted a new church.
The evangelist who works in this community for us is Hector Sanabria and he has enjoyed a much greater reception from the community in no small part due to the activities of DESEO and the basketball league that our DESEO team operates.
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Educating the Illiterate
Pictured here are a group of ladies from the newly planted church in Plan San Jeronimo Pictured also are Mayra and Cindy their teachers. Mayra is the daughter of one of our church planters and Cindy is the wife of another of our church planters.
Mayra and Cindy are working with these ladies teaching them how to read and write. MUR is supporting them in the project by transporting them to and from the village. We believe that this is one of the best ways that the Church and MUR can collaborate to build stronger churches with ladies like these being able to read the Bible for themselves.
God in His infinite wisdom chose the written word to communicate the Good News. How wonderful it will be when they can read for themselves those inspired words that tell about Eternal Life with the Father.
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Fernando Nasmyth JD Holds Conflict Resolution Seminar
We were blessed this month to have Fernando Nasmyth, who is both an attorney and an elder, to come and give a one-day seminar to the members of Team Mission UpReach.
Through the combination of both lecture and practical exercises Fernando helped our team members build some excellent skills. These skills will be useful in our everyday working environment as well as in helping our new church plants develop some of these same skills as well.
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Boot Camp-
Boot Camp
Our church planting team of evangelists continues to do good work with our Boot Camp Leadership Training program. This past month they held another in the series with 25 participants from across the region. One of these participants came from as far away as Olancho, which is at least 9 hours away by car. Dr. Dan Doak, from Parkersburg, WV, collaborated with us by teaching a number of the classes during the week.
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A Note from Donna
This past month was truly a sad and challenging month for me as I said farewell to my father until we meet again. I am so thankful that God answered my life long prayers three years ago and through circumstances that only God can orchestrate, my father became a follower of Jesus. I can't imagine my grief right now if I did not have the knowledge that my father is in heaven and we will see each other again one day. Being blessed to be with him the last 11 days of his life is something I will always be grateful to God for. Please continue to pray for my mother as she learns how to live this life without her husband of 58 years.
Now we are anticipating the wedding of our son, Harrison to Hayley Smith of Nashville, TN. They will wed on May 31st and then will complete their senior year at Harding University. We could not be happier for the beautiful young lady who will soon be part of our family. We do not doubt that Harrison and Hayley's relationship is the result of many years of prayers. They both love the Lord with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength and have been exemplary in their courtship.
We are so thankful for our faithful friends who sincerely weep with us as well as celebrate when the time is appropriate!
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Property Title Delivered to New Church Leaders
Several years ago, the Pine Tree Church of Christ helped us with a $10,000 donation to buy property and begin building a church building in the community of Crucitas, where we had just started a new church. In the end we raised a total of $25,000 to buy property and build a building that will hold 100 people fairly comfortably. It has taken several hundreds of hours of work by us and our attorney to actually get the title in the name of the church of Christ.
This past month we celebrated the event of finally having the title in the name of the church by giving the local leaders a stone plaque and a copy of the legal document showing the title in the name of the church.
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