Merry Christmas and Happy End of the Year :)

Greetings family and friends,

Merry Christmas from all of us at Lasting Harvest International. We hope this letter finds you all well and enjoying this holiday season. As the rest of this season unfolds, may we not forget the reason for this season and remember to focus on the joy of our Savior's birth.
 

The last two months at LHI have been very busy with support raising, recruiting students, and ministry planning for 2015. We have been greatly blessed by a number of financial donations that will help us in our monthly payments for the demonstration farm. We have also been able to better plan with different Christian colleges in setting up internship/training programs, as well as, recruiting students for our upcoming training programs. We are still in need of further donations for making our land payments, so please consider giving a one time gift or committing to a monthly donation for the upcoming year. Remember, all donations are tax deductible.
 

As we look back at 2014, we are so blessed by God's faithfulness and provision. It has been a long and difficult year, but we praise the Lord for providing us with property for the demonstration farm and for constantly directing our steps. We serve an awesome God, and we are also so thankful for those of you who have prayed for us, supported us in various ways, and have shown us such generosity during our time in the States this winter.
 

We will be spending Christmas with Corey's family in Missouri, and then we will be traveling back to Panama on Saturday, December 27th. Please do keep us in your prayers that we maintain good health, safe travel, and as we deal with the various issues that have come about from having some of our things stolen a couple of weeks ago. We so appreciate all your prayers and support, and we hope you have a wonderful rest of your holiday season. We will be sending out another update on LHI's plans for 2015 in January. God Bless and Merry Christmas.
 

Your partners in reaching the world,

Corey and Bethany Courtwright

New Demonstration Farm

Greetings family and friends,

We hope this letter finds you all well. Although fall is in full swing in the US, we are coming to the end of our “winter” or rainy season. Needless to say, Corey and I are looking forward to cooler weather during our furlough in the States this winter. As we are fast approaching the end of 2014, we are excited to share with you some recent happenings here in Panama.

We are very excited to write you this newsletter and tell you we were able to put a down payment on a piece of property for the demonstration farm. This land purchase ended up being better than we ever expected. We will already have some infrastructure to work with in our phase of building development, as well as, as plenty of room for fish and animal projects and our agronomy projects. We still need to raise additional support for our monthly payments on the land and development of the property; however, this is a huge blessing and grand step forward in the dream of having a demonstration farm to train people in Christian community development. We are in awe and humbled by the generosity of supporters and the faithfulness of the Lord. Our next step will be some repairs and development of the farm prior to our return for furlough, and then Corey and I plan to move to the new property in January. We look forward to sharing with you more about the demonstration farm and LHI’s plans for the future as we speak at churches and meet with supporters this winter.

We are also blessed to welcome to our Lasting Harvest family our new recruit Matthew Dolan. Matthew was part of a short term team that worked with Corey in Ecuador years ago, and after his graduation, he decided to join us at Lasting Harvest. Matthew is presently in language school, and is getting adjusted to his new life here in Panama. We are very excited to have him as part of the team. Please keep him in your prayers as he transitions, begins to take part in ministry here, and is studying Spanish.

Our October and part of November will also consist of welcoming visitors to check out the work here in Panama and to help develop the farm. We were blessed to have with us for a few days my (Bethany) missions’ pastor from Atlanta, Greg Clark, who came to see our work in Panama and hear more about our vision for the future. In November, we will be having a friend of Corey’s coming to help develop some of the projects on the farm, before Corey returns to the States for furlough. We are excited to have these partners in ministry taking the time to come and visit us in Panama both to encourage and help us develop plans for the demonstration farm.

As we look ahead to our furlough in the States, we would like to make you aware of our schedule, so that we can spend time with you and make you aware of speaking schedule:

- November 4-16- Bethany will be in Atlanta, Georgia and November 23- Corey will be in Maryland.
- November 17- December 2- We will be in Maryland celebrating Thanksgiving with Bethany’s family
- December 3-26- We will be in Missouri visiting churches and Bible colleges recruiting students/ cross-cultural workers for the demonstration farm, as well as, raising support for LHI.
- December 27- We will return to Panama.

If you would like to contact us during our time in the US, please contact us through our Lasting Harvest email at lastingharvest@gmail.com or our Facebook page. We hope to have a cell phone upon our arrival in the US, but our email is the best way to contact us. We look forward to seeing you all very soon and sharing in more detail with you what God is doing here in Panama.

Your partners in reaching the world,
Corey and Bethany Courtwright

Don't Give Up!

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." - Galatians 6:9 

We have all heard this verse a thousand times. If you grew up in the church, you probably memorized this as a small child. This verse has always encouraged me as a Christian through good times and bad, and through the various seasons of my life. However, it was after seeing this verse on Facebook that the true weight of this verse hit home for me, especially as I am about to complete my first year in Panama. And after this year, this verse reminds me just how much God is faithful to those who earnestly seek Him and desire to serve Him.

As I look back at this year, I have a mix of feelings. But, I can honestly say, I am so thankful for my new home, excited for the future, and more aware than ever that God uses every single experience in your life, good or bad, to help you mature and grow. And added bonus….that difficult thing you dealt with a few years ago… yeah that thing you wish you had never experienced……well, guess what?! I have good news! It will make your present troubles easier, and help you pass through these and future struggles stronger, and bonus, you can better encourage those dealing with stresses of their own. And as a positive result, allow your stress or troubles to make you more compassionate, not more hardened, to those in need. Because the beautiful thing is, God wastes nothing and uses everything good or bad, your fault or another’s, EVERTHING!!!! For His plans and purposes. To me, this is a message of hope and joy for all situations.

Now what are we responsible for as His children?! We are responsible for “not becoming weary in doing good.” And what is the result? “For at the proper time”- That’s right, not on our time schedule, but God’s time, “we will reap a harvest if we do not give up”. Awesome! Amazing! But remember, we cannot give up! That’s right. We must persevere until the end. Now, important point here, “the end” may be the end of our life. Some things, we will never see the conclusion of or the result of in this lifetime. But, remember, God promises a harvest will be reaped as long as we do not give up. I do not know about you, but as a Christian and one specifically working overseas, this is what makes me keep going in the work we do here in Panama. Because if I was only in this for the immediate results, I would pack up and go home right this minute. And I think I can say honestly, most missionaries around the world would do so as well. Think of all of those other jobs that need time to achieve results: parenthood (very much a job), teacher, doctor, farmer, politician, etc. All of these jobs involve the investment of time, work, and prayer. None of these jobs obtain success quickly. Life is a process, a long one, but be encouraged, God blesses those who follow Him and choose to live their lives on God’s timeline, and not a human timeline.

We can also be assured in this verse that as Christians, if we live our lives striving to obey God and desiring to do His will, we are promised eternity with our Savior. Granted we cannot physically earn our eternity with God through good works, but we can decide to accept the gift of the Good News and then live our lives in light of the Gospel. Remember, no matter what you are going through, gone through, or will go through, God’s promises are true, and whether you see the fruit of your labor in this life or not, God sees it and that is all that really matters.

We have experienced a great deal of stress during our time in Panama, but we are starting to see the fruit of our labor, and we are encouraged. As the old hymn says, “I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back. No turning back!” Do not give up! God is with you and He will reward your labor in His all-seeing and perfect time. How has God shown His faithfulness in your life?

For His Renown,

Bethany

 

Thoughts from this summer ...

Greetings family and friends,

We hope this letter finds you all well. These last few months have been very busy with searching for land, the matching challenge, a short term group, and language school. We want to thank you all for your generous contributions to the matching challenge, more than $19,000 dollars was raised and will be matched! This will be enough for us to make a healthy down payment on land for the demonstration farm. Your generosity was not only a great encouragement to us, but will be for those coming to train with us in the future. Your donations will leave a lasting impact for years to come, not only in Panama, but in other parts of the world as we train other missionaries in community development. Thank you so much for your generosity and prayers.

In my last letter to you, I was able to share news of good land possibilities. But as we worked through the process of purchasing the mangrove property that I mentioned in the last letter our lawyer discovered that the concessions to use the property could not be sold and that most of the property was actually legally un-usable. So I attempted to purchase another piece of land that was wonderfully suited for our needs but again as our lawyer investigated the title it was discovered that the seller did not own all that he claimed to own. Then a third piece of property that was wonderfully suited for your needs fell through in the negotiations. All of these pieces of land falling through have been very disappointing, but we know that God is in control and He has protected us from some very big potential problems with these properties. I now have a few other possibilities that I am investigating and hope to have exciting news about the land soon. Please pray that we see God’s will about the right piece of land in order to accomplish His purposes.

Part of the Mount Paran mission team

We were also blessed to have with us a group from Mount Paran Church of God in Atlanta, Georgia. The group of students did a wonderful job building duck and rabbit pens for the demonstration farm and hosting a VBS at two different locations in the mountains. The group was also able to be a part of breaking ground on a new project in the mountains among the Ngobe. Through a church contact who works as a teacher in this area, we were able to connect with these people. This particular town is known for its strong ties to Mama Tata, the local indigenous religion, so it was a huge opportunity to break ground in an area that is very much controlled by this religion. Through the group’s project, we are now able to build ties with the people and share the Gospel. The group worked very hard and showed God’s love to the Ngobe both in word and deed through helping to dig a pond and having a VBS with the children in the area. This team was truly an encouragement to us, and we were blessed immensely by them.

Another praise is Bethany’s completion of 400 hours of language school this month. Her language school is a huge accomplishment, and we are very happy to see the progress she has made. Now, she will be focusing on improving her Spanish through daily conversation, so that she can further progress in her language acquisition.

We want to thank all of you for your prayers and support of Lasting Harvest. Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we look for land and continue the process of setting up a demonstration farm here in Panama. We have experienced a great deal of stress and uncertainty, since moving back to Panama, but God has taught us so much and has always proven faithful. Thank you all for your prayers and support, and please stay tuned to our Lasting Harvest Facebook page and our blog on our web-site, for frequent updates on our time in Panama.

Your partners in reaching the world,

Corey and Bethany Courtwright