Laynes' Line

January-February, 2014 Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: Dear Praying Friends,      Thank you so much for praying for us as we labor here. The year 2014 was one of the best in a long while. We had many battles and many victories. We were able to lead nine deaf to receive the Lord and some hearing folks along the way. There are times when it seems we just cannot get the new ones to understand, and then all of the sudden the Lord opens the doors and several come to a real knowledge of Him. We are so grateful for His faithfulness to us.      Our city celebrated its 473 rd birthday on February 14 th . It is obvious from some of the buildings that it is a very old city, but to realize HOW old is still amazing to us. We have often made comment that 50 years after “Columbus sailed the ocean blue,” Guadalajara was moved...

      We have a personal request for your prayers and a praise - all at the same time. Faithann was sitting in their home Friday chatting with her husband when she started having pains (three months pregnant). Over a short period of time the pains got worse until her water broke.  Her husband called a friend to take them to the clinic to be checked out. There, she began bleeding profusely. The clinic got her stabilized and then sent her by ambulance to a woman's hospital. There they worked with her for a while and performed the necessary procedure to get her "normalized." Obviously, they lost the baby but Faithann is doing well. It will require a period of complete rest and longer for her to recuperate fully. We would appreciate your prayers for her.       We received word today that our dear friend, Rev. Earl Kilpatrick, has passed into Eternity as of last night. He had recently been facing great difficulties physically and has b...

Thank you so tremendously for your patience. We have battled since returning to the field to get an Internet connection here by almost any means. Previously, we had connected through the phone company because there was a line here on the farm that was not being used. We contacted them, they flipped a switch and off we went. This time, we were told there were no lines available. That usually means unless you slip a good "tip" under the table. We passed. On May 1, the law changed that forces the government monopoly to allow other companies to use the lines they have already established. The "other" companies advertised that as soon as the law went into effect, they could open up connections to any town that already has phone lines. WRONG. The law is now in effect, but the agreements with the mother company are still on the table (or the boat or outer space). Nothing has changed since last year. So, we are outside of the area where they have expanded. Even Jon, wh...

     Thank you for bearing with us as we have received and then lost Internet every few days (always when something urgent needed to be sent out immediately). Cheyenne has not gotten a contract with the only available service and should be working this week. It has been one of the most frustrating times in our 31 years of service. Even family would write and before we could respond, the service was gone. We love living a little ways out of town since it is much cooler and a lot better for the smog conditions. BUT, village life is not the same as city life. If the power goes out, it could be days before anyone does anything about is. The same for phone or Internet.      We are excited and disappointed with some of things that we see happen in the lives of the deaf. New ones come, receive Christ and begin to grow spiritually. Long-time Christians make dumb decisions of which they should know better. And so we are excited and disappointed. It ...

     We are very (im)patiently waiting for the new access to open to the Internet so we can permanently hook up. The law changed the first of May, but we have seen no opening of the available service. I am reminded of the connection at the mission in Texas. For years they were told there was no service and no plans to make any because they are located out of the major population in the area. We are not in the metropolitan area so we are last on the list. Thank you for your patience as we try to keep in contact by various work arounds. Our letter is as follows: May 2014 Psalm 105:5 Remember his marvelous works that He hath done, his wonders, and the judgments of his mouth. Dear Praying Friends,      We are still thrilled with the way the Lord has been blessing in His church. As we shared in our last letter, we are seeing souls saved and newer Christians growing in the Lord. One other deaf asked the Lord to save him in March. Easter vacation caus...

Dear Praying Friends,      We are desperately trying to be patient concerning our connection with the world, but it is still hard. When we left on furlough in 2012, we passed our phone line and Internet over to our neighbor rather than pay a year while we were gone. Now, upon returning last year, we were told there aren't enough lines to get a new phone line. Tomorrow, a new law goes into effect which will make the government owned telephone service open their lines to receive connections from other companies. That means that folks like us can receive service from other companies through the fiber optics of the phone company. Therefore, we should have offers from several new companies to connect.      We are so excited about the deaf. Our deaf who have been with us for many years have dwindled (death, fleeing to the USA, old age) to about two. However, the attendance is still strong because the church is now composed of mainly late teens and y...

February 2014 Psalm 18:1 -2 I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. Dear Praying Friends,      We praise the Lord for the wonderful way He has blessed since we returned. We continue to see the Lord bless as we watch the church develop into a mature, although young, church. The Lord has blessed us with five souls saved since the November. Often with the deaf ministry, decisions come slowly and many times only after allowing the deaf to “try” their new Christian friends to see if they are real. We have four who are requesting baptism as soon as the roof over the baptistery is fixed. The glass blocks overhead are beginning to break due to the sun. They will need to be repaired or replaced.      One of the salvation decisions was Lance, Cheyenne’s son. They often come out on S...