February update

Hello everyone!

We hope that this email finds everyone well...and warm! February has certainly gotten away from us very quickly, but here is a quick overview of what has been going on here in ES:

1. The "kids" - Life has definitely changed a lot for us here over the past couple of months! As most of you know, Samuel and Jonathan came to live with us on December 28th. They both are doing very well. Samuel is studying Computer system engineering at the Evangelical University and Jonathan is in the 7th grade at a Christian School in the nearby town of Apopa. Both are involved in extracurricular activities as well. Jonathan is playing soccer for a local team here in Nejapa, and Samuel is taking guitar lessons on the weekends.

Bea is doing well also. She began classes last month as well at the Evangelical University. She is majoring in Special Education. She is very busy as she goes to class every morning and then has swim every afternoon through the week. She has also joined the praise and worship team at the university. This group has proved to be wonderful for her because it's not just about singing. Actually, they haven't even began to practice singing yet! They have been spending all of their time working first on building themselves up spiritually. They meet every Saturday morning for discussion, accountability, and leadership training. They have also split into small groups that will meet bi-monthly for Bible study. I am really impressed with this group because they have really helped Bea socially and spiritually and am very proud of her for her openness and willingness to grow.

Of course, despite everything, problems still arise in our house, as they do anywhere. It was especially difficult for Bea the first couple of weeks that the boys moved in. Bobby and I have been learning some of the big differences between "raising" boys and girls, and the "kids" have all been learning to adjust to each others differences and the importance of grace!

Some of you may remember me telling you about a Harvard psychiatrist that I met with last year about Bea. Well, she came down again last week and took Bobby and I, Rachel, and Ben and Shelly (a new missionary couple) out to a wonderful dinner. She is a professor of child and infant psychiatry at Harvard Medical school and also has her own private practice. She shared with us that she wants to devote the rest of her career to caregiver consultations. She has offered her services to us, free of charge, and we are more than grateful. So, we have set up a phone conference with her every Friday morning and we will all "set down with her" via telephone and talk about different challenges that we have faced during the week and ask her questions. She is also coming back again in April to work with us all again.

2. Church - The past couple of months have presented some challenges in the church with some of our youth leaders, but Bobby has been working through them well. We are also very happy because we were blessed with the ability to begin sending Daniel, the assistant pastor, to Bible school last month. He still has 2 1/2 years left, but this is definitely a step in the right direction! Yeah!

Bobby and I each have also started up small groups in the church. Bobby began the Mens Fraternity. Some of you may be familiar with it as it is a popular program in the States. Well, a great church donated the program (DVD's and workbooks) to us in spanish and it has been really popular. The group meets every Saturday morning at 7:30am and has been growing and growing until now there is hardly room enough for all of them in our house! This is a HUGE blessing and is so important especially in the Salvadoran culture where so many men abandon their families (for example, in the Saturday group only 4 guys actually know who their fathers are!) and marital unfaithfulness is considered culturally acceptable.

I have started a ladies group that meets every other Tuesday evening. This group has been great for the girls in the church, who have had problems connecting in the past. It has also given them a safe and open place to talk about the problems and issues that they are facing and to have the encouragement of other young ladies who are walking through the same things. The group was initially challenging for Bea, who, admittedly, tends to be jealous and very closed. Getting her to participate initially was a challenge, but I have slowly seen her open up more, share, and actually start to develop relationships and friendships with these girls. What a blessing! I am also very excited because a great friend of mine, Kelly (who was a missionary here last summer) will be bringing a team here in August and will be presenting True Love Waits to these girls! Yeah!


I also still teach my free community english classes every Saturday before the church service. Wow, the group has grown so much that I can no longer do it myself and now Ben is helping me. Last week the group was so big that I also enlisted the help of another friend and we split the class into 3! Thank God for this blessing! Bea and Jonathan are also participating in the classes.


3. Fellowship - One of the biggest challenges for missionaries is isolation. Bobby and I had been praying that God would send us friends for fellowship and accountability. We are so happy because in December God answered that prayer and a new couple, Ben and Shelly, came here to serve. They are currently serving in the Love and Hope orphanage handling finances, driving, etc. Initially they had only commited to 3 months of service but have recently decided to extend their stay. We are so happy because we have treasured their friendship so much. We have been meeting with them every Thursday for dessert and prayer, and it has quickly become one of my favorite times of the week!

Thanks so much to everyone for all of your prayers and support. We are so thankful and definitely would not be here today if it were not for you all. We ask that you all would please continue lifting us up in prayer in the following areas:

1. Jonathan's salvation - Jonathan is not a Christian and is very angry with God with what happened with his sister. He does come to church with us every Wed and Sat and we just pray that one day he will open his heart back up and accept Christ as his savior.

2. Love and Hope - The children's home is undergoing many many changes and definitely needs covered in prayer right now. In addition, as some of you may know, due to some problems Teams to the Nations has dissolved as a missions organization and a new nonprofit was formed called Love and Hope international. All donations now need to be sent to Love and Hope International with a note included that the donation is for Bobby and Britney Hibbs. Please contact me if you need the address and I can get it to you. Although we are very thankful for the change in organizations, as this new organization will provide us with more financial accountability, we ask for your prayers as we begin working with them and present to them our ministry and vision.

3. Beatriz - For her studies and as she continues to struggle with anger at times

4. Samuel - For his studies and continued spiritual growth

5.Bobby and I - that we would have LOTS and LOTS of patience, wisdom, and find time for rest.

We love you all!

In Christ,
Bobby and Britney Hibbs

December 2009 update

Hello everyone!

We hope that everyone is doing well and had a very Merry Christmas!!

It was so wonderful seeing everyone during our trip home. We initially thought that a one month trip home would be more than enough time to see friends and family and catch up with everyone that we love, but we found out quickly that it wasn't! We want to apologize to our friends, family, and those in our church family that we weren't able to see or talk to. Please know that our desire really was to spend time with each of you, but the days and weeks flew by too quickly to make it all possible.

Since we returned back to ES, life here has been SUPER crazy. Our time in the States was very refreshing and we were able to return back here with a renewed energy, and lots of new ideas for our lives and ministry. So, here is an overview of what has been going on over the past month that we have been back:

1. Beatriz - Just two short days after returning back to ES, Bea graduated from high school! Yeah!! We are so excited and proud of her!! She has decided to continue her education and go onto college. She has enrolled in the Evangelical University in San Salvador and will be starting classes on January 4th majoring in special education. She is very talented in working with small children, so I think that this is a great career choice for her.

Bea has also been busy over the past month working as an assistant teacher for the swim club where she trains. Although the position wasn't a paid position she was very excited to accept it when it was offered to her. It was a great opportunity for her to not only improve her swim skills, but also to learn increased self-discipline and responsibility. She was responsible for teaching swim to the littlest kids in the mornings and then in the afternoon she trained. She left in the mornings at 6:30am and returned home very tired at 4:30 in the afternoon.

2. Church - Over the past month we have had some ups and downs in the church. Some really positive things that have happened include our baptism celebration that we held in November. Bobby and Daniel (the assistant pastor) had the priviledge of baptizing 5 of our youth! Praise God! Following our home church's example, we made the event a celebration. We rented a small park and held our normal service there around the pool, followed by the baptisms, lunch, and then spending the afternoon hanging out and swimming in the pool. It was a great and blessed day!

Another blessing in the church is that attendance for our Wednesday services has been up, way up!! We began having the Wednesday services and attendance has slowly been on the rise. We had only 12 at our first Wednesday service, and last week we had over 50 (of course, last wednesday was our Christmas service, so this attributes to the increase as well) and the week before we had almost 40! Yeah!!! On the down side, attendance at our Saturday service has dropped dramatically. What was once routinely 40 or more has dropped by half. In addition, some of our leaders on our leadership team are waivering right now as they walk through some personal struggles in their own lives. But, the awesome God that we serve always has everything in control and we are going to be blessed with a short term mission team that is coming down Jan 2 - 9th to help us! The awesome thing about this team is that they were originally planning on coming down and distributing back packs filled with school supplies, but due to some problems with customs, they had to cancel that project and were scrambling at the last minute to figure out what to do. At the same time we began praying that God would show us how to reach out to the many youth who have fallen away and give them a renewed fire and passion. So, to make a long story short, God connected this team with us and now a week long project has been planned that includes a church "spruce up," evangelism and personal visits, a really cool game day, and a special "kick off the year" service! I am so excited to see how He is going to work in all of this!

In addition, thanks to the financial blessing of a wonderful friend, we were able to have an awesome Christmas service last Wednesday! It was a great service with more than 50 people in attendance! We decorated the church with lots of red and green and Christmas lights, Bobby gave a great message (he talked about how God gave us the awesome gift of His son so what gift will we give Him this year?), and we topped it all off by serving pizza and giving away tons of gifts! It was an awesome service!!

3. Samuel and Jonathon - As many of you know, two boys (Samuel and Jonathon) will be coming to join our home this month. We have been very busy working with them and planning for their arrival over the past few weeks. They picked the day that they would be coming to live with us, and they picked the 28th (so lots of prayers on Monday please!!). Samuel has decided to continue studying at the Evangelical University. He took some classes there last year, but didn't do so well, so we are praying that he is able to turn things around this year. We enrolled Jonathon in a Christian school and he will be beginning the 7th grade in January.

In addition to preparing physically for their arrival (painting their room, furniture, school) we have been trying to prepare them, ourselves, and Bea emotionally for this big change. We have spent a lot of time talking to everyone individually and together, and of course, lots of prayer. We understand that this is going to be a big change for everyone so we welcome your prayers as God leads us into this next chapter of our lives.

Well, that about wraps up the major highlights of what has been going on in our part of the world. We now have the blessing of having internet in our home, so hopefully keeping up will be a bit easier now. We have posted many new pictures to our phanfare website www.bobandbrit.phanfare.com as well as to our facebook page, so please feel free to check them out! We haven't updated our blog in a while, but plan to do so soon, so stay tuned.

Lastly, we want to say a big giant thank you to all of you who pray for us, support us, encourage us, and love us! We are truly grateful!!

Feliz Navidad a todos y Dios les bendiga!

In Christ,
Britney and Bobby