Praise Him with the Keyboard

Presently, there are several people receiving training to play hymns with the chord method of piano playing. Each of the students is a member of one of our congregations and our goal is that in the future we will have people able to read music and lead the members in singing and praise with musical instruments.

We would like to give our deepest thanks to Roxanne Martens (wife of LATTE Missionary Ralph Martens) who wrote the music course that the students are using. She wrote the program herself and gave us permission to reproduce it to train more people. So far it is working well and the students are making good progress.

We thank the Lord for gifted people like Roxanne who are willing to share their talents with the church, and we thank God who bestows musical talents on His believers and fills their hearts with the desire to praise Him by learning to play hymns to His glory.

[ The above was written by Kathy Strackbein. We thank the Lord for her service as well. --NW]

Seminary classes with Missionary Martens

Since this is a new blog, some of these posts will be "old news", which is really an oxymoron, isn't it?

One of our joys in the DR is preparing local men to become pastors and leaders in the church. The Lord of the Church has blessed us with six men who desire to serve Him as pastors--Alex, Helve, Obed, Julio, Feddy and Rona (seated, left to right). We ask for your prayers that the Lord bless their seminary studies.

We welcomed LATTE Professor Ralph Martens (standing) for a three month teaching session last year (15 Aug - 15 Nov 2006). He taught Dogmatics (doctrine), the Formula of Concord (one of our historic Lutheran Confessions), New Testament Isagogics (an introduction and overview of each book of the New Testament), Pastoral Theology, Greek, and the Life of St. Paul. Yes, his plate was full. We thank God for his labors!

The Lord bless you with his Peace,
NW