Dear Brothers and Sisters in the Lord Jesus,  “ Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”  It is our sincere prayer that all is well with you and that you are having an excellent day! These days are filled with economic turmoil, uncertainty, and fear, and yet in the midst of all of this, there is hope, for God is!!  God is the great I AM, never changing, always full of love and compassion, desiring only the best for His children!!  During times like these the only safe haven is in the Hands of God! Well, we are in the third week of classes already, and God continues to move in great power here at Instituto El Rey in the hearts and lives of the students, of the teachers, and of all who come to visit! This year we have 169 wonderful students, which includes 41 new students in the seventh grade!  This morning as I paused to watch the students pass by as they were going to their classes, I stood in wonder and awe at what God has done and is doing, and is going to do, in the lives of these students whom He has called and brought to IER!!  They are like uncut diamonds whom God is shaping and forming and polishing in such a way as to reflect the flashing brilliance of the light of…. THE SON!!!  I commented to Sharon just the other day that I think this is the year of “fruit”!   The mandarin orange trees are loaded with blossoms the first time ever since they were planted by my brother Bill!!  for the first time the coconut palms have coconuts that are maturing and are edible!  the avocado trees are loaded with an abundance of blossoms!  the banana palms have seven bunches of bananas, one with more than 200 bananas on a single stalk!  and there are 3 large papaya from our papaya tree sitting on the kitchen counter just waiting to be eaten!!!! And talking about fruit….  This is the first year ever that we have two of our graduates who have joined us as teachers!!!!   Dennis who was one of the co-valedictorians of the first graduating class of 2006, is teaching two classes of science and is learning alongside Chris Struna, so that when Chris leaves this coming June, Dennis will be ready to teach Chris’ computer classes!! Daysi, who, also like Dennis, graduated at the top of her class this past year, wanted to be a teacher of mathematics, so because we believe she will make an excellent teacher and wanted to encourage her, we offered her my two math classes!! Both she and Dennis are doing excellently!   El Faro, the church in La Ceiba that IER comes under organizationally, began a church at IER and held their first worship service Sunday, 9 February!!  That first Sunday there were 300 in attendance which included 150 children!!  Praise the Lord for what He is doing in the hearts and lives of the people here in La Cuenca!! After receiving the proper permit, we were able to use the new bus for the first time on 16 February!!  It has been wonderful!!  It is beautiful!!  The students and the teachers love it and are so grateful to be able to ride in it!  Again, thank you so much for all who were involved in making it possible to have a newer, more reliable, bus!! There is this fruit because YOU have responded to God’s call upon your life to be co-laborers with us in this powerful ministry God is doing here in La Cuenca del Cangrejal, an unheralded, unlikely place, but then God loves to use the foolish things of the world to confound the wise!! We have already had two teams visit IER this year!  The first was a wonderful group, mostly from the Minneapolis area, but with two from Vancouver, B.C.!!  They were led by Paul and Beth McCready, Sarah Furrow’s parents (Sarah and her husband, Jason, have started an orphanage up the valley near Urraco).  We praise God for each one who came and  ministered to the students!  Some will be sponsoring some of the seventh graders, for which we are so grateful!!! The second group came from our home church in Maple Valley, WA.!   Pastor Tom Hardebeck,   Gary and Sheri Halvorsen, Linda Williams, and 18 young people came to do work projects and to minister to the students!!  The young people are in an 11 month program called the GLs (Generational Leadership)—the young people who are in this program learn to be leaders by first being servants of all!!  This is the third year they have come and each time they have been a tremendous blessing to us!!!  Thank you Pastor Tom, Gary and Sheri, Linda, and each of you GLs for coming!!!!  Again, to all of you who partner with us in this vital ministry,  THANK YOU!!!  May God pour out His blessings upon each one of you ABUNDANTLY!!! And now “To gain for the Lamb the reward of His sacrifice”,  Earl and Sharon Washburn, Administrators of IER   

Dear Brothers and Sisters in the Lord Jesus, greetings once again from Honduras, the land of opportunity!

We sincerely hope and pray that you are in good health and are enjoying a wonderful day!
It has been raining now for about a month every afternoon, so the days have been significantly cooler than during May, which was hot and dry! The farmers plant their beans and corn during May to take advantage of the rains that follow soon afterward! Whenever it is raining and therefore cool, people here call it winter—so right now it is winter; when the sun shines and it is warm, it is summer, which could occur in December! But compared to Washington State where we are from, it always seems like summer here in Honduras!! Believe it or not, I am preparing to plant some sweet corn which I have been wanting to do for the past 9 years, but just never seemed to get around to doing it!!

Today we took a day off from classes so the teachers could have time to put together a large report that the Ministry of Education wants from each school! So I took advantage of this time to write this letter!

But wait!! Hold the press! We are grandparents! Anna Marie Washburn was born 6 April 2008 to our son, Jason and his wife, Katie! And what a beautiful little girl, and what a gift from God, she is! Sharon went to visit the end of April and the first part of May for 3 weeks; then I was able to go for 3 weeks during June! It was a wonderful time as we visited Anna Marie, Jason and Katie, and Nathan, our other son; as we visited our church, Generational Hope Christian Center and all the wonderful people there; and as we visited other friends in the area!

But you know, it was also good to get back!! For this is where God has called us, and after living here in Honduras for almost 9 years, it has become our home!

God continues to do mighty and powerful things in the hearts and lives of the students! During the 3 months of March, April, and May, fifteen students made a decision to accept Jesus as their Savior and to make Him Lord of their lives! Please pray that others will follow in making a decision to accept Jesus as Savior and as Lord!

We have many excellent students! There were 25% who had an “A” average at the end of the 2nd quarter of study—it is interesting, but some of those who excel in their studies, I would never have selected them to be particularly good students! But it is those who God brings, because He knows!

But there are challenges!! At the end of the 1st quarter, 11 of my math students out of a total of 25 in the 10th grade failed! That was not very encouraging to say the least! But things have changed a bit—the number of failures was reduced to 6 after the 2nd quarter of study; now if that number can be reduced to 3 or less after the 3rd quarter, then that would be wonderful!! It would be wonderful if there were NO failures!! God is a miracle working God, so only with His help would it be possible to have no failures!!

And talking about math (you may have gathered by now that I like math!), you may recall from a previous prayer and praise letter, that two of our students were selected to compete in the Math Olympics at the national level last year! This year we have a potential for seven to make it to the nationals!! This year the rules of competition have changed a little—instead of one competition at the Department level, there are two—the students have taken one exam and 10 did well enough to be invited to compete in the second exam!! The date for this exam is not yet known, but it will be soon! Please pray for the students as they prepare for this second exam, that they would be diligent in their preparation that they might bring honor and glory to God!

We have a student, Deiby, who has had to struggle more academically than many of the others—she had to repeat one year, then last year she did not pass computers! If she had been able to pass computers, she would have graduated! BUT here she is—SHE DID NOT GIVE UP—and by sheer determination and by God’s mercy just yesterday she took a major exam and passed with an 80%, and that is a miracle!! Now she has just one more major test to take, then she will have done it!!!! And finally after much struggle, she will be able to graduate! Please pray for her!!

We have Phys. Ed. Tuesdays and Thursdays during 8th hour, and recently I commented to my sister-in-law, Debbie, that something was happening practically everywhere I looked, in every “corner” of the school !! a group of students were playing soccer in this “corner”; a group were playing basketball in that “corner”; some were playing volleyball in another “corner”; some were playing dodge ball in whatever “corner” was left; those in the band were practicing playing their instruments and marching in their “corner” , which happened to be the road; and some were in their “corner” running on the road preparing for the marathon in San Pedro Sula!!!!

To reduce the number of runners to a manageable number, we had time trials one morning beginning at 6:30! The students were to run about 6 miles under one hour in order to qualify—the plan was for me to follow them in the car and then make sure they all made it safely to the turn-around-point, which was in Toncontin! The last student to arrive was Dunia! She began the return trip while I followed! She would run a bit , then walk, then she would run a bit more and then walk, and so it went!! When it became evident that she had no hope of completing the run under one hour, I pulled up beside her and asked her if she wanted to ride, to which she responded with an emphatic, “NO”! So when we got to Yaruca but still had 1.5 miles to go, I again asked her if she wanted to ride, to which she responded with another emphatic “NO”! When we got close to the bridge, which is close to the finish line, other students who had completed the run came back to encourage Dunia—they took her by the hand, one on either side of her, and thus she FINISHED THE RACE—SHE DID NOT GIVE UP!!! In my mind she was a WINNER, just as Deiby is a WINNER!!!

II Chronicles 14:11 talks about Asa, one of the kings of Judah, and it says: “Then Asa called to the Lord his God, and said, “’ Lord, there is no one besides thee to help in the battle between the powerful and those who have no strength…’”

It is as if the young people of this area, La Cuenca del Cangregal, had no strength—they had no options except to work chopping grass with a machete, or growing beans and corn on the steep hillsides as their fathers did before them!! But God “heard their cry for help” and placed Instituto El Rey here to provide excellence in education—to give the young people options—to become engineers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, to know how to begin and to make their own businesses to be successful!!! To be World Changers!!!

The fact is that God uses people like you to fulfill His purposes! It is you who have been used of God—it is you who have responded to the cry for help by those who “have no strength”!! I have said it before and I say it again, without your prayers and your help financially, Instituto El Rey would not be!! Thank you and God bless you for caring!

We praise God for:
1) You!
2) A beautiful, healthy new granddaughter!
3) All those who have come to visit and to help out this year—and also in years past!
4) God’s miraculous and supernatural provision!
5) Approval of our residency papers!
6) God’s provision of someone to come alongside us and to ultimately take the position as Administrators!

Please pray for:
1) Ester, our principal, as she goes in for a physical checkup!
2) More sponsors for the students.!
3) The students as they seek to learn!
4) The teachers as they teach that more and more they would see beyond the money aspect and see more clearly that this is a ministry that they can be intimately involved in! It is happening!!

And now, To gain for the Lamb the reward of His sacrifice,
Earl and Sharon Washburn, Administrators, Instituto El Rey

Dear Brothers and Sisters in the Lord Jesus, greetings to you from Honduras!

I hope that all is well with you and that you are enjoying a wonderful year of new beginnings! Here we are already two weeks into the second quarter—tomorrow, the 4th of April, the parents come to get report cards, and will find out how well, or how poorly, their children did! Some will be happy, and some will be sad, as is the case in every school!

At the end of each quarter, I review the teachers’ tests and the calculations they used to arrive at the final grade—in the past there were some problems with the calculations, but now there are fewer and fewer problems! During the course of my review, I make it a point to note the grades students are receiving, and there are some students with excellent grades—and this includes some of the new students in the 7th grade! And some of those students with excellent grades in mathematics are preparing to compete in the Math Olympics! We are in the Department of Atlantida (there are 18 Departments in Honduras that are about the size of a county in the United States), and the competition in our department will be the 25th of April. I have been meeting with six 10tthand 11th graders during the noon hour to help them prepare for the competition; Liliana, who teaches 8th and 9th grade math, and Damaris, who teaches the 7th graders, are both doing the same! Four of my students even forego lunch in order to prepare for the competition! Talk about dedication, that is what I call dedication!! At the competition on the 25th, nine will be chosen out of more than 100 to represent Atlantida in the nationals! Last year, two of our students did well enough to be invited to participate in the national competition! Please pray for our students as they continue to prepare, and then as they take the exam, that they would do well and that God would receive glory from their efforts!

Talking about math, last quarter 11 out of 25 in my 10th grade math class FAILED!! Whoaaaaa!! What in the world happened!? That was not good! Needless to say, I was a little shocked! But now comes the GOOD part –In the first test of the second quarter, 20 out of 25 received 91% or higher!!! Now that really excited me! To make a turn-around like that is awesome for the students! Never before have I experienced anything quite like this, in this magnitude! As each student came to the front to receive their tests, I called out their grades! When the students like Hugo, Nelson and Boris, who usually do not get good grades in math, came forward to receive their test, the rest of the students errupted in cheers when they heard their test scores, which were very good!!!

This illustrates the point—we as teachers are here to help the students be successful, scholastically and spiritually!! That is what IER is all about! We praise and thank God for what He is doing in the hearts and lives of the young people of La Cuenca!

El Rey de los reyes, the King of kings!! And Jesus is THE KING of Instituto El Rey! All that happens here is because of Him, and it is for Him! We are here because Jesus is King of our lives! And Jesus (God) provided this school to give hope to those who had little hope; and it is He Who brings young people here because He has a special purpose for each one! And may I say, it is Jesus, the King of kings, who called you to be co-laborers together with us, to pray for this ministry and to provide the necessary funds for operating a school like this!! It is true—without your faithfulness in giving, this ministry would not exist!! Thank you so much for your heart of sacrifice!

One of our first year students, Elmer, one of five boys whose mother died about seven years ago and whose father went away to another city, lives in a “house” with his older brother, Joel. Elmer is always ready and willing to do any kind of work, and is an excellent worker! Why is he so eager to work? He said, “If I don’t work, I don’t eat!!” He is also an excellent student, one of those buried treasures; one of those gems in the rough that God brings to IER to be polished to a brilliance that reflects all that God is!! Elmer may very well be one of those world changers that God is developing here at IER!!

Again, thank you so much for your part in all this!!! God bless you. We love you.

And now, “To Gain for the Lamb the Reward of His Sacrifice”, Earl and Sharon Washburn, Administrators, Instituto El Rey

My dear brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus, greetings from Honduras!

I hope and pray that you are doing well and are having a wonderful day!

Here it has been raining for 3 days, and because the buses cannot ford the river, we did not have classes Thursday or Friday of this past week. About one third of our students come from further up the valley, and if the bus cannot cross the river, we cancel classes! Monday we will have classes again, Dios permite—God willing!

We are closing in on the end of the first quarter—quarter finals begin the week of 10 March, which is the week before Semana Santa, or Holy Week. Semana Santa is the week leading up to Easter, and almost nothing is open during Holy Week—even the post office is closed for the entire week!!

We began the year with 174 students and God is doing mighty and powerful things in the lives of these students, molding them into vessels of honor and integrity!! Young people who will not compromise the gospel! What is happening at Instituto El Rey is a demonstration of what Psalms 93:4 is talking about, “Mightier than the thunder of great waters; Mightier than the breakers of the sea; The Lord on high is mighty’!!

Ralph and Susan McIntosh, Founders/Directors of the ACTS Foundation, along with Margaret Guy from England, were here 2-9 Feb, and were such a blessing to us! It was a special time together! Then on the 12th of Feb., Gary and Denise Hansen, Mark Brandt and Chris Hodges, arrived from our home church, Generational Hope, in Maple Valley, Washington! Then 8 more arrived from our church on the 17th, then on the 21st, 20 more arrived!!! What a blessing and a wonder it was to have all these visiting with us! God indeed is mighty in bringing all these to bless us by their presence! They all came to work, and work they did!! We praise and thank God for their sacrifice of their talents; for their sacrifice of their time; and for their sacrifice of finances to get here!

Please remember in prayer:
1) The students as they prepare for and take their 1st quarter finals
2) The teachers as they prepare for each day, that their preparation and teaching would be totally empowered by the Holy Spirit and dedicated to God.
3) For Sharon and me, that we would also walk in the Spirit and His power

May God bless you and keep you in His care. We love you, Earl and Sharon, Administrators, Instituto El Rey