NEWSLETTER

 March 2023

⁷ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.     1^st JOHN 4:7-9

Ask anyone who has been married for more than ten years:  real love is NOT of this world!  By “real love”, I mean the stuff that LASTS, forgives, repents of sins, hopes, endures, waits, and overcomes. Real love is loving even when someone is not “lovable”. Praise be to God for Jesus, and His Holy Spirit, who show us God’s real love, give us that love, manifest His love in us for ourselves and for others, and lovingly forgives us for our many errors along the way of life in this world!!

The Lord has blessed the Pelican LC with two weddings so for this year; and I am preparing a young couple with two children for a wedding in June.  All of that plus our Lenten focus on Christ’s sacrificial application of real love, and well, it is on my mind!  As the world changes and becomes dark and cold, we must be all the more vigilant to sacrifice for the sake of others and let God’s word transform us so that our hearts do not grow cold in such essential times as these to show warmth, light, and of course… LOVE.  

PELICAN UPDATE:

In February the Lord accomplished a lot at the Pelican LC and her multiple other ministries for His mission.  We kicked off Lent with Ash Wednesday with 43 in attendance, and have three students in First Communion Classes as well.

While we await the outcome of the property dispute at Amigos en Cristo Ministries, Immokalee, we are assisting Haitian Pastor Andre and Vicar Niklau Alcena through the Pelican LC.  

With four ministries and five specific ministers leading those ministries, we are about to add four more.  (Currently, we have Pastor Eisold, Pastor Charelus, Vicar Jean Jaques, and Deacons Mendez and Sanchez, who oversee a total of four ministries of the word in Haitian Creole and in Spanish.)

Pastor Andre Mezilus  and Vicar Niclau Alcena will soon be under the Pelican, as well.  And, in May 2023, after nine months of preparations, we are hoping to place up to three ministry-starting-deacons at local LCMS congregations, to start new Hispanic ministries.  

The LORD Jesus is doing BIG THINGS here in SW Florida, far beyond our ambitious goals!  

As such, we are adapting in order to serve well as both a local church, and as a “mission society”.  We are investigating the best way to do this, while keeping everyone informed along the way.  By God’s grace, this will permit Pastor Eisold to serve and equip more as a Pastor and less as a fundraiser, while also involving area professionals with big hearts for Christ’s mission in the work of mission support, fundraising, structural support, encouragement and networking for the well-being of up to eight ethnic LCMS Lutheran ministries by the end of 2023.

  The family of our first candidate for baptism in 2023, Maximiliano Riera Mavarez.

God bless you all in Jesus Christ, our Risen Savior and King!!!     Pastor Eisold 

SUMMER FIRST COMMUNION
3 summer graduates at the Pelican Lutheran Church:  Maria, Camila, and Sofia.
Here they are receiving for the first time with their parents.  Deacon Elvis Sanchez is assisting with the cup

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