Trey & Mary Watts Newsletter (Fall 2024)

Greetings Friends & Family,

We pray this letter finds you well. There is so much to share. So, grab a cup of coffee and let’s catch up. 

As you know, our family was spread across multiple continents this summer—Sadie to Poland, Clara to Tanzania, and the rest of us to Honduras. Once we were finally all together again, I took a picture of our boots lined up by the door and shared it on our facebook page. The caption was, “If these shoes could talk, they’d have some stories to tell…Stories of beauty and ashes, sickness and healing, laughter and mourning, protection and danger, light and dark. But the biggest, loudest story they tell is of God’s faithfulness.” We’d like to share just a few snippets of those stories with you. 

Reflections from the Summer:

Ellie: “I’m thankful that the Lord protected me from the snake.” 

*The base has a guard dog that was walking with Ellie and me to our room one night. She walked ahead of us and suddenly stopped because there was a snake in our path. The snake was stopped and “standing” upright about 2 feet in front of Ellie. I snatched Ellie back and we quickly backed away to turn and take the long way to our room. Once we got a little ways off, the dog ran up and continued to walk with us to our room, where she slept all night as though she was guarding the door. I, too, am so thankful for God’s hand of protection on us! 

JC: “I prayed for God to help me not be scared on the plane and He did.” 

*JC absolutely loves the take off and landing of flying, but we had some turbulence on one of our flights. The turbulence scared him, but praise the Lord, it didn’t last long. 

Clara: “One of my favorite parts of the ministry this summer was playing with the kids. They liked to play soccer and duck-duck-goose. The little girls really liked hugs. I’m so grateful I got this experience.” 

Sadie: “This summer I learned to praise God all the time, not just in the easy times but the hard times too. When there were only three days left before we came back to the States, we thought we weren’t going to finish laying the flooring in the church. So, we prayed and worked really hard. And, on the last day, we were able to lay the last piece of wood to complete the jobs we had been assigned.” 

Mary: “What a blessing the staff at the Honduras TMI base were to me! They spoke “a little” (as they said) English and I spoke “a little” Spanish and the Lord helped us to fill in the gaps. We enjoyed practicing our language skills with each other and laughing together. Their hospitality, kindness and friendship was an unexpected gift from the Lord this summer. They will forever hold a special place in my heart and I look forward to being able to visit them again.” 

Trey: “After several dry days, our rain barrels were practically empty. We used rain water for everything (except drinking) cleaning, showering, flushing toilets, etc. It was Saturday morning, so we gathered the kids together after devotions to pray specifically for rain. We prayed and then thanked the Lord that He would provide for our needs. In less than 30 minutes, a steady shower began to fall from the sky. The kids were so excited that they ran and brought out their laundry buckets to catch even more water. We prayed and sang a song of praise to thank the Lord for the rain.” 

As you can see, God was so good to all of us this summer. Were there hard times? Yes. Did our kids sometimes struggle? Yep. Were there times that we felt weary and worn out? I’d be lying if I said no. BUT GOD…Even amidst the hard times, God was with us. 

Our Honduras team had some sickness going around when we first arrived on the field. One young lady that was sick had a fever that would spike in the afternoon. On the second evening, it jumped up to 102. We gathered the team and told them to pray. We wanted her to feel better but also we needed her fever to completely break. If not, she would need to go to the doctor the next day. So, the team prayed. Her fever broke in the night and never came back. We battled other sickness off and on all summer long but thankfully, no one had to go to the doctor until we got back to the states. 

There was a mix-up with our tickets (Trey and JC have the same legal name with different suffixes.). The airline thought it was double booked, so they didn’t show Trey as having a reserved seat…on ANY of our flights. Boy, did we do a lot of praying over that! The Lord provided every time. 

Our team was allowed to go into a public Honduran school that had always been closed to groups and share the Gospel through songs, puppets and drama. When it was over, our team enjoyed playing games with the school children. What a privilege!

When Sadie’s team was doing an evangelism presentation on the streets of Poland, they had people ridicule and spit at them. Can you imagine behaving that way towards a bunch of teenagers? Funny enough, instead of discouraging the group, they were excited and emboldened. 

Clara’s team had the awesome opportunity to help people literally see more clearly. Praise the Lord that there were no major medical issues that needed attention from the team’s medical clinic. They were able to minister physically and spiritually to many people. 

Not to mention that the Lord provided for all of the “basics”: safety of travel, physical protection, food, clean water, a place to sleep, and people around us that cared for us. The Lord keeps reminding me that He is THE Good Shepherd (John 10) and oh, how grateful we are for that! 

We are so thankful for how the Lord has provided all of you to partner with us along this journey. Your prayers and support are vital to our family. You are an encouragement to us. Thank you!

With much love and thanks,

Trey & Mary

Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;

Psalm 145:3a