January 2026 Conchshell Chronicles

Utila Café is opening next week!

 

We are opening our café on Utila this month, and hope to be open all year. We are taking our team of Daisy, Hannah, Jake and Daniel, along with Moselle, Arielle, Lukas and Mikaela to help us open the café. Laura & I will stay until March 18, when we need to return to Vero Beach.

What an exciting opportunity! Many of our friends are awaiting our arrival, and we will meet many new friends.

Please pray for us as we begin a new season of ministry on this island that draw divers from all corners of the world.  MB

 

The Rio Coco Cafe is surrounded by five scuba and free diving schools

We have been going to this island since 1989, when we were living in La Ceibs Honduras, just 18 miles away from Utila on the mainland,

Here is Mikaela learning to swim while Lukas awaits his arrival .

 

Rio Coco Nicaragua

 This month, Tom and Nutie return to Waspam to work with the Young Life Nicaragua leaders in expanding the Bible Clubs to more communities along the Coco River.

We are considering renovating our Discipleship Center building which we built in 2008-9 to be use to house the Young Life leaders, as well as host Young Life retreats and conferences throughout the year. We want to be ready for the harvest that we believe the Lord will bring.

Waspam Discipleship Center 2016

Therer are a few issues to address:

Our roof is in desperate need of repair. Over the years storms have taken away parts of the roof and the wooden structure needs to be replaced.

We need to drill a well on the property to proved adequate bathroom and shower water for many visitors.

Please join us in prayer that God will direct our plans and many of the youth on the River will be reached this year.

Pray for good health for Nutie and Tom, as well as Bency and the Young Life team. Pray that God will allow us to repair the building in these next months.  Pray that He will touch many  of our students along the Coco River this year!                                     

 

  Tom and Nutie are well know Bible teachers and worship leaders on the Coco River.

 

Wisdom for 2026

2026 has just begun.

How it will be depends much on our choices we will make.

What job should I take? Who should I marry.

Where should I live? Where do I invest my savings?

How do I reply to this insult just spoken to me.

What do I say when my spouse becomes angry?

How do I handle rowdy neighbors?

What is the best way to end this conversation?

These choices will frame your year 2026. We need Wisdom!

“Wisdom is competence with regard to the realities of life.”

                             Gerhard von Rad   ‘The Wisdom of Israel’

Wisdom is skill in understanding how life really works.

Wisdom assumes knowledge. 

Wisdom is knowing what to do with knowledge.

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.

Wisdom is not putting a tomato into a fruit salad.

“Wisdom is knowing what the right thing is to do in the 80% of life situations which the moral rules don’t directly apply.”   Tim Keller

Where do we go for wisdom? Scrolling through our phones? Watching our favorite talk show? Talking with our hair cutter? Reading the latest “How to” book?

There is one source that has a proven track record of giving mankind good information on the optimum manner of making choices- the Bible.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. Pro. 9:10

The Hebrew word for fear (yirah) can be translated four ways: reverence, worship, awesomeness and fear (terror).    Wisdom is knowing the source of wisdom, and it is reverence for God, and an understanding of His astonishing, breathtaking  character, power and love for us.

He is the source of all true wisdom, and He has given us much through his words in the Bible, especially in the Book of Proverbs.

A dear friend, Hal Jones, told me over 30 years ago that he   begins his day by reading the Proverbs chapter of the day. Since there are 31 chapters, he reads the chapter for that calendar day. At that time, Hal was the owner of the largest real estate company in Hawaii, as well as haven be a very successful missionary in the Middle East. Ever since then, I have made it my habit to start my day with the Proverbs ‘chapter of the day .’

Since then, I have learned so much about myself, relationships, my speech, my attitude toward money, my work, my personal economy, how I plan my day and my interactions with others. I use my phone each morning to read Proverbs before I get out of bed. I highlight what it is that God is speaking to me that day. My seasons change, and other verses get highlighted each day, which is a handy reminder the following month as I read it again.

Words seem to jump off the page at me in a surprising manner. It’s as if God knows my thoughts, He knows the issues that I’m dealing with, and He is offering His counsel. It’s an encounter with God, and myday is different as a result.

I encourage you to dive into Proverbs each morning.

These past three weeks, I have been teaching Wisdom From Proverbs to our Saturday morning group at the Rio Coco Café as well as on Wednesday nights at Central Assembly. In preparation I have created a blog for each session that contains my script for each teaching session.

Wisdom From Proverbs

Part 1: Wisdom: What, why, Where How & Who

Part 2: Sex & Money (The most talked about topics in the Bible)

Part 3: Relationships and Your Words (One is affects the other)

If you go to our website seekthelamb.com and click on the   upper left menu (or scroll down to the bottom) and click on “Biblical Studies”, You will see some photos with the first topic  below “Wisdom from Proverbs.”  Click and select Parts 1, 2 & 3.

Let this be a year of change for us all in our scope of understanding God’s will for our lives and how to better navigate the issues we will face in 2026. The key element is hearing from the Holy Spirit as to the particulars of application of each of the principles that He highlights each morning. Then comes the time to ask Him to empower us to walk out each day, making wise choices and ignoring those voices of our culture and those spiritual forces that we battle against on a daily basis. Our thoughts are the battleground, and disciplines are built on momentary decisions, step by step, day by day.                                                                      Michael

 

Lamb Bleatings: The Ready Room

 

LTJG Michael Bagby, Attack Squadrom 52, A-6 Intruder

 A while back, Michael  described to me the moments before being launched off a carrier as a pilot flying an A-6 Intruder.  The pilots gathered in the Ready Room for the briefing before they launch off the boat. Each pilot received  the orders from the commanders before each flight. 

Once receiving these order from their commanders, they went up to the flight deck and preflight the jet, started then engines, waited to be launched. There was much training that allowed these pilots to perform their duties as pilots and warriors. Michael’s flight school was almost two years and learning to fly the A-6 took another year. The reality is that we as a nation have to be able to defend ourselves from all of our enemies, foreign and domestic. Michael’s job as a pilot was one part of the overall plan.

We are all designed to be Warriors in the battle for the Way, the truth and the Life and victorious for Eternity as laid out by the Perfect Creator and eternal Engineer.  Our beginning and End for the purposes of which we were designed according to God Maker of Heaven and earth.

In every area of study and observation, I can only conclude that God is constantly in pursuit to have a full meaningful love relationship with every person He made and placed here on earth. The Word of God fills us with the Truth and foundation to Real Life which moves us into a purposeful meaningful realm that cannot be described except by those who ask in faith to receive Jesus into their hearts. Each having to own their faith and relationship with the divine Triune God who is our protecting Heavenly Father, Jesus the Sacrificial Son who embodied the fullness of God here on earth to live a sinless life (the Only One) and the Holy Spirit who guides and teaches us in all wisdom.  

I am enamored and so absolutely in awe and in love with my God, Savior, King and as He increases in me and my life and I decrease …. My existence gets richer and fuller as his divine power lends to every single situation and moment I get to have on this planet. 

I need to spend time in my Ready Room alone with my Commander in Chief and receive my direct orders. I love His words that come to life as I actually let God rule the moment and not my thought, habit, or way.

I enjoy watching the Creator and lover of my soul show me the way He meant things to be. I love the detail of my God in the creation around me and love seeing the Master Artist at work. I love being able to hand over my every frustration and angst to Someone that can do everything about anything.  I love that every word that He speaks is True and that all of His characteristics is LOVE, JOY , PEACE , PATIENCE, KINDNESS, GOODNESS, FAITHFULNESS, GENTLENESS AND COMPLETE PERFECT CONTROL.

I love that His mercy , grace and loving kindness are new every morning .  I delight in His Love and affection for me and am constantly amused at his way of expressing His presence  in my life in the details that he knows before I even ask. I am astounded and have gotten increasing more excited just  thinking about what gig He is going to pull off and keeping  him in my loop in every second of every day….

 My distraction (s) can be deafening but, I am encouraged by the fact that my times in the Ready Room continue to grow and bear the fruits of God and what He is speaking out loud with detail in my heart.                                Laura

 

How Can You Help This Month?

1) Pray for a successful opening of the Utila Rio Coco Café.

2) Support one of our Seek The Lamb missionaries;

3) Help us repair the Waspam office roof.

 

Spiritual Arrows / Your Prayers:

Please pray that God will:

1) Protect Nutie & Tom as they travel in Nicaragua & downriver.

2) Bring many into the Rio Coco Cafes in Utila and Vero Beach this month.

3) Provide us with missionaries for the Rio Coco Café on Utila.

4) Keep our Utila team healthy during these next months.

 

Here is our secure donation page.

Seek The Lamb Giving

Thanks for your prayers for us all.