The Matos

August 2026

Dear friends,

I hope this communication finds you well.

I can hardly believe a year has already passed since I joined this team. It's been a year full of memorable moments — with incredible coworkers and with our thirteen partners across the globe, all working toward the same vision: transforming lives through Christ-centered education. Thank you for being part of this journey with me.

It has been a little while since my last update in June, and looking back over these past two months, I keep coming back to the same feeling: gratitude. Not the polite kind we say out of habit, but the kind that catches you off guard when you sit with the reports, the photos, the voices of our partners describing what God has done.

The beginning of summer was one of the busiest seasons of my year with Edudeo. Our ministry partners' fiscal year closes in June, so much of my time went into reviewing reports, sitting with our thirteen international partners to talk honestly about what worked and what didn't, and helping shape the plans and proposals that will carry us into the year ahead. From the outside, it probably looked like nothing more than Zoom calls, spreadsheets, and budget lines. But I want you to know: behind every one of those documents is a child's face. A teacher who stayed late. Lives being reshaped by a Christ-centered education.

After that stretch, Yolanda and I finally slowed down for a few days. We went home to Barahona and then up into the mountains of Jarabacoa with family. I'll be honest — I needed it. It reminded me that rest isn't a break from ministry. It's part of how God sustains us for it.

Seeing God at Work Across Our Partnerships

One of the great privileges of this work is that I get a front-row seat to what God is doing in places most of you will never set foot in. Every report I open is a reminder that your prayers and your giving are not abstractions — they are showing up, in real time, in real lives.

In Ethiopia, the long-awaited gymnasium at Wonji Shewa School is finally nearing completion, after years of waiting on funding. Pastor Getahun told me he attended twelve graduation ceremonies this season alone — twelve rooms full of families watching a child cross a stage that once felt impossibly far away.

In Ghana, our partner INGH celebrated excellent national exam results, and they're preparing to mark 40 years of ministry later this year, having just navigated a smooth leadership transition. Forty years of faithfulness is not a small thing.

Here at home in the Dominican Republic, our preventive health clinics completed more than 1,000 medical consultations and six outreach days, reaching over 4,000 people who might otherwise have gone without care. And one of our scholarship students, Keiry, finished her academic program this summer — an ending that, if you knew her story, you'd know represents years of quiet perseverance most people never saw.

In Guatemala, a rural Christian school welcomed a new principal, and a new cooking program is doing something beautiful and unexpected: bringing students and parents into the same kitchen, strengthening a community one shared meal at a time.

In Malawi, our CCAP Livingstonia partners celebrated a good harvest even as construction continues on the new Kapoka Science Laboratory. What moves me most here is that the community isn't just receiving this project — they're building it, contributing their own labor and materials alongside what you've given. It's theirs.

But the story that stayed with me longest this month came from Uganda.

For years, Saint Martin Community Secondary School had no real kitchen. Meals were cooked in a temporary shelter beneath mango trees — until heavy rains collapsed it. Cooks were left discouraged. Students were embarrassed to line up for a meal in the mud. Teachers watched, unable to offer even this most basic form of care.

When Bishop George wrote to us this month, one line stopped me:

"Learners can now confidently walk and receive meals with dignity... We are truly grateful."

Sit with that word for a second — dignity. Not a new building. Not a statistic. Dignity. Sometimes we imagine ministry has to be big to matter — a new school wing, a headline-worthy project. But sometimes it's a roof over a cooking fire, and it changes how hundreds of students see themselves. That is the love of Christ, made practical.

Much of my work happens behind a computer screen: coaching leaders, reviewing reports, planning workshops, strengthening partnerships one conversation at a time. It's easy for that kind of work to feel invisible. But then I read a line like Bishop George's, and I'm reminded that even the quietest, most unseen parts of this ministry become very tangible grace in the lives of real children.

This new fiscal year will bring several chances to travel and be with our partners in person, and I'm looking forward to it — because healthy partnerships aren't built through projects alone. They're built through presence, through sitting across a table from someone and simply being there. We'd be grateful for your prayers as those plans come together.

Would You Pray With Me?

Alongside all these encouraging stories, there are burdens I carry that I want to share honestly with you, because I believe you'll carry them with me.

• Please pray for our brothers and sisters in Haiti. The security situation continues to worsen. This month, a board member from our partner organization CRECH lived through the kidnapping of a child in their own family. The child was, thank God, rescued safely by police — but I want you to sit with how close that fear lives to the families we serve every single day. Please pray for God's protection over their staff, schools, and communities, and for the resources needed to simply keep textbooks and learning materials safe.

• Please also pray for Malawi, where difficult economic conditions continue to strain vulnerable families even as the Kapoka Science Lab rises from the ground.

• And please pray for our partners in Ghana, where the Kpogede Preschool project sits unfinished, waiting on the funding to bring it home.

Thank You

As I move through these reports each month, I'm struck again and again that none of this happens in isolation.

Every graduation. Every classroom. Every scholarship. Every new building. Every child who meets Christ through education, is only possible because someone like you chose to pray. Chose to give. Chose to stay faithfully beside us, even from a distance.

Thank you for making  possible that we  serve in this ministry. Thank you for being part of every one of these stories, even the ones you'll never see with your own eyes.

If you would pray for one thing this month, let it be for our partners serving faithfully in hard places — especially our brothers and sisters in Haiti. And pray, too, that God would keep giving me the wisdom to walk well alongside each of our thirteen international partners.

And if you have a moment, I would love to hear how you are doing. Simply hitting reply is always a gift to me.

With gratitude,

Mario Matos

International Partnership Director EduDeo Ministries

Partner Missionary, Resonate Global Mission
mmatos@edudeo.com
+1 (809) 980-5125