May 2019 Prayer Letter

We are in exciting times. The Lord is doing great things amongst us. There is nothing better in life than to serve the Lord with your family. God has allowed us to do just that.

In the last couple of months, we have seen the church in the north grow. It hasn’t grown a lot in numbers but the people are growing spiritually. In April, we had the privilege to have our first baptism. We have also had several saved in the last month, so we will hopefully get to have another baptism very soon.

All these people being saved has created a problem. We need more help! We have so many people that need to be discipled that we cant keep up with that and do our normal visitation too. What a wonderful problem to have! I am starting to get a better glimpse of why Christ asked us to pray for laborers in the harvest. Unfortunately, we have also had to slow down on our big evangelism days too. We just have too many people come and not enough laborers.

One of our newly saved ladies has invited us to start having bible studies in her home. We are using that as an opportunity to try and reach her neighbors that might not ever step foot in the church otherwise. Please pray for her husband. He has seemed very interested but has not yet accepted Christ. I don’t believe he is far, if he will only take that step of faith! I believe God is working on him.

We are also starting to have people take interest in helping within the church. They are coming to us and asking for something to do in the church. We now have a lady that has been helping clean the church for us. We have a man that has become our door greeter as people come in. We have another man that is preparing to start helping us count the offerings. This is starting to take a load away from our family and Pastor Francisco’s family as we arrive on Sunday mornings. I am looking forward to the day that they help us knock doors and disciple too.

In early April, we had a movie night in one of the community soccer fields. We had about 50 people show up and watch a video on the life of Christ. One special moment in this was a man that helped. He is the husband the lady that has been helping us clean. He is a fairly strong catholic and has refused to have anything to do with us. In preparations for this movie night he went personally and talked to the leader of the neighborhood about sending a message to invite the community. He also promised he would come to the church on Sunday. He has not come yet, but this was a big step for the man. We have been praying for him and ask you to help pray for him too.

Our new church on the south side is also doing fine. Due to the family issue out there, it is still going slow, but we are trying to remedy this. This is taking much longer than I expected.

We also had a lady within this work lose her baby. While it was a horrible situation, it was an opportunity to minister to her and her family. Here, the missionary often plays the role of pastor, funeral home director, use their personal vehicle as the hearse and even help dig the hole. We did help in much of that for this baby. I doubt I will ever forget seeing the father drop to his knees weeping as Pastor Rogelio and I lowered the casket into the hole. But I am thankful we had the opportunity to share the gospel and to minister to him during this time.

To close, we continue to ask you to pray for the political situation here in Bolivia. So far, things are ok. There have not been a lot of issues yet but the closer we get to the October election, I fear we will start seeing a lot more. The people believe that if the current president wins, he will never come out of office. They also fear that if he loses, he will find some way to force himself to stay in office. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard this election referred to as the next Venezuela. Please pray for us and for the country.

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