November 2019 Prayer Letter
Good Day,
The last couple of months have been very busy with furlough travel, starting school for the children and more. Furlough is always a bit difficult because we are very busy visiting churches. Though it may be difficult at times, it is an honor to be able to serve the Lord. He allows us to be a small part of His work and for that we are very grateful.
For several months now we have been asking you to pray for the political situation in Bolivia. The presidential elections were October 20th and, sadly, they turned out as we expected. To be as brief as possible, election night preliminary results were showing the opposition leader and the current president in a very close race. With neither candidate able to meet the constitutional criteria to be declared the winner, everyone was expecting a run-off vote on December 15th. Then suddenly the voting results updates stopped before the night was over. The next day the president came out and said enough votes had been “found” to put him in the lead, and that there would be no run-off in December. With this, the people automatically started suspecting fraud and began protesting. By the end of the official vote count the current president appeared to have won with 0.12% extra points needed so that he legally did not have to have the second vote. This caused the protesting to increase in number as well as intensity. There have been millions of people in the streets participating in the protests. As of the writing of this letter, they are on their 12th day of civil strikes, which consists of blocking the roads to not allow any land travel and the majority have stopped working. These opposition protests have been mostly peaceful, however, the group in power are fighting against these strikes and have been very violent; beating people in the streets, throwing dynamite and have even killed some people. I am afraid the problems are just starting. In the last couple of days, all 9 states of Bolivia have officially declared that they refuse the current “fraudulent” results. They are calling for the president’s resignation, for a new election committee and for a new election.
Our family is safe in the states at this time but our people are not. The strikes have greatly affected the people from our first church. Due to the roadblocks they have been cut off from much of their food supply and their very living, their work. We are concerned for them as most of them literally pray for their daily bread. Pastor Francisco lives a good distance from the church. He walked 6 hours, about 21 miles, one way last Sunday for services. Our second church is doing ok at the moment. The pastor is personally struggling financially. Our family gave him and his wife a little extra this month to try and help them.
While we are in the states, we have a project we are working toward. This project is to buy property for our second church. As you may remember, there are sin issues in the house where we have been meeting. These issues are public in this small community and have actually gotten worse since we left. For these reasons, we must move the church location when we return. Our project is to raise the finances for church property. So far, our time has been blessed with several churches that have partnered with us. We are asking churches to partner with us for $1,000 or more. This will allow us to do what we are calling a “church in a box”. If we have calculated correctly, we should be able to purchase everything needed to turn this work into a self operating/supporting church. At this point we are over half way to our goal and only need 15 more churches to partner with us on this project. Thank you to those of you who have helped thus far! Please pray for us as we are out traveling and raising the funds for this project.
Thank you for praying for Ellie. As you know, we made the decision that my family would not do much traveling while we are in the states. Ellie was really struggling from all the changes due to her autism. However, since Jessica and the children have settled in our hometown, Ellie has greatly improved. They have started school and a new therapy and the routine schedule has really helped her. I hate being away from them so much but at this point, I have no other option. We are all looking forward to getting back to Bolivia so I can stop traveling so much.
We are excited about the future of the ministry in Bolivia!. Please pray for us, the safety of our people and good resolution to the problems in Bolivia.
