November 2020 Prayer Letter
We write to you once again with great excitement at what the Lord is doing here. What a pleasure it is that He would allow us to be a part!
In October, our first church, Monte Carmelo celebrated their 2nd anniversary. It was encouraging to see all the people participating. They had special singers, a guest preacher and a meal after the service. They were able to do all of this on their own. The church has had to overcome a lot in this past year. Very few churches less than 2 years old could have survived the political unrest and 7 months of being shut down due to a global pandemic. Thankfully, this church has survived without any outside help, apart from that of our amazing God, of course.
The church has a new challenge to face this month. When we turned the church over, we put a family in place to help Pastor Francisco. This family came from another church. The husband had prepared in bible college, had taught Sunday school for years and served in many more ways. He has been a great help in Monte Carmelo. Our desire was to later work with him to start our next church. However, in October he found out he had an aggressive type of leukemia. He passed away about 3 weeks later. He left behind his wife and three small children, one of which was sick in the hospital when he passed and even during his funeral. Please pray for this family. Also please pray for wisdom and guidance for Pastor Francisco as he works to continue leading this young church. Please pray for laborers to rise up from the membership, or who would come and work alongside of him.
After much prayer, planning and preparation, we purchased property for our new church. The Lord worked a miracle! The land prices in our area had gone up since we started this project, yet He allowed us to select a lot in an excellent location, and we paid $6,000 less than the cost of the lots around us. This price point is allowing us to do a little more construction work than what we had originally planned to be able to do.
We started construction as soon as possible! We found a former pastor who now works in construction and he has been wonderful to work with. This man not only gave us a fair price, but he also started working the same day. Every time I go look at the progress, I am amazed! It is going much faster than I ever expected. Our goal is to have our very first service on the new property for Christmas and it looks like we might make that goal. We plan to have an extra special service that includes a baptism and a nice meal that day.
The first weekend of December we plan to have the ordination service for Rogelio, the man that will pastor the church. He has been doing the work of the pastor but has never been officially ordained. He has a special connection with his people that I have seen in few pastors, and it is a joy to be able to work with him and his wife, Patricia. As we press toward the goal of this work becoming autonomous, his ordination will be another step in the right direction.
Please keep both churches in your prayers. Each has their own challenges ahead. Our family and the Pastors need wisdom and guidance to make sure everything is done correctly and according to God's plan.
