June 2014
Dear
Praying Friends,
Rainy
season has begun here in El Salvador, but don´t let that make you think it is
cooler here now. It is quite the opposite. With the evening storms comes
extremely hot weather during the day. It
seems that every church night is the time of the strongest down pours. But most
of our people still come; we just give a lot of people rides that normally
would walk.
We enjoy
sharing updates from the Bible Institute almost every prayer letter. This time, we would like to share our vision
for growth. While our plan is to always keep the Bible Institute as a resource
for laypersons, we believe that it is God’s will for us to start a Bible
College in the future. We have become aware of the need for young people to
have a place where they can prepare for ministry. As far as we know, there is
no type of Bible College on this side of the country. We are praying about
this, and making plans with this vision in our hearts. Although this will not happen for a number of
years, we wanted you, our prayer partners, to be aware of a big prayer request
that we have for the future. While we
make these plans, we are working to train men to become pastors. There are five
men who have learned to preach through the Bible Institute, and they preach in
church services every three months. It is our prayer that some of these men
will start other churches within the next five years.
In the
church, there is a dear family that has been faithful since the beginning of
the church plant nearly six years ago.
The first thing that happened was the salvation of the grandmother, Holanda.
Soon after, the grandfather, Jose Luis, was saved. Then their grown daughter,
Herlinda, raised her hand during an invitation and asked Jesus in her heart.
This was quite miraculous because Herlinda’s husband is a staunch Catholic and
at first, was completely against his wife coming to church. Then Herlinda’s 12
year old son Douglas put his faith in Jesus after church one Sunday. He was quite worried about not having his father´s
approval, but realized the salvation of his soul was very important. This was followed by Jessica´s salvation
(Herlinda´s granddaughter) a few months later. While this family grows spiritually, they have
been heavily attacked health-wise.
Almost every person in their family who has made a profession of faith
has had some serious health issues. For example, Jose Luis has had a number of
operations, including the removal of one of his eyes. Now, there is a problem with Douglas. He
found a large tumor in his armpit, which the doctors quickly removed and have
sent off for tests. We must wait for about two months on the test results to
see if it is cancerous or not. The family is naturally worried, but doing their
best to trust in God during this most recent trial. We ask you to pray for this
young man. Sometimes there are certain young people who really stand out from
the others. He is one of them. He has a
true passion to study the Bible and is completing a discipleship course with
Steve. He recently commented that for youth meetings, there is no need to have
other activities. Why don’t we just study the Bible? Please pray for this family of new believers
as they grow through some serious trials.
Thank you
for your prayers for us and for Steve´s mom. She had successful surgery but
there are still some cancerous cells, so radiation is the next step. We are thankful for all of your prayers!
