January 2015 Prayer Letter

January 2015

Dear praying friends,

                The beginning of the year has brought many blessings both in our family and in the ministry.  We are thankful for what God is doing in the lives of many of the church members and for how He continues to open doors for us to reach others with the Gospel.

                Just two weeks ago, one of the missionaries that our church supports (Rubén Darío González) came to one of our services to preach. He and his family have been serving in Romania for about 20 years.  To the best of anyone’s knowledge, they were the first Latin American Spanish family to serve as Baptist missionaries in Eastern Europe.  It is always a great blessing to see a Salvadoran family being greatly used of God.  My prayer is that the members of our church would be so impacted by God’s call in their lives, that our church will finally send missionaries to the furthest regions of the world. 

                The church Bible institute has started its first quarter of the year, and there are 5 men enrolled.  Please pray for three of these men who will graduate at the end of this year if they pass the remaining course work.  These men are preaching regularly at the church, and we are excited at the prospect of starting another church in this city sometime in the future.  We also ask you to   pray that God would bring more men to the institute, and who will surrender their lives to do what God wants them to do. 

                We are also thankful for how God is allowing us to see people receive Christ.  About 2 months ago, the ex-husband of a lady who had been a member of our church for a few years came to visit for a Wednesday evening service. None of us had ever met him before, and did not know who he was when he came.  While dealing with him after the service, we found out that he had come with the purpose of receiving Christ as his Savior!  Since he received Christ, he has been faithfully attending services, and Steve has started the discipleship course with him.  Please pray for this man (Juan Ricardo Arévalo) and for our church as we are in the process of knocking on 20,000 doors this year.  We praise God that we have already seen 4 professions of faith from these efforts, and we pray that many of these decisions turn out to be disciples for Christ.      

                The school year starts in January here, and our kids were excited to get back and start a new year. Caleb is in preparatory, the equivalent of first grade.  Rosa started fourth grade.  Joshua is homeschooling with Christine. We have found that it is best to give our kids a good base in the English language before we send them to a Spanish speaking school.  Our prayer is that they will have mastery over both languages.  We are amazed at the strides Caleb and Rosa have made in being able to communicate and understand the culture here. Since English is their first language, it makes us laugh when they naturally do something very Salvadoran (a gesture or an expression) without even thinking about it.  Please continue to pray for us as we raise our kids. Thank you for your continued prayers.