February Prayer Letter

Dear Praying Friends,

We hope and pray that you have had a blessed start to 2010. It is an exciting year for us for many reasons. Despite the trials that Satan tries to discourage us with, we continue onward, with as much focus and intensity as ever.

One of the greatest challenges that we face this year is bridging the gap between evangelism and discipleship. By God´s grace we have gotten the opportunity to disciple several people during the past couple of years. However, most of the people that we’ve discipled were led to the Lord elsewhere. In order to be able to disciple more of those that we lead to the Lord, God has impressed upon our hearts to improve follow-up. Over the past two months we have been sending letters and visiting every week those that have been led to Christ. We also pray for these prospects every day. Please pray that, eventually, many of those that have been led to the Lord will receive discipleship.

Another great challenge that we face this year is with the youth. Thankfully, we had a teen camp two months ago, and our young people were challenged to live for God. Please pray for Ronald Figueroa, José Luís Alabí, and Victor Asencio. These young men are being discipled by Steve, and they have been faithful to attend church over the past few months. Mormonism is very active here in El Salvador, and this cult has been targeting teenagers aggressively over the past few years. It is sad to see how many teenagers have fallen prey to this false system. Please pray that we can minister to the youth, so that they would not be deceived by a cult.
We are confident that if we continue to trust in the Lord and work hard, God will eventually give us a strong youth group. In the future, we plan on having more activities with the youth, and even a youth service. For all of this, there is a great need for God´s wisdom. Brother William Cuellar just recently got married, and God is developing a greater burden in him for the youth. Please pray that God would give us more laborers that will be involved with the youth.

If the Lord permits, March 6th and 7th are the dates of our 1st annual missions conference. As a church, it is our goal to be able to support one missionary family on a monthly basis. Even though, at the moment, we are a small church, there is no doubt in our minds that God will start using us to support missionaries. We pray that over the course of time, the church will not only be able to support missionaries, but to train and send them as well. For the conference, we’ve invited Pastor Luis Castro, who was a missionary to Mexico for 16 years. Please pray that our hearts would be challenged to participate in missions in a great way.

We are thankful for your prayers for our family. As some of you know, Rosa broke her arm on New Year’s Day. That was quite a difficult day for her (and for us also). It was actually good that Christine broke her foot last October, because Rosa was not quite as scared of the visit to the hospital and the placement of the cast. She recently saw all of this happen to her mom. That certainly helped ease a difficult day for Rosa. Even with a cast, she was still a bundle of energy that only runs on one speed- full blast! Her broken arm did not slowed her down at all. In fact, Christine continuously reminded her that her arm was broken and she needed to slow down.
Caleb is talking a lot for his age, thanks to a talkative sister that helps him learn how to speak. He has been healthy and we are grateful. He is starting to be more fun for Rosa since he can actually play with her now. We enjoy watching them together. As always, we ask you to pray for our children’s health. We also ask that you pray God gives us continual wisdom to raise them properly. It is a daily challenge that can only be met with God’s help.

Thank you for your prayers. We are able to minister in El Salvador because of your giving and your praying.

The Cernas

Youth Group Ice Cream Sundaes and Game Night

We invited the teens of our church to make Ice Cream Sundaes and play games at our house after church Sunday. They thoroughly enjoyed the huge bowls of ice cream I dished up. They couldn't believe all the good stuff we had to put on top...it was a real treat for them. Afterwards, they got into a serious game of UNO. We feel that the night was a big success, drawing our small group of teens even closer to each other. Pray they will grow in God's grace and become great leaders in the church one day.