December Happenings

(Pictured above: Our new building)

Dear praying friends,

There is so much to write about, that we hope to communicate all of the important events in just one letter. It is an exciting time to minister here in Santa Ana because of the Bible institute that is being developed in the church, we were able to find a much bigger (and nicer) building for the church, a missionary with a unique testimony came to preach for us, and more people than expected participated in the last Lord’s Supper of the year. Also, the Lord is bonding us closer together as we seek out to minister to Salvadorans as a family.

About six months ago, we were able to start a Bible institute in the church. Steve taught “Philosophy of Discipleship” to a group of four men. As a result, two of these men are currently discipling others. A few years ago, we prayed that the Lord would bless the church with several members who have a burden to evangelize and disciple. Although it has not been easy, and Satan has battled every step of the way, this prayer is becoming a reality. About one month ago, Steve started teaching another course (“How to Study the Bible”), and six men are now taking the course. Please pray that God will give us wisdom to develop leaders. If we continue to serve the Lord faithfully, I know He will allow the church to eventually train and send its own missionaries.

Speaking of missions, about a week ago we received an extra special blessing at the church. A Salvadoran missionary (Gilberto Orellana) came to preach at our church. Brother Orellana is now a missionary in Spain but, began as a missionary to Morocco. While in Morocco, he was imprisoned for leading Muslims to Christ. He shared his testimony with us, and it reinforced the importance of missions to the church. We are preparing to have our 3rd annual missions conference in February, and are looking to be able to support Bro. Orellana. God is burdening our church for missions, as we regularly pray for missionaries, and have faithfully supported 3 missionary families over the past year. We pray that the church realizes that if Bro. Orellana can be a missionary, many of them could be as well.

About one month ago we received a great answer to prayer. For our first three years we were having church services in a medium sized house (5 rooms). For over a year we had been praying to find a bigger house. Our options were limited, since we couldn’t move far away from the area, and it is not common to find a house for rent in our neighborhood. Thankfully, God led us to rent a house only 5 blocks away from the original house. This new house is much bigger (10 rooms), and will allow us to grow the church even further. Thankfully, we were able to celebrate the Lord’s Supper just days after moving. By God’s Grace, 18 church members participated. Some of the church members participated for the first time.

Our family is excited that Rosa graduated from school last week. In El Salvador, the children have an extra school year between Kindergarten and First grade, and it is called Preparatory. This is when the children graduate, instead of Kindergarten. The school year is also different and runs from January to the end of October. We were proud of her graduating with the highest honors, when just a year ago she was struggling to speak Spanish. Caleb desperately wanted to wear a cap and gown like his big sister, and we assured him that his time is coming! Joshua (seven months old) continues to grow and is interacting with his siblings. We have already had to break up little spats between him and Caleb! Thank you for your prayers for our family. May each of you have a wonderful Christmas, celebrating Jesus.

Another Update...

We were able to baptize two men this past Sunday. At first, Mauricio scoffed when Steve talked to him about security of salvation (a big issue here in El Salvador). But with time and much conversation, Mauricio saw that Steve could use the Bible to answer all of his questions. He realized that he had much to learn and began studying the discipleship lessons with Steve. Now he is extremely faithful to all our services and has been baptized.

A Happy Pastor with happy and wet Mauricio.

Here is Eric, the other young man that was baptized. Since asking Jesus to save him, he has been coming to every service, every teen activity, and is planning to attend the all-night Prayer Service that the men are having at the church.

Update: We do not have any new information on the young man who is dealing with extortion (he is the nephew of Mauricio, pictured at the top). He was at church on Sunday and seemed to be doing well. We are not sure how long this could drag out, or what the outcome may be (see our September prayer letter). Please continue to pray for this delicate situation.

September Prayer Letter

September 2011


Dear praying friends,

Hardly able to believe we are halfway through September, we again write to you so we can share our blessings and burdens from El Salvador.

Our family is doing well, and each of the kids is growing so rapidly. Rosa is finishing up another school year (it ends in November) and has done exceptionally well. Caleb loves his baby brother, is learning Spanish, and is being a challenge as most two-year-olds are! Joshua amazes us by how much he eats. At 4.5 months old, he began eating cereal and hasn’t slowed down since. The Salvadorans are amazed at the size of our kids, and they are especially amazed at our 18.5 pound 5 month old!

Since we last wrote, we have had a baptism celebration, a youth activity, and the conclusion of our first Bible Institute course. Our youth group has been growing lately, and we thank God for the salvation of two young men, named Kevin and Rigoberto, aged 16. Since getting saved, they have been coming to church faithfully and are being discipled one-on-one by men in the church. Please pray for their continued spiritual growth.

We have a prayer request that we would like to share with you this month, knowing that you will uphold our family and ministry in prayer. We are concerned for some relatives of a church family. Many of you are aware of the high levels of crime that exist in El Salvador. One serious problem that the people deal with is extortion by gang members. One of the young men that was saved recently is the target of this extortion, and his family is naturally quite worried. His family was told that if they do not give the gang members a certain amount of money by a certain time, there would be grave consequences. As we write this news to you, we are very unsure of how this will all turn out. But in the midst of this struggle, we see the spiritual growth of Wilfredo, who is faithful to our church. He is relying on God to pull his family through this difficult time and is not panicking. Please keep the family of Wilfredo in your prayers as they experience a very scary, uncertain time. Pray for us as we minister to them and try to help them through this.

Our daughter Rosa overheard us talking about this situation, and was quite scared. We reminded her that God protects us and that He is in control of every situation, even situations like this one. Although we don’t understand, He does, and will complete His will. Our kids have been so young and have not understood some of the dangers and struggles of living here. But now, Rosa understands and is seeing more of what is going on. Please pray for us as we try to teach her to not be scared, but to trust in God and be careful.

As always, we want to thank you for your faithful support and prayers for us and our ministry. Without your part, we would not be here. Thank you for everything.


In Christ,
The Cernas

August News

We had a Baptismal Service in August. It was great to see 2 teenage boys (Miguel and Pablo)and one girl (Jeymey) show our church that they have been saved and want to be obedient. The two boys are in the middle of receiving one-on-one discipleship lessons each week. I only have one picture since I was busy taking care of a mountain of children and was unable to see the first two baptisms.

We had a youth activity at our house and we had our largest group ever! Another exciting part of this is that we had three men there who are one-on-one discipling some of these teens. The men are teaching the boys the things they have learned about the Bible. It is our hope that these teens will one day teach others what they have learned, and then those will teach others. We want this to become a pattern!

Steve gave the boys a short challenge from the Bible and then we made giant ice cream sundaes, and played some games. The boys are looking forward to next month's activity!

April prayer Letter

April 2011

Dear praying friends,

Baby Joshua Cesar Cerna is here! He was born on April 7th at 11:15 in the evening, and in perfect health. We are so grateful for a healthy baby. We are also grateful that the labor and delivery was short (about 45 minutes) and that less than two weeks later, Christine feels completely healthy and strong. Thank you for your prayers for our family. God has been so good to us. Rosa and Caleb are very happy with their new brother. Caleb calls Joshua “my baby” as if the baby belongs to him only. Rosa continuously says “I can’t believe he is finally here with us!” Now we ask you for prayers as we try to balance life with three children, our time ministering to others, and our daily walk with God.

As we prepared for Joshua’s birth, we had the opportunity to develop more Sunday school teachers. Up to this point, Christine and a teenager in our church have been the only consistent teachers. Knowing that Christine would be unable to teach for a few weeks, some ladies stepped up and volunteered to start teaching. We developed a plan for teaching these ladies how to teach, and now we are happy to say that we have three new ladies working as Sunday school teachers. A man in our church named Santiago has learned how to lead music and now has taken that responsibility. Pray that we can continue to develop believers into church workers. The first steps have been taken to having a church that can run itself without us, the missionaries.

As you know, El Salvador is a dangerous place, and we ask you to continue to pray for protection for us and our church members. Saturday soul-winning included a scary experience for some of our men. Two of our church members came across the body of a man who had been shot in the head. Instead of being frightened to go soul-winning again, one of our men said he trusted God to keep him safe while doing His work. We thank God for men who are not afraid to do what is right. At the same time, we do not take this lightly, and ask you to earnestly pray for God’s guidance and protection in a crime-ridden country.

We continue to encourage our people to remember their faith promise giving. They were greatly impacted by meeting the missionaries during our last conference, and are still generously giving to support four missionaries on a monthly basis. One of our men even made a thermometer that we fill in at the end of each month, to chart how much our church has given to missions. When another man who has visited our church noticed the amount our people have given to missions, his son’s response was, “it is a miracle of God”. Pray for continued faithfulness in the area of giving to missions.

We would like to conclude this letter with more good news. In our last letter, we told you about Anthony Escobar, the little boy with kidney failure. We all thought that constant kidney dialysis was his only hope. But with some good doctors and a change in his diet, he has improved and is not on dialysis any more. We are so grateful for this answer to prayer. Our church sees God answering prayers, and this is so exciting. Please continue to pray for Anthony. He has had a relapse once before and we ask you to pray for continued health for him. Thank you again for all of your prayers, faithful support, and interest in what we are doing for the Lord in El Salvador.

Missions Conference March, 2011

The begining of our Missions Conference started with songs about reaching the world for Christ. Here is Santiago leading the music, with Marlon and Mauricio playing guitar.

Part of the congregation. Since we rent a house for our church building, people are in other rooms listening also. This is the main, largest room.

Steve explaining Faith Promise and what misisonaries do and who they are.

Christine, Rosa, and Steve with our missionaries to Romania, The Gonzaleses. Our church now supports their family monthly.

Wiliam gave a testimony of how Faith Promise has impacted his life over the past year. He challenged new members to give also.

This is Adrian Sandoval, the other missionary we had preach in our conference. He works in a rural part of El Salvador as a missionary. Our church also supports him. You can see another part of our church building (another room of the house) from this angle.

Christine taught the story of Amy Carmichael to the children as part of the missions theme that was kept in the children's class also.

The children learned that missionaries have to learn lots of new things, like how to eat different foods in new ways. The children tried Chinese rice and attempted to eat it with chop sticks.

Baptisms March 20, 2011

Wiliam found Ronaldo in Central Park a few months ago. After leading him to Christ, he was discipled and now is also baptized.

This is Marcela, the 18 year old sister of Marlon and Mauricio. Their changed lives impacted Marcela, and she became a Christian a few months ago during the Salvation Invitation and is being discipled.

Karla was also baptized the same day. She is currently studying Discipleship Lesson #7 out of 16.

Pray for Antony Davet

Antony is the son of some of our most faithful members, Marlon and Karla. He is in need of a kidney transplant, but cannot have one until he is seven years old (he is now four), so he is on dialysis permanently. He has been in the hospital for about a month now.

End of the Year Dinner

We planned a dinner to celebrate the end of the year. For the past two years, a sister church of ours has planned the dinner, prepared the food, and served our church. They have done so much for us, helping us to get started. But this year, we decided to plan everything and do all of the work ourselves. Almost every person in this picture cooked, served, decorated, and/or cleaned up afterwards. We served over 130 people, many of which were visitors. This was our big evangelistic push, and our people were eager to help make this happen. It was very encouraging for us. We watched as plans had to be changed and people had to be flexible when a bigger crowd came than we expected. Everyone maintained a sweet spirit and servant's heart. We were amazed to see how well everyone worked together.