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.
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.
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