Dear
praying friends,
The month
of April begins the hottest season of the year. Today, the high is 99 degrees.
This temperature will stay consistent until around October. But don’t feel bad
for us; we don’t usually mind the heat. God has placed us in the right country.
We would have suffered in an icy cold country!
We have had some exciting events take place at our church. We would like
to share these with you and ask you to continue to pray as we serve the Lord in
El Salvador
In March,
our dear friend Luis Castro passed on to Heaven. While we are sad for the loss
of an insightful, experienced mentor, we are happy that he is no longer in
pain. Please continue to pray for Aracely, his widow. We thought a lot of Luis Castro as we held
our Missions Conference. He preached for our first Conference four years
ago. Thankfully, the church is
continuing its burden for missions, as they have committed to give more than
last year.
By God’s
grace, it looks like we are making strides with soul-winning. This month of
April we have seen more decisions to receive Christ than the last three months
combined. Steve led a man (Roberto) to
Christ who is now being discipled by one of the faithful members of the church. Steve has also started to disciple a man
(Francisco) that he led to Christ a few weeks ago. Please pray for us as we follow-up on these
converts, and that we could see more fruit that remains from this door-knocking
ministry.
The Bible
institute concluded its second official quarter at the end of March. We thank the Lord that three men were able to
finish the two courses (Personal Evangelism and Local Church Philosophy). At the beginning of this new quarter there
are five men registered to take the next two courses (Book of Acts and Bible
Doctrines). Please pray that these men
would continue to be interested in learning the Bible, that God eventually will
bring in many more men to be trained, and that Steve would have the necessary
wisdom to develop and teach the courses.
As Paul told Titus to “ordain elders in every city (Titus 1:5),” it is
our prayer that God uses us to ordain preachers (start churches) in every major
city of El Salvador
A few
months ago, we mentioned that for one reason or another, we had lost all of our
children’s workers. We are grateful to report that now we have gained a teacher
and one helper. Please pray for us as we develop new workers. It looks as if we
have two more potential workers in the near future. This is a huge need and we
are glad that it looks like it is being filled.
The new
helper that we mentioned is our own daughter, Rosa. She is helping with a
combined nursery/preschool class. She makes sure the children say “please”
before they receive their snack. It is also fun to watch her as she sings the
children’s songs and motivates them to participate in the action songs. We are
sure that one day, she will be an excellent children’s ministry worker. She is
getting a lot of experience at a young age. Our boys are doing well. We
celebrated Joshua’s second birthday last week and are getting ready to put
Caleb in school. They are healthy and doing well. It is a constant challenge to
raise them properly, and we ask you to pray for us in this area.
The Cernas
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