June Prayer letter

June 2014

Dear Praying Friends,

Rainy season has begun here in El Salvador, but don´t let that make you think it is cooler here now. It is quite the opposite. With the evening storms comes extremely hot weather during the day.  It seems that every church night is the time of the strongest down pours. But most of our people still come; we just give a lot of people rides that normally would walk.

We enjoy sharing updates from the Bible Institute almost every prayer letter.  This time, we would like to share our vision for growth. While our plan is to always keep the Bible Institute as a resource for laypersons, we believe that it is God’s will for us to start a Bible College in the future. We have become aware of the need for young people to have a place where they can prepare for ministry. As far as we know, there is no type of Bible College on this side of the country. We are praying about this, and making plans with this vision in our hearts.  Although this will not happen for a number of years, we wanted you, our prayer partners, to be aware of a big prayer request that we have for the future.  While we make these plans, we are working to train men to become pastors. There are five men who have learned to preach through the Bible Institute, and they preach in church services every three months. It is our prayer that some of these men will start other churches within the next five years.

In the church, there is a dear family that has been faithful since the beginning of the church plant nearly six years ago.  The first thing that happened was the salvation of the grandmother, Holanda. Soon after, the grandfather, Jose Luis, was saved. Then their grown daughter, Herlinda, raised her hand during an invitation and asked Jesus in her heart. This was quite miraculous because Herlinda’s husband is a staunch Catholic and at first, was completely against his wife coming to church. Then Herlinda’s 12 year old son Douglas put his faith in Jesus after church one Sunday.  He was quite worried about not having his father´s approval, but realized the salvation of his soul was very important.  This was followed by Jessica´s salvation (Herlinda´s granddaughter) a few months later.  While this family grows spiritually, they have been heavily attacked health-wise.  Almost every person in their family who has made a profession of faith has had some serious health issues. For example, Jose Luis has had a number of operations, including the removal of one of his eyes.  Now, there is a problem with Douglas. He found a large tumor in his armpit, which the doctors quickly removed and have sent off for tests. We must wait for about two months on the test results to see if it is cancerous or not. The family is naturally worried, but doing their best to trust in God during this most recent trial. We ask you to pray for this young man. Sometimes there are certain young people who really stand out from the others.  He is one of them. He has a true passion to study the Bible and is completing a discipleship course with Steve. He recently commented that for youth meetings, there is no need to have other activities. Why don’t we just study the Bible?  Please pray for this family of new believers as they grow through some serious trials.

Thank you for your prayers for us and for Steve´s mom. She had successful surgery but there are still some cancerous cells, so radiation is the next step.  We are thankful for all of your prayers!