We appreciate all of your prayers for the activities of the past week, especially for our special baptismal Lord's Day yesterday. We'll give you a rundown on the events of the past week.
Monday--Able to visit with Gabriel, Liliana, Yoltic and Yolat--four people who had indicated a desire to be baptized. After reading and hearing their testimonies and talking very in depthly with them, it was mutually decided that Gabriel and Yolat need more time to understand exactly what baptism is and to truly examine themselves to see whether they are in the faith.
Tuesday--Visited with Sylvia. What a blessing. What she had written in her testimony left me with some questions as to her understanding of salvation. However, when I went to her home that evening, she had written 3 more pages that were absolutely thrilling with her testimony of Christ and what He has done in her life. She has a very difficult home life, but her faith and trust in Christ is amazing.
Wednesday--Morgan preached again in prayer meeting, continuing his series on Hebrews 11.
Thursday--Visited with Karina, the young lady and mother of three, and also Memo's wife. It was a blessing to see her desire to be baptized also. Since we were so close to the baptisms already on Sunday, and since this was the first time they had talked to me about baptism, it was decided to put off the same for them so that we could be sure of their understanding. It truly is a miracle though to see what Christ has done in and through Karina in this past year and also to see Memo asking questions. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised.
Friday--Visited with Ruth and Sarai. Sarai has a very good testimony and has been in our church since 3 months after we started 10 years ago. She very much understood what it means to be baptized. Ruth came last year during our absence (she's the one planning on marrying Marcos in August.) She gave a good testimony of what Christ has done in her life in saving her from her sins.
On a different note, I was able to give the gospel in a very very clear way to a taxi driver also on Friday. He listened, asked questions and received a tract. Please pray for him to call and that we would be able to help him and talk more again.
--Saturday was spent getting many things ready for Sunday. Mikey helped a ton by making a list of everthing that he could think of that we were going to need. Towels, changes of clothes, two coolers, food, tables, and the TV and DVD player for the video we were going to watch. The older three also all made food to take. It was a long day, but we got to bed late, with just about everything ready.
--Sunday. Yesterday was a very blessed day. A good number of people arrived late due to trying to make food for the fellowship meal together, but by the time church started, we were jammed full. Then, during the message, we had two other visiting familes enter. Little ones stood and found little children's chairs so that the visitors could have the larger ones. The message yesterday was on Biblical love--something that all of us as a church and many of our familes desperately need.
After the service, we all went (some walked and some drove) the three blocks to the gym with a pool. All the children sang "I have decided to follow Jesus" to start the service. Then each of the five people entered the water, gave their testimony, and we sang the favorite hymn of each one after they had been baptized.
Afterward we all went back to the church for a delicious pot luck meal. We are trying to work on getting people to bring enough food. This was a problem at the beginning of our church ten years ago, but has not been a problem in recent years. Then some of the church members who have been with us a long time realized that the newer people just need to learn what they had to learn ---to minister to others instead of being ministered to. Everyone was fed, but nothing was left over. What we had was very very good. You would have enjoyed it.After the meal, we were all challenged by a very sobering video about a young muslim man who is converted to Christ in the USA, goes home to his muslim country where his christianity is discovered. He has a very difficult time in his home country, but he sees the need of serving the Lord there even in the face of difficulties. We would highly recommend the film. It is entitled "Behind the Sun," and we bought our copy at CBD. It would be very challenging to any of your churches.
We knew that Satan would be very active on this day as he would not be happy with Christ being glorified so we prayed the entire week for Christ honoring services. There were lots of little problems the whole day, but the Lord showed Himself strong.
--Itza, who attended our church very faithfully years ago before joining the army, has been on vacation the last 3 weeks. We were able to go out to brunch today as he has to leave for the army again on Wednesday. He had some very good questions and we had a very good talk about living life for God's glory, no matter where we may be. He is in many difficult situations in the army, so please pray for him to remain strong in the face of trials and challenges.
Thank you so much for praying!
In Christ,
Mike, Faith, Mikey, Cristi, Carissa, Matthew, Cherith and Caralyn Goldfuss
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