Dear Praying Friends,
Thank you to all of you for your continued prayers for our family and church.
First of all, we are very thankful that Faith is recovering very well from the ear surgery. Thank you so much for your prayers for her. She is sorry that she has not written an update since her surgery, but the surgery left her unusually tired for about a month. She has been trying to get caught up with the children in school-----and is almost there. Her ear has been very sensitive to loud noises, but thankfully, she can hear 100%---and was unaware that she had lost so much hearing with the tumor. Thank you so much for your prayers.
The Lord has allowed our great enemy to sift a number of families and people in the church here. We are in great need of prayer for protection from the evil one, for grace and strength in the battle, for eyes to be fixed on Christ, and for victory over temptation. There has been a lot of discouragement lately, and we do covet your prayers. There are a number of different folks who are struggling right now with contentment, alcohol, pride and envy.
Two faithful families are struggling right now with marriage problems—so much that their church attendance is being greatly affected.
One problem that many families deal with is a lack of communication. Little issues grow and become giant issues because people have never learned how to talk through a problem with the understanding that we all are sinners. When you try to get to the bottom of an issue, and figure out that it was such a little thing in the beginning, you see how Satan can take something so little and make it into something so damaging.
On a happy note, Francisco, a young college age man of about 30, has been attending pretty regularly for a number of months. He is unsaved and studying philosophy in college right now. He asks a lot of questions in our services and is very very good for our church people. He asks honest questions, not questions that show an unbelief or a snarky attitude toward truth. He has come to our home the last three Wednesdays to interview Mike about different questions. He has recorded the interviews and is putting them up on YouTube to be a testimony to his friends and to help them with questions that they have as well. We have sought to answer the questions, What is a true Christian?, What is confession?, How do I defeat sin in my life?, Are tithes required in church?, and What is truth? Pray for the Lord to bring fruit from this endeavor.
Just yesterday, Mike was able to talk to a man who served 12 years in jail and has just recently been released. He said that he has served his time and paid his dues. Therefore, according to him, he doesn’t really need to be worried about his relationship with God--that's if there even is one. Pray for Javier as I was able to give him a little bit of the gospel and leave a tract with him.
Matilde is a gymnastics mom. She worries constantly about everything. Faith was able to give her a gospel-based book yesterday about defeating worry and preoccupations in our lives. Faith has been able to explain the Gospel a couple of times, but Matilde’s eyes have been blinded. Please pray that she would read the book, understand the gospel, and turn to Christ.
Living in one of the world’s largest cities, it is often easy to be accustomed to seeing people without being concerned for their souls. Please pray for our eyes to be fixed on our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, so that we might constantly see ourselves as we are, so that we might constantly recognize our own need of Him, and so that we might say as Isaiah did, “Here am I Lord, send me.”
We are trying to finish up our school year. We are sooooo blessed to have had Lauren Stone with us again for the past two months helping Faith with school. Lauren will be leaving us again this weekend to go back down to where our other missionary friends, Jason and Danielle Boyle live. She has one more section of Spanish language school to finish by the end of June. Pray for Lauren’s clear understanding of what the Lord has for her in the future.
We appreciate and greatly need your prayers.
In Christ,
Mike, Faith, Mikey Cristiana, Carissa, Matthew, Cheri and Caralyn Goldfuss
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