This past week we had our third mission’s conference in the church. We had as our special speaker Miguel Murillo from Arequipa Peru. Miguel is the pastor of the Hunter Baptist Church, which is the first church that Bro. Austin Gardner founded when he started his ministry in Peru. He is also the director of the Macedonia Baptist Bible College located there in Arequipa. It was a great blessing to have him preach and challenge our people about World Evangelism. Our conference started on Thursday and went through Sunday night. Each night we had videos, special music and great preaching. Many responded to the invitation and we were able to exceed our faith promise from this past year. On Sunday morning we had more than a hundred and close to seventy on Sunday night. During the invitation several people raised their hand for salvation and two accepted Christ that night and tonight another guy came by to talk to me about salvation and he trusted the Lord. We pray that we can do more for missions every year because we know that this church is a product of missions.
Don’t forget to mark your calendars and make your reservations. Only ten days are left until the group registration deadlines for the Our Generation Summit. Be sure to go to www.ogsummit.info and register your group today. You can get as much as 30% off and free admission for group leaders, if you register your group by October 15.
I would like to encourage you to check out the World Evangelism Today broadcast with Pastor Austin Gardner and Matt Allen missionary to Papua New Guinea. What an amazing interview to hear about life in this country where people still live in such primitive conditions. Just click on the link below and listen.
Well just got back in from our new meeting we are starting for couples. We met tonight to talk and plan and have the inaugural service. The goal is to help strengthen the families of the church and invite new families to the meeting so they can get to know the others and come to church. Tonight one of the men that came spoke up and said “I really thank the Lord for this meeting. In our old church we were about to get a divorce and our pastor told us he didn’t do counseling or things like that.” How many other couples are at the same point with no one to help them. We are hoping in the next few weeks to start a second meeting to involve some of the other new families of the church. Please pray for these meetings that we can reach many couples for His honor and glory.
Today we had a rather interesting day. We had two visitors that normally wouldn’t be considered welcome. We had two young Mormon guys that came to visit and normally I wouldn’t even have answered the door but I thought that I would at least share the gospel with them. They started out by saying the difference between us was the prophets. I quickly told them that the difference was not the prophets but that they try to be justified and get to heaven by works while we believe that it is only by faith in Christ. When I showed them that Galatians teaches us that no man is justified by works they didn’t know what to say. By the end the one guy said that even though I made him doubt he trusted the feeling that God had given him that Mormonism was right, which was what I had read, that he would say. As he left I gave him a tract that said “Are you 100% sure”. He looked at it and said no I’m not 100% sure but I hope to be. Pray that the Lord might use His word to break through the darkness that shroud many hearts.
Today was the third anniversary of our church here in Bolivia. It is truly hard to believe that it has been three years. The Lord has blessed us so much and worked in the lives of so many people in the time that we have been here. Today was a great day and we had an extended service because if the special music, testimonies and of course blowing out the candles and eating the cake at the end. Today was also part of a special holiday here which is the anniversary of our city Cochabamba. In spite of the holiday and many people traveling etc. the Lord blessed with around 130 in the service with many visitors. The church was completley full and because it is now close to summer time it was very hot with that many people in one place. With all that the Lord has done in these few years we can’t wait to see what He has in store in the years to come.
These are the cakes that some of the ladies in the church made.
Tonight we had a great youth meeting at the church. Jorge’s brother Alonso is here to speak for our anniversary service and spoke tonight to the young people. We had a very good turn out with about 32 present and six or eight visiting for the first time. After the message during the invitation 4 young men raised their hands and after being dealt with they trusted Christ as Savior. Pray that the Lord will continue to raise up young leaders here in Bolivia.
This coming Sunday we are celebrating our third anniversary at the church. We have several special activities planned with testimonies, videos and of course some food afterwards. It is hard to believe that three years have past and even harder to believe that we have less than a year left before our furlogh. We are praying that this will be a very special day with many visitors. Please pray for this special day and for those that will be visiting.
