Where are they headed?
Every year in August we have what is one of the largest Catholic festivals in our country here in the city of Cochabamba. It is a celebration for the Virgin of Urkupiña, which takes place in the town of Quillacollo located about 14 km from our city. The story is told of a young girl who was watching her sheep when the Virgin Mary appeared to her out on the hillside. From that time the festival has grown every year to the point that over three hundred thousand people come from all over Bolivia and South America. One of the highlights of the celebration is the pilgrimage that the people make from the downtown area of our city walking the 14 km to where the virgin is located. They start around 11:00 pm and usually walk all through the night arriving the next morning when the festivities start. With thousands of people passing only a few blocks from our church we wanted to do something special to try and reach them with the gospel. It has always broken my heart knowing that these people have so much dedication yet they really have no idea where they are headed. They think for their dedication and sacrifice that the virgin will answer their petitions and bless them. This year we decided to set up some tables along the road and hand out free hot chocolate and coffee along with tract as the people passed by. We had no idea what would happen or how the people would receive us but to our surprise we passed out 400 cups of coffee and hot chocolate in less than 15 minutes and almost 3000 tracts in less than half an hour. Our prayer was that we could plant the seed that would change their direction and help them know where they were headed. We are hoping to do much more this coming year. To see a short video showing how things went go to. http://www.vimeo.com/28337597
Money Talks:
This month we had some special visitors with us, and a special conference here at the church. We had the privilege to have Bro. John Pearson and his wife Sandy along with a young lady from their church Hannah Littlefield. Bro. John was here to speak at our third conference on finances. This year we decided to focus on business and how to be successful for the honor and glory of the Lord. The Lord has blessed brother John with much wisdom especially in the area of leadership and business. There is always a lot of interest when we talk of business and this year was no exception. We had people calling several weeks in advanced to register. The conference was for three days starting Friday night ending Sunday night. Each night we had visitors come from the invitation that we passed out along with many of the people from the church. Bro. John did a great job teaching especially seeing that he taught in Spanish, which he is in the process of learning. We had a wonderful time showing them around the city and many of the good foods that we eat. I think they liked everything except the cow tongue and guinea pig. We praise the Lord for the blessing they were to the church and us.
Building Update:
I stand in amazement some times of the blessings that the Lord bestows upon us. We have been praying that the Lord will supply the funds to move forward with buying a piece of land for our church. This past month we had $2500 come in from three different supporting churches for this project. Thank you to Cornerstone, Mile Creek and Newton Baptist churches for their generous offering.
Prayer Requests:
1. Pray for several of the teenagers that are having problems at home.
2. Pray as we prepare our Bible Institute to train our leaders for the ministry.
3. Pray for the funds needed to buy land and build a church building.
4. Pray that the Lord will continue to protect our family.