Training Leaders:
We had a wonderful time this past month during our workers and leaders conference. We had classes starting on Thursday morning thru Saturday morning from 9:00 to 12:oo and the church provided lunch for all those that were with us. Also each night from Wednesday thru Saturday we had a special service for all the people of the church. The conference ended on Sunday with our regular service schedule. We had a group of 13 students come from the Macedonia Baptist College in Arequipa Peru along with a good friend of ours Jeremy Hall who is a missionary in Peru and a guy from his church. There was also a good group of pastors and leaders from several different churches around Cochabamba. The special speaker for the conference was pastor Austin Gardner who was our field director before and is a great friend and mentor to us. We had a wonderful time not only during the conference but also planning and dreaming about the future of our ministry here. The focus of the conference was to strengthen our workers and leaders and especially those who are preparing for the ministry. We learned about being faithful in the small things. In other words we can ask ourselves how would it be if we were teaching 300. How would we prepare, teach and how much importance would we give to our class. The point is I should prepare to teach to 5 as if I was preparing to teach to 500. We should always be faithful in the little things and trust the Lord to do big things. We would like to ask that you pray that the Lord will continue to raise up leaders here in Bolivia and around the world.
Praising in Quechua:
This month I was invited to preach for a good friend of mine, Ariel Fernandez who is pastor of the Bible Baptist Church of Carcaje. This is a church that was started by pastor Angel Carreón who was a former Catholic Priest that came to the Lord and was influential in starting many churches in the rural towns throughout Bolivia. The church is about 45 minutes outside of Cochabamba in an a small town called Carcaje, that the church takes it’s name from. This is a rural area where the people live mostly from farming and fish that are caught from a local reservoir there. The church has been faithfully reaching this area for years now and the people there have a very sweet spirit. We had a wonderful time with them and pastor Fernandez and are excited to see how the Lord is blessing their ministry. While the services are in Spanish most of the people there have grown up speaking one of the native languages here in Bolivia called Quechua. During the service one of the ladies sang a special in Quechua and Spanish before the message. I was able to record her singing so that you could hear what the language sounds like. The song basically says “Strengthen my life oh Lord and to sin I will never give in, help me oh Lord so that I might win.” www.operationbolivia.com (Praising the Lord in Quechua)
Playing Around:
I would just like to first say that I am extremely grateful for all that my wife and the people of the church do with our children’s ministry. There are several services on Sundays for children and our kid’s club on Wednesday nights. Many times they have as many as fifty or more on Wednesday night so you can imagine the fun that we have. Many of the kids come on their own, and some come as far a twenty minutes on public transportation to be there. This past month they had a special activity with them at the soccer court near the church playing games and having a lesson at the end. Many of these children have very difficult home situations and the time they are at church could be the only time that someone shows them love and care. Our main goal though, is to show them that there is someone else that loves them more than even we can, and that He will always love them…Jesus Christ.
Prayer Requests:
1. Pray for the students starting our new semester of classes this month.
2. Pray for wisdom as we seek to purchase land for our church.
3. Pray for my family, as we will be changing houses the end of this month.
4. Pray for our youth conference the end of this month.