Dedication in Vain:
This past month, here in our city, was the celebration for the Virgin of Urkupiña. This is one of the largest Catholic festivals in our country with several hundred thousand people coming from many countries here in South America and around the world. If you’re not familiar with this kind of celebration, basically there are Virgin’s or small doll like statues representing the Virgin Mary that is worshiped in almost every city. This is started when someone supposedly sees a vision of the Virgin Mary where she gives them special instruction and from that, they make the statue and the Virgin Mary answers their prayers when they go to her. Here the most popular Virgin is called the Virgin of Urkupiña. As you might remember from our video last year there are thousands of people, the night before the celebration starts, that walk from the center of the city to where the Virgin is almost 15 km or 9 miles away. Last year we prepared a large pot of coffee and hot chocolate to give out along with tracts to those who were passing by. That time it took only 15 min for everything to be gone. This year we wanted to have even more hot chocolate, coffee and tracts. The people of the church prepared two very large pots of each and we had extra tracts printed for the activity. This time the beverages lasted about 20 min and we passed out close 6000 tracts in 30 to 45 min. The best part was to see many or most of the people reading the tract as they walked by heading to look for a spiritual experience in this festival. Our prayer is that the seed of the word that was planted will one day soon bring forth fruit.
Great Sacrifice for a Great Need:
One of the most surprising verses in the Bible to me is Acts 4:34,35. In this young church the Bible says that there were none that lacked or had a need. The reason for this was that the people practiced self-sacrificial giving. They went to the extreme of selling their possessions to give to those who were needy. To me it is amazing to see the heart of these people and their desire to do something so great for the Lord. It is even more amazing, to see people today making the same type of sacrifice, even in times of great need. There have been many who have given to our project to help the church here purchase land, and build a church building. At the same time the church here has been giving special offerings towards this need and in the last 6 month has raised over $1000. Well, one of the ladies in our church here, who is a new member, recently told me that she and her family were selling some property and wanted to give a special offering. I told her that was great and that the church really appreciated it. I thought, “a few hundred dollars will be a great blessing and help”, but when I found out how much they were giving I was speechless. This lady and her family gave $8500 towards this need. That means that we have almost $10,000 on top of what other churches have given. I can say that we are truly blessed and once again stand in awe of the sacrifice of God’s people. Please continue to pray for this need. It is truly a great need and great challenge, but we serve the same God that still provides for His people and work.
Special Days:
This past month we had several special days or activities with our children. August 6th is Bolivia’s independence day and Titus’ school had a special activity to celebrate. It was so cute to see them all dressed in traditional dress from the different areas here in Bolivia. They sang a song and did a little dance from each of the departments or states here. He doesn’t seem to be shy or embarrassed to perform in front of people which he must have gotten that from his mom. 🙂 Also it was back to school time for our girls. They started their 2nd and 4th grade years. They hated to see summer break (although it has been winter here) end but I think they were excited about going back to school. We will see how long that will last.
Prayer Requests:
1. Pray for our upcoming trip to the pastor’s conference in Peru next month.
2. Pray for the students studying in our seminary as we start a new semester soon.
3. Pray for several mission trips that we are planning on taking to other cities here in Bolivia.
4. Pray for our city and the many areas that don’t have churches.