Great Need In Irpa Irpa
This past month a few of us from the church were able to travel an hour or so outside of our city to a town that is called Irpa Irpa. (It kind of sounds like a bird chirping.:) This is a town that was built up around the main cement factory there that produces cement for our whole region. One of the older men of our church, that began coming shortly after we started, recently moved there to work for the cement factory. He comes back to Cochabamba once a week or so and recently came to church while here visiting. He began telling us about the great need that there is for churches where he lives. There is a small congregation there, that he has been attending, that has been without a pastor for a long time and the church is down to only a few people. He asked us if we would go there and help them in this struggling church. He has been trying to lead the church on his own and teach them in the services. After planning for a few weeks were able to go and help them for their midweek service. It is amazing the hunger that they have and desire for the Lord. Before we left, the people made us promise that we would return and begged us to send a pastor to lead their church. Our desire is over the next few months travel out at least once a month to have services with them and in the future maybe send someone permanently to lead the church. One only has to open their eyes to see that the harvest is truly ripe. Pray with us for laborers to send into the harvest.
The Lord is blessing in Buyuyo:
You may have heard us mention before the Laura family and the work they are doing in the northern part of Bolivia. We have also written in the past about a new work that they have a few hours from them in a small town called Buyuyo. (It seems like this is our prayer letter with weird city names) This past week pastor Lorenzo and the church in Cobija traveled to be with the church in this small community for service. It is truly amazing to see how the Lord is blessing. They have recently built a small simple wooden building where they have service that on a special day it is standing room only. There were eight total that trusted Christ as Savior during this special service and each one received a Bible. We praise the Lord for the opportunity to work with a ministry from the US called BEAMS that send Bibles to us here for free so that we can give them to the people who trust Christ. This ministry has especially been a great blessing to churches in areas like this because they don’t have access to Bibles even in nearby towns. Just to have a Bible can be something very special and vital for the spiritual growth of these new Christians. We would like to ask you to pray for both the church in Cobija and this new church in Buyuyo.
Moses Comes to Visit:
I can’t say enough about the work that my wife does with the people of the church in our children’s ministry. They work tirelessly planning and having activities for the children of our neighborhood. As we have mentioned before many of them come from very rough backgrounds with very little parental care or attention. This past month they had a special activity for the kids for day of the dead (our version of Halloween) where they could dress up like biblical characters. We had everyone from Mary Magdalene to the Queen of Sheba. They had games like feeding of the 5000 and eating the forbidden fruit and then they had a lesson about how we need not fear because we have the Lord to take care of us. I praise the Lord for all the workers and the close to 50 kids that came to hear the Word of God.
Prayer Requests:
1. Pray for the church in Irpa Irpa.
2. Pray for our upcoming end times campaign this month.
3. Pray for the church in Buyuyo.
4. Pray for an area of our city called Quillacollo that doesn’t have a church.