Home at Last:
The past two months have been a little crazy and exhausting to say the least. We left our city Cochabamba on Wednesday the 26th of May for Santa Cruz. It is the second main city in Bolivia and from where most of the International flights leave. We spent the night there because our flight left the next morning on Thursday. The flight was about six and a half hours long and everything went well arriving in Miami at around 4:30 pm that afternoon. Our connecting flight to Greensboro NC left at 7:30 pm so by the time we cleared immigrations and customs and made it to our gate we only had a few minutes before we started boarding. By the end of the day we were exhausted but glad to be home. It actually was a little difficult at first to adjust back to the culture and lifestyle here in the United States. Even when we left the airport and hit the highway it was surprising how fast we drove. The food was something that it didn’t take us long to get used to although it seems we eat a lot more here than in Bolivia. That’s what the scales have been telling me anyway. Also, the language has been a challenge at times. At first I would think in Spanish and translate it into English in my mind before saying it. Taylor the other day, as we were driving down the road, screamed out, “Mommy, look it’s one of those death things”. She had not yet learned the word for cemetery.
When we left Bolivia one of our concerns, of course, was the condition of the church there. You always wonder what will happen, if the people will keep going, etc. Well, we praise the Lord that He has continued to bless our church and people. I got word that the other Sunday they had 108 in the morning service and 76 on Wednesday night with many visitors. Please continue to pray for them.
Pray for Lorenzo:
We would like to ask you to pray for Pastor Lorenzo Laura and his family, especially his wife. They are doing a great job working with us in the northern part of Bolivia. They are work in the city of Cobija, a city of close to 50,000 people. Pastor Lorenzo wrote me recently to ask that we pray for his wife. She recently had a very bad ear infection that left her eardrum perforated. The problem has continued to worsen and if she doesn’t have an operation soon she could loose her hearing. Because the hospital in their city doesn’t have the equipment necessary to perform the operation they will have to travel to get it done. After checking several possibilities it looks like her best option is going to be to go to a neighboring city in Brazil. It total it will cost around $800 for them to travel and have the procedure done. She will have to stay there for several weeks if not months to first get rid of the infection and then have the surgery and finally the recovery. If you would like to help them with this need send to; Macedonia World Baptist Missions P.O. Box 519 Braselton GA 30517 and put a note “For the Lorenzo Laura Family” and please write me at kwhite@mwbm.org.
Preacher Boys:
Although not all of them are boys, the Lord has blessed us with several great men that are preparing to preach the Word. This past semester, before we left Bolivia, in our Bible Institute I taught Homiletics I. It is a class on the preparation and presentation of messages from the Word of God. We had nine guys that took the class, which focused mainly on studying techniques to prepare a sermon. For their last grade each one had to prepare and preach a five-minute message. I’m not sure what made them more nervous, having to preach, or getting it done in less than five minutes. They all did great job even though some of them were more nervous than others. It was a joy to my heart to think about how the Lord can use each of these men.
Prayer Requests:
- Pray for us as we travel from church to church.
- Pray for the church in Bolivia and the leaders that are in charge there.
- Pray for Lorenzo Laura’s wife who needs an operation on her ear.
- Pray for souls to be saved and leaders to be raised up in Bolivia.