January 2019
Good Day From Bolivia,
We have just finished the year 2018 and it was a wonderful year. As I look back at this past year, I see how God blessed, provided and worked. I can’t help but think, what does He have in store for 2019? I am excited to be in His work and have the opportunity to watch Him move.
The new church is doing well. We are currently averaging about 40-45 people each week. We have about 25 that have been coming somewhat faithfully each week and the rest are visitors. For a 2 month old church, we are happy to have this amount but would love to be able to reach more. For Christmas, we had a great service. It was a little overwhelming because we had so many people. The last we counted, we had over 230. We had to separate the children into their own class outside. Then we still had more people sitting outside the back window listening in because they couldn’t get inside.
Along with our new church plant, we have been helping with another new work. This work was started by a local church that is pastored by a missionary from Ecuador. This work started about 2 years ago as a children ministry in the community. In the last few months they have started having regular services. They approached us asking for help. We have seen that they don’t need a new leader, but they do really need some logistical help. I have been going out on Wednesday nights to preach for them and help them knock doors. We have helped them get chairs, a small pulpit and some other items. The few people coming seem to have a good spirit about them and I have enjoyed being able to be a small part of what they are doing.
We have more prayer requests this month than we normally mention. Some concerns we would ask you to bring before the Lord as you pray. The first is for our building. The week before Christmas, we had someone climb over our wall and steal everything we had sitting outside. Then, 2 weeks later someone else broke in and damaged our main gate. We are currently trying to figure out the best way to secure the property and repair the damage done by the second person/s. Pray for wisdom for us and finances for this project. But most importantly, please help us pray for the individuals that got in. This is why we started the church, these people need the Lord.
We would also ask that you help us pray for Bolivia. In this year, we are expecting a lot of political unrest. The current president has already been in office more years than constitutionally allowed. He had a referendum vote to try and change the constitution to allow him to run again. He lost this vote but has had the federal courts rule it is against his “human rights” to not allow him to continue running. The Bolivian people have already started protesting. Things settled down for the holidays but we expect it to start getting rough in the new year. To help you understand the magnitude of what we are preparing for, we have heard many of the locals call Bolivia the next Venezuela and Nicaragua. Most of you have probably heard how bad those countries have been in the last couple of years. Please pray for Bolivia in these coming days.
We also ask that you pray for Daniel and his foot. His left foot has been swelling off and on for the last 2 months. We have talked to 5 doctors, had hundreds of dollars worth of tests and still do not know what is wrong. His tests showed his immune system is still very low but we have not gotten any answers to what all is going on.
Both Daniel and Ellie celebrate their birthdays in January. Daniel is 3 this year and Ellie is 5.
Lastly, we continue to ask you to help us pray over the finances of our building. For the new building, we had to personally borrow about $3,000 to finish the remodel and such. With Christmas and everything else going on, this has weighed heavy on our family. We need to get this resolved as soon as we can.
Thank you again for praying for our family. We are in need of your prayers daily.
