September 2019

I would like to start by saying God has been good!!! This last month or two have been absolutely amazing. There is no way I can put in writing what all God has done but we will try and give you a few things in this letter

In August, we had a visit from our pastor. He and several others from our home church came. Our pastor and our mission director were able to see and visit both of our churches. While they were here, our pastor preached a dedication service for Monte Carmelo. As of the 18th of August, this church is officially on it’s own with Francisco as it’s pastor. With how the Lord allowed us to start this church, we have been able to turn it over as a mostly autonomous church within 10 months. We have essentially worked ourselves out of a job there. They are already paying their own bills and have enough help within the church that we are no longer needed. It is hard to believe what has been done in this short amount of time. We are so excited to watch them grow on their own and to see what God can and will do there. The only thing we are still doing is helping support the pastor. We plan to do this for another year. This will give him time to work and try to grow the church to the point that it might be able to support him. We are excited to have been able to be a part of this work. We are also happy that our pastor got to be there for this special occasion.

Our pastor then went to preach in a conference in Colombia and asked me to come. We went and had a great time. We were able to take 7,000 John and Romans scripture portions with us. This conference was for churches in South America and the Caribbean islands. We had people from many countries. I had to opportunity to help translate on several occasions. The Lord showed up during this meeting as I have never seen here in South America. There was something special about being able to worship that way in Spanish. What a great and mighty God we serve! We also got to meet several pastors from Venezuela that our home church has been helping during their crisis. Wow, was that ever a blessing. To hear their stories about how God is working in even the worst of situations. They didn’t try and get pity about what was happening. Instead, they were praising God for how the churches have grown both numerically and spiritually. With all the needs, the biggest need they mentioned was not food or medicine even though these are great needs. Instead, their greatest request was for bibles because many of the churches only have one that they are sharing with all of their members. This visit was also an opportunity to see what God can do if Bolivia goes the same way after this election in October. While in Colombia, we also worked on making some connections for being able to print our John and Romans there. Currently we cannot in Venezuela because there are not any printing supplies available. We are looking at other options to get some in. As of now, we may be printing them in Colombia and smuggling them in that way.

As you may remember from our recent letters, there are some political issues in Bolivia. We are still expecting problems. To date, there has not been anything to make us worry about our safety. However, with the elections arriving in October, for the safety of our family, we made the decision to go ahead and leave the country for a few months. Please know, our family is not looking to leave the field. We are as excited now as we have ever been about what God is doing and what He is going to do in Bolivia. I just wanted to make sure my wife and children are safe just in case something does happen. Since Mount Carmel is now on it’s own, when we return we will be putting all our focus on our second church.

Many of you have heard about the wildfires in Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay. Many of you have contacted us in concern and we greatly appreciate this. It has burned millions of acres as I understand it. Our churches are currently at a safe distance from the fires.

There is so much more we want to tell you but we are out of space. We realize the great things that have happened is by God’s grace and through your support. Please continue to pray for us, our Bolivian people and for the current political situation.