Need Met!

Our need for a new fridge has been met thanks to a supporter and friend who heard and listened to the voice and prompting of God. I am going out later today to look at prices, and will post a picture of the fridge when it arrives!

Miracle Baby

We have been having a baby boom in Templo Libertad lately, but there are two special stories that I am going to share on the blog. Juan and Imelda have been faithful members of the church for many years, and have a 10 year old son. He was conceived through fertility treatments and it was a difficult process for his parents. They desperately wanted more children, and so several years ago they began treatments again. One treatment....and nothing. Two treatments...still nothing....and so it went for 8 years. Finally, Juan and Imelda decided, "One more treatment, and if this doesn't work, then we give up." The church had been praying for them through the years, but on this occasion several ministers gathered to pray for the couple. And then, a couple of months later, we heard that Imelda was pregnant! 3 months ago a little girl was born, and her parents couldn't be more thrilled. We don't know why God chose to wait so many years before sending this child, but he is faithful and works in his own time to bless us as we wait on him.

Stay tuned for the next Miracle Baby!

Urgent Need: Refrigerator

Some good news and some less-good news: first, our children's breakfast program is expanding, which is great! What's not so good is that we are out of storage space for the food we buy every Friday. Since we prepare everything the night before, it all has to be refrigerated until Saturday morning, and with our numbers pushing 200, our current fridge isn't near big enough: it's math time!

On the left you see our fridge, which is the size of an average lawn chair (at right of fridge), and on the right is a picture of all the supplies we will be taking to the breakfasts tomorrow. The pew which the food is on seats about 8 people, so being good mathematicians we will convert pews to lawn chairs and say that we are trying to fit 8 lawn chairs of food into 1 lawn chair of space.

Result: 8 lawn chairs of food / 1 lawn chair of space = time for a big new fridge!

With about $1000 we could buy a large fridge and possibly a small, separate freezer. This is an urgent and important need because we see an increasing number of children every week. We don't want to run the risk of a child becoming sick from an improperly stored item of food; not only would it physically endanger the people we are trying to help, it would also damage our testimony in the area. Please pray that God will meet this need in the coming week, and please contact me at sanpedroshm@gmail.com if you are interested in donating toward this important ministry.

Evangelism Service

On Friday night we held a special evangelism service at Templo Cristiano Libertad. Having stabilized from our initial growth two years ago through our cell group ministry, we are turning our focus as a church once again to outreach and growth. In the service we had special music and drama presentations, and over 50 first-time visitors came out at the invitation of church members. About 20 people accepted Jesus as their Saviour by the end of the service, and on Sunday we were happy to see many of these people return to services.

With this growth, we are now in need of a new church building, or an expansion of the existing building. The church currently holds about 150; on Friday there were about 250 people in the service, and on Sundays we are close to starting a third service. We have been offered a piece of land on the outskirts of town, but are worried that the distance will deter people from coming. Please pray that God will provide a good location and the resources for a church that will serve the needs of a growing congregation.

Below are some pictures from the service: