Dear Praying Friends,
I opened my eyes, and there they were! Even after all my years in FBC Hammond, I have never been able to adjust to “Spanish time.” Our people are so much better than they were in the beginning. Now most of them arrive before the preaching starts! Two Saturday nights ago was no exception. We seemed to be especially low as I was making announcements. I had just recognized visitors and decided to pray for a special prayer request. Apparently, as I was praying, our entire church came in! I opened my eyes to a full house and several visitors. We had our highest attendance to date, with 58 in church and 11 saved!
God has blessed our San Genaro church with several new families this last month. I am excited for what the future holds. This last Friday was a holiday, Santa Rosa Day. Since most of our people had the day off, we decided to have a big lunch at our church; 31 of our people came and helped us devour 7 pollos con papas and ensalada! We sang some choruses and had a question-and-answer time, and then I took a few minutes to share my vision for the future of our church. Please continue to pray for our young church. God has blessed us with some great people, and I know God has big plans for us.
God is blessing in all of our churches as well. Our church plants in San Gabriel and Surco are growing steadily. Two of our Bible studies are also rapidly nearing the process of being converted into churches. Please pray for both these areas, Chanchería and San Genaro II. Both of these studies have enormous potential. Of course, our biggest need is men. Please pray that God will help us to have men ready to help start these churches in the coming months.
Our main church continues to thrive. We have been averaging well over 100 in both of our Sunday services. Many new families have begun attending, and our Saturday soul-winning meeting is growing as well. It has been very exciting to see our people learn to win souls. God blesses soul winning! Through soul winning and public services, we were able to see 143 people accept Christ as Saviour this last month.
As I stated earlier, our greatest need is always men, men with the desire and the knowledge to help us do what God has put us here to do. Every day we are reminded of the great need here, opportunities that are before us, and yet the limits that we have because of manpower. Recently,one of our men, Jhon, took a trip to Jauja, a city five hours away. He went for the purpose of witnessing to his family. In three days he was able to lead 24 of his friends and family to Christ! The sad part is that there is no good Baptist church to which we can send them. We could start a church there tomorrow . . . but we don’t have a man ready whom we could send.
The same could be said for Ayacucho. Many of you have read much about our faithful church lady Cecilia. At the beginning of this month, she went to Ayacucho, a large city eight hours away. She went to witness to the family of her stepfather. She was there for just over a week and won 51 people to Christ. She e-mailed me a list of the names and phone numbers of all 51 people so we could start a church there. I would love to . . . and we could tomorrow . . . if there were someone we could send.
Thank you for your prayers and faithful support. God has blessed our ministry here in amazing ways. This would not be possible without each of you. Please continue to pray. Our ministry is still very young, and God is opening many doors for us. Pray that we will be able to find, win, and train the people who can help us reach Perú for Christ.
Your ambassadors to Perú,
Junior and Jessica Martin
Romans 9:3
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