I want to thank you first of all for your prayers that you are making for your missionaries. We are very thankful. Thank you as well for your economic support. May God continue greatly blessing you. We love you.
This month we had our youth camp and it was a great blessing. There were 33 young people in attendance. God worked in a special way. There were pastors from different church, Pastor Mamadu, Pastor Talibala, Pastor Salif, Pastor Zacari, Pastor Daniel, and Pastor Konate with myself and my wife. WE are very happy because many young people gave their lives to Christ and decided to start serving in the work of God. Please keep praying for this country. There is so much need and so few laborers. Pray that God would touch hearts to decide to leave NOW for the mission field.
The second of September pastor Keith Shumaker and his wife Rebecca will be with us returning from the US after four months. They will only be here for a week and then will return again. We have three goals for Pastor Shumaker’s visit:
1. To being building an auditorium for a new work being pastored by Pastor Zacari.
2. To hold a missions conference.
3. To hold a wedding for Pastor Mamadu with Sister Antoinette.
We ask for your prayers to be able to accomplish these plans for our pastor.
We also ask for your prayers for the children’s Sunday School class. It has shrunk from an average of 55 kids to now 25 or 30 due to the month of Ramadan. Many of the children are Muslims and when Sunday morning comes around their parents won’t let them leave their homes until Ramadan is over since they are fasting all day. Pray that all the children will return to church after Ramadan. Every Thursday we have an outreach to orphans. The majority of the orphans are Muslims. We help them with food and Bible lessons. One young Muslim man named Albert recently accepted Christ and came to our summer camp. The other day he came to church so happy to tell us that his Muslim neighbors are learning the songs he was taught in church about the love of Christ. It was a blessing to hear this.
God is merciful ever day and strengthens us to do the work in Burkina Faso. It is a dream of ours that God would allow us to see each of you some day. We miss you greatly. Thank you for the privilege to write you one more time. May God bless you.
Prayer requests:
• For Pastor Keith’s travel
• For the needs of each pastor: Talibala, salif, Zacari, konate, Mamadu
• For the missions conference coming up
• For baptisms that are coming up
• For the ministry to children and brother Gilbert who runs the orphan ministry
• For God to continue helping and strengthening us to move forward in the work
Trips
As you know the country has a population of thirty five million inhabitants, and we, as the Light Baptist Church have a great responsibility of carrying the gospel to these people that live in darkness.
To be able to reach this goal we have established a project which we are calling Seven Cities. In this project,
we have divided the country into seven principal points, with their seven principle cities being
approximately two hours from another. For example, one can pass from one of the principal cities to the border of another in only two hours.
We actually have two places where we are working. We make a trip to another city every week to have meetings there. We have a group of brethren that meet to grow and to learn of God. From the our zone within two hours distance there is another city. We have had a group meeting there and Lord willing we will continue to do so again.
Each week the trips we make are full of surprises as we must journey from where we live in the north of our country to the south, about five hours. During these trips we have had many anecdotes to occur. I will be sharing these with you below.
Salvations
To this point in the year we have been working on evangelizing people in the street, people that come to our
meetings as well as acquaintances of those who attend our meetings. This year, God has given us the privilege
of seeing two new people come to the feet of Christ. One of them is named *** and he is from the city we live in. He had been coming to our meetings and after a long while with us hearing the message of Jesus Christ he placed his faith in Christ. They say that the average time required for an individual in a muslim country to
place their faith in Christ is five years after hearing for the first time.
The other person is a lady. This lady was very excited to place her faith in Christ. Now we only ask God that he would help us to be able to be a blessing to the new Christians.
Light Baptist Church
Our church is advancing in the work little by little in its own city; the brethren are learning to take responsibilities as new Christians. One of our church members has family a member that is being helped to Christ and is coming very close to placing his faith in Jesus Christ. Please pray for him, that God would give him a great desire to know more of God.
The church
Our new workis advancing, each week we travel and the meetings we have there are growing to the point we actually have no place to meet. We are doing so in the homes of the church members. Until now, things are going well there, but we are looking for a place to rent. Please pray that God would provide the funds to be able to rent a place and also that he would continue to provide for the trips that we are making to the other city each week. If you have the desire to help support the work in the other city it would be a great blessing. Each week that we journey it takes approximately $60 USD.
Pastor Friend
In one city friend named. He studied for a few years in Lebanon but now he is doing the work here and as you
will know, here in Lebanon it is not possible to pay the pastor, but thanks to God this brother has been faithful to his ministry and continues on, but please pray that God would provide him a way to financially sustain himself. As a missionary, I am convinced that the works of nationals is of great importance. If any of you would like to make a special offering or adopt him as your missionary, please let me know.
This pastor receives the contacts that we have in his zone and he does the follow up and visits with them. Please pray from him. In various opportunities the police have been following him to see what he is doing. Both he and his wife have been interrogated by the police on different occasions.
Training
For the past seven weeks we have had one day each week in which we have been capacitating the brethren that feel call to serve more faithfully in the work of God. Two brethren have been taking this course and another one from another city. We have been studying about the church, each week we have had different lesson that have been of great blessing to them and a great challenge for us to share these lessons in Arabic.
God has been very merciful with us to help us to learn this language, although we are still in the learning process.
In this training we have been able to touch on other topics that came out while we were teaching the lessons. Really these last seven lessons have been of great blessing. This Friday we will be finishing our series of eight week about the church and we will see what the next topic will be.
Documents
We will have to renew our visas soon. I want to ask for your prayers for all of the documents that we must
obtain. As you know, this country will not give us residence for three to five years, we are obligated to renew our visas each year. The authorities here are suspicious of all foreign missionaries that preach the gospel here, which is why they only grant annual visas. Please pray that God would grant us favor before the police so
that we can continue to work another year
. Missionary situation.
During the last year, a country in North Africa has become obsessed with expelling the greater quantity of missionaries. The news here states that 7,000 ulemas, (Muslim legal scholars), have publically rejected Christian proselytism. In this country the king is the person they call “Guarder of the Believers”, so by having this title, he cannot permit other religions to come in and to evangelize his Muslim people.
Accompanying this event, the ministry of the interior began expelling Christians in the month of March. In 2010 so far, they have expelled one hundred thirty missionaries and workers from different organizations. The last expulsions have taken place since last week.
Please continue praying for this situation of Christian and also for all of the missionaries that are working in this place. If you would like more information about this topic, please write and I will send you the material that you would like about the expulsions.
While we witness
Last week while we went out into the street to evangelize one by one I found a young man that was reading a Muslim book. It was the book that the “Prophet” Mohamed. I thought my friend was going to speak with him, but he didn’t so I stayed there and sat down to witness to him. While we were talking I realized that he was searching for the truth. It was on Friday, so he had been to pray and was seated to read a little more of Islam
and of Mohamed’s orders.
I asked him if he had read the gospel and he told me that he never had. So he began conversing with me and after about twenty minutes of talking about Jesus, the death of Jesus, (Muslims believe that Jesus never died but that he ascended into Heaven before dying), I had to leave him. I left him with a New Testament and marked the story of Cornelius, (Acts 10), as this history is like the life of many Muslim people who with their
hearts are trying to seek God.
While we journeyed this week I had the opportunity to sit with a person that was very young. After a few moments seated in a very hot bus without air conditioning we were both sweating in an uncontrollable manner. After a while he took out a piece of bread and began to eat, and as a part of his culture he offered me some. After this the Spirit of God began to work on my heart to witness to him about Christ. This young person turned about to another man behind us and said ‘this foreigner thinks the Gospel has not changed’. The person behind us told him that indeed it had not and the young man was very surprised and began stating the Gospel was lies and they two began to talk for about two hours. The young man seated behind us was actually one of the men being trained with us who was traveling with me that day. At the end of it all, several people were upset with us because we are Christians but at least we were able to share the Gospel with these people.
The police
In these last few weeks the police have called my friends to be interviewed. They have been threatened by the police. At this moment in this country the Christian nationals are interrogated continually. They never know when the police will call them and cause them to give account of their faith in Christ. I thank God that my friends have not denied their faith. They have witnessed to the police, sharing their personal decision to follow Christ without receiving any gain. Many people believe that Muslims only convert to Christianity for money, trips or the like.
The people think that others only become Christians to receive money. They are incredibly mistaken. I know many Christians personally who for the love of God and His Savior have converted to Christianity.
Brothers, is a pleasure to be able to address you knowing of your love to the work for God and your constant prayers for our ministries in Peru.
Hunter Baptist Church
Last month was our anniversary, from the 24th till the 27th of June. We have now 21 years of existence; it was very pleasing to have the visit of many pastors and missionaries who we gave classes in the afternoons and the topic of missions at night. We covered their round trip fares for them to be able to be with us in such a special date. Pastors from Lambayeque, Lima, Moquegua, Tacna, Mollendo and Chivay, arrived besides having pastors form our own city. Many of them had lunch and dinner with the brothers of our church, to whom I deeply thank for their generosity.
Smyrna Baptist Church
New families continue arriving to our church, thanks to the work of the same brothers and workers of the church. With many of them we have started a discipleship, like the Moran family have been coming to church for many months now. Moreover, on Sunday June 27th we had the baptism of Julio, a young and much appreciated member of our church.
Berea Baptist Church
Our church had its first field trip, besides adopting its first missionary, brother Luis Benites who Works in Lince, Lima. We have discipleship groups on Saturdays and our best attendance was on Tuesday June 29th with 36 people.
Christian School
Last month we had our parents’ school, in which we talked about the topic “We do talk about sex to our children”. On Friday the 18th we had a moving meeting for parents and students for its day. Moreover, on Saturday the 19th we had teachers’ training, where we saw the importance of biblical filters in the students’ minds.
Macedonia Baptist College
We finished our semester on July 2nd, and we will start our classes again on Tuesday August 10th. We are looking forward to receiving a new group of students. I thank the pastors that each year help us with the dictation of classes and the advisory of the students.
Radio and TV
We continue with the program of every Sunday. I wanted to share with you that a woman heard the program for 5 consecutive Sundays, and on June 27th she visited erea Baptist Church together with her husband. They live only two blocks away from the church! On Tuesday the 29th they came again and on Saturday the 3rd we started the discipleship. We talked for almost two hours! Their interest is high I ask for your prayers for them. Their names are Emilio and Rocio.
On Thursdays at 5pm till 5:30 pm we started a program live on a short wave channel that we have at college, which can be reached only locally. We continue with the topic of families. On Thursday the 24th we had a program with three of our guest pastors. It was very special.
Your prayers for:
- Our trip to Moquegua, to preach at Opened Door Baptist Church, of Pastor Wilber Hallasi from July 15th to the 18th. The topic will be “Families”.
- The couples and leaders retreatment at Vitor’s valley, from July 22nd to the 24th.
- The XII Youngsters Congress, to take place at our College, from July 27th to the 30th.
Thank you for your faithfulness and friendship. Blessings.
It is a great honor to be able to greet you en the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and to be able to know what God is doing through your prayes for us.
This month we had the annivesary of Living Water Baptist Church where we are attending. It was a great blessing. Five adults were saved and 25 children recieved Christ as their personal Savior. We rejoice in how God works in people. We ask for your prayers for this these children who are afraid of their Muslim parents.
We also had a great time with all the couples this February 14th. We dined together, watched a movie, and at the end we gave a gift to the wives. Many ladies were very content.
My wife and I have started to work in the children’s ministry and youth ministry as well. For the moment it is difficult for the fact that we don’t speak French well, yet. We start by teaching a Bible verse, songs, and games but I believe that God has his plans in everything.
I’d like to share with you something that is on my wife’s heart: the deaf people. In the month of February we visited five deaf people and two deaf children. I want to ask your prayers that my wife can be a blessing with a deaf ministry by learning the signs as they are different here.
Prayer Requests:
For spiritual growth of the church.
That God would continue helping us with French.
For the Shumaker families coming furlough.
For brother Alfonso’s marriage.
For the leaders of the church.
For the children that recieved Christ who face persecution at home.
For the baptisms that will happen this month of March in Salif’s church in Rongo.
I hope you are all doing well back in the U.S. I hear there is a lot of snow going around and we are missing it all. I won’t lie to you, I don’t miss it. But my wife is definitely missing the cold weather.
Growth continues to happen in every way. Katie’s belly is growing, her spanish ability is growing, Omega Baptist is growing and best of all is that the people I am investing my life in are growing. It is so exciting to see God working in people’s lives!
I mentioned a young man to you by the name of Alex. It is so exciting to see the amazing change that God is making in his life since six months ago. I thank God that he is taking the opportunity to share his faith with all of the relationships in his life. Since our last prayer letter, he has introduced us to a couple of his friends, Ana and Jenny. They are sisters and started attending church with us a few weeks back. The youngest, Ana (15), wanted to know more about the Gospel. So we took her out to lunch, along with Alex, and shared how she could be reconciled to God! She accepted Christ that afternoon and is growing tremendously. Katie has started going through discipleship lessons with her and we are seeing her grow in the word of God.
I ask you to pray for Ana’s sister, Jenny. She has been very willing to hear the Gospel and listen intently to what the Bible says, but she is not willing to give her life over to Christ. There are many things that are holding her down, giving her false hopes. Her thoughts are, that if she were to give her life to Christ, she would lose so many things and miss out on so much. She does not understand the greatness of our God! Pray with me that she will see the love of God and his grace.
Katie is doing great in language school and just finished her second book out of five. That means she is 40% through language school! Her language ability is great and she is learning very quickly. Be praying for her as she continues to learn.
Omega is seeing some great things happen. Not only are we growing in number, but we are seeing a lot of spiritual growth also. I was able to deal with a young man that has had problems with marihuana. He has been saved for a couple of years, but started hanging around the wrong people when he was in the city of Lima. He actually started dealing drugs and consuming them also. The great work of the Holy Spirit is that He bears testimony with our spirit that we are children of God. He approached me and told me he wanted to change and did not want to continue doing the things that he was doing. Please pray for this young man as he tries to leave the old friends and join new ones. Also that he would continue to fall in love with the King of Kings!
Thank you so much for your prayer and support. I could not thank you enough for allowing me to represent your church here in Peru. God is using our family even though we don’t deserve it! It’s amazing!
For His Glory,
David and Katie Gardner
Missionaries to Peru
Macedonia World Baptist Missions
What an amazing month this has been. We have seen God do many miracles here in Peru and are excited about all that God is doing. Omega Baptist Church is doing very well. God has laid his hand upon the ministry in an amazing way. We had a special day the first Sunday of Feb. and saw a total of 131 people come to church. This is an amazing feat for a church that is not even 6 months old yet. We had 50 visitors and had 13 professions of faith! It is so exciting to watch God move and do amazing things here in Peru. We will have the privilege of launching the church officially this month. Pray that God will allow us to see many people come to Christ and many visitors come to know of the church. We will then be able to follow up with them as time goes on. Pray for us that God would use us in amazing ways and that we might see the church launch and become known as a place that is consistently preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.
This month I have had the privilege of traveling to the states to try and raise support. God has been so good to us. We have seen God allow us to raise a confirmed $175 a month that should start next month. God has been so good to us and we are excited to say that we are coming close to breaking even every month for the Bible College and the ministry in Peru. Many additional things could be done as we raise more money, but right now we seem to be at a starting point financially to be able to see things continue to grow. We praise God for all that he has done. If you would like to help by supporting the Bible College or us please write us. We are now operating on a shortfall of right at $1325 a month. Pray that God will supply that need and that we might raise more so that things can continue to grow. In a recession we have seen God do amazing things. We are excited about all that he is doing. I truly believe that he is forming us and teaching us and giving us stories that we will be able to share with our Grandchildren of how God provided. God is good!
This month we also had the privilege of having a couple of men from Faith Baptist Church in Lagrange, GA come down and we are looking into doing a ministry that they do but doing it in Peru. They have a ministry called Judgment Journey where they show attendees what the world will be like after the rapture. They are going to help us and train us on how to do this in Peru. We are excited and are talking about doing this every weekend during the month of September. Pray for this as we are asking God to give us thousands of souls and will give us the privilege of following up with them and helping them become a vital part of the local churches around the city.
We thank you for all that you do to allow us to be on the mission field. We will continue to labor and trust in God, knowing that he is faithful.
Ethan Howeth and Judson Masters were both in Children’s hospital of Atlanta. Ethan had surgery yesterday and Judson had surgery today. They are both doing well.
Judson will be coming home tomorrow morning, Lord willing. Ethan may come home on Saturday.
Ethan’s surgery went well. He is dealing with the pain and the after affects of the anesthesia. He still has a lot in front of him but it appears that God is really working it all out.
Thank you for praying for them. It was pretty neat seeing Judson on the first floor and Ethan on the second floor.
This past month we had our II annual conference on Finances. As our special speaker for the conference we invited Bro. Jose Zapata from Peru to be with us. He has been in management positions in several different companies including two banks. He has a tremendous knowledge of finances and has been teaching on the subject for many years. Our conference was from Friday to Sunday with a special business breakfast on Saturday morning. We were able to invite many people from businesses, schools, and friends and family to participate. Each service was a tremendous blessing with tons of visitors and decisions. Friday night we had around 70 people for the first service and then close to 80 in the breakfast Saturday morning. Saturday night we thought the attendance would be down because of it being the weekend but we ended up with the highest attendance with more than 80 present. It was truly a special service with 5 people receiving the Lord and many people making decisions to get out of debt. Sunday was the last day of our Financial Conference and the Lord gave us two great services. In the morning we had Sunday School, and then the morning service, and the Lord blessed us with many visitors and 99 in attendance with 5 professions of faith. In the night service, we had a great group with many of the same visitors returning and one lady that was dealt with and trusted the Lord. It was amazing because we had almost as many (94) at night as we did in the morning. Many made comments about how much they enjoyed the conference and how much it helped them with their finances and spiritual lives. We praise the Lord for the opportunity to get to know our speaker Jose Zapata and see how God is using him. We had more than 60 visitors over the three days of the conference and have been doing much follow up since then. We praise the Lord that many of those who visited are still coming to the services.
Whirlwind Tour:
Since we have been here in Bolivia we have wanted to visit many of the cities in the mountainous area of the country. This past month, we took what was truly a whirlwind tour of this area with a group of people from the church. We left one morning at 6:00am and traveled to the city of Oruro. That afternoon we left and took a 8-hour train ride to the city of Uyuni and the next day we visited to salt flats, which are the largest in the world. That night, we left in a small bus for a 7 hour trip via dirt road to the city of Potosi. This city was at one time the largest and most wealthy city in all of South America. From the time of the Spanish Conquest to recent years they have been mining silver and gold. They say that there was enough silver taken out of the mountains by the Spanish to make a bridge both ways from South America to Spain. After a day in this, one of the highest cities in Bolivia, we left for the political capital city of Sucre. It is a colonial city with the largest fossil remains of dinosaur footprints in the world. From there that night we left to return by bus all night to the first city that we visited and then from there to our city. Besides the amazing sites that we saw, the greatest impact was to see so many cities and towns that need a solid gospel preaching church.
Saying Goodbye:
For the past three and a half years we have had the privilege to work with a couple from Peru Jorge and Jenny Montenegro. They have been a great blessing to us and the church and a vital part of our ministry. We spoke with them a while back and they told us that they had been praying and felt like it was the Lord’s will for them to return to Peru and work in the ministry there. They will be greatly missed and we wish the best for them, but the ministry here must go on. We are working hard to prepare many of the leaders in the church to take more of the responsibilities especially those that will be left be Jorge and Jenny. Also this coming month, we have a young man that will be coming to help us during this time named Chrisitan Ching. He is Peruvian but his grandfather came from China to Peru to live and married a Peruvian. We know that he is going to be a great help here also and blessing to the people and church.
Prayer Requests:
Praise the Lord our last step of paper work is done and we are permanent residents.
Pray for our Christmas banquette and program this month.
Pray the Lord will prepare leaders for this upcoming year.
Pray for Christian Ching that will be arriving this month the help in the church.
Numbers 3:13 Because all the firstborn are mine; for on the day that I smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt I hallowed unto me all the firstborn in Israel, both man and beast: mine shall they be: I am the LORD. When all the firstborn of Egypt died God set aside for […]
Leviticus 25:35 And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee. If your brother gets in trouble you are to help him. It doesn’t matter if he is a stranger or […]
Full time Deputation! It is finally here! We are on full time deputation to start churches in Thailand. We have been preparing for this day for 10 years, and the Lord has faithfully brought it to pass. Our schedule is about to change quite drastically, and we need your prayer that we would be able […]
Tonight will be Vision Baptist’s monthly “Goer /Sender Coalition” service. This is a spectacularly exciting service that you do not want to miss! This service will feature Vision Baptist missionaries, and missionaries in training, all preaching mini messages! Instead of one message, there will be several, shorter messages, and there will also be several inte […]
Leviticus 22:32-33 Neither shall ye profane my holy name; but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel: I am the LORD which hallow you, That brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the LORD. He brought them out of Egypt to be their God. He rescued, […]
