Discouragement
Hello friends and family. Thank you for taking time to read what has been happening for the last 2 months here in Moyobamba!
The last 10 days or so of December have been very challenging. A depression out of nowhere came and would not leave me for some time.
Thankfully, the Word of God has sustained me and I am finally out of that rut!
Reading through Matthew has reminded me to keep my eyes on Jesus, not the circumstances.
Reading through the Psalms has reminded me of King David’s difficulties and him crying out to God. Here are 2 verses that have ministered to me.
Psalm 25:5
Lead me in your truth and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all the day long.
Psalm 25:17
The troubles of my heart are enlarged;
bring me out of my distresses.
The Calvary Moyobamba family
While the enemy has attacked, the Lord has been at work!
The blessings have been like the Amazon rain! Numerous and overwhelming. One of the many blessings I am thankful for is the church family.
Christmas surprise!
The plan was to have people arrive at church at 7pm on Christmas Eve and eat at 8pm. “We will probably wrap things up at 11pm,” I thought to myself. “Four hours is a good chunk of time.” This was far off! Most people came around 9:30pm. When asked if they were hungry, the majority responded that they were full and just ate. Come to find out, the Christmas tradition here is to eat starting at midnight! My team and I didn’t know what to do because we were very hungry, yet wanted to eat together with everyone else. We decided to wait and allow the stomach noises to continue.
After approximately 7 hours together our friends realized it was late and time to return home. I arrived home around 4:30am and slept until 1pm! Please DO NOT tell my parents.
As a church family, we love spending time together and all those hours were worth it.
“El Hueco”
There is a huge abandoned building close to the church where homeless people sleep and other things occur. It is known as “el hueco,” or “the hole” in English. Some of the men from there came to our Christmas dinner, as they had nowhere else to go for the holidays. As we served them food and conversed with them, we built a good relationship and gained some trust. This allowed me to enter there days later to read the Bible and pray with them. There were no lights, so they had a candle lit to where I could see the pages. As several men gathered to hear, almost all said that they wanted out of that lifestyle and to be right with God. Long story short, 2 of them have now left. One has had close to a month without alcohol and drugs, found a job, reconciled with his family, now attends church regularly, reads his bible that we gave, and has helped with some construction projects. Praise God for His power of radically transforming our new brother in Christ’s life. The other guy has asked to be discipled, so he and I will meet up on Saturdays and go over the bible together.
Mateo’s curiosity
Most of the children in Sunday school have been coming on and off to church, but one boy who has been fairly consistent is Mateo. He has been asking a lot of questions about God and has the earnest desire to be part of His family. Gina the Sunday school teacher shared the full gospel with him. He understood and said he wanted to receive Jesus into his life. A few days later he ran up to me shouting with joy that he is now a child of God with a big smile on his face. I almost cried.
Three Months of Verse-By-Verse Teaching
Since the middle of October, we have had 13 teachings in the gospel of Luke on Sundays and 13 teachings in Genesis on Wednesdays.
One of my favorite messages was the call of Abram in Genesis 12. The first verse reads, “Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” I can identify with Abram, because although I miss my family in Colorado dearly, there is no better place to be than where God calls you.
This picture was taken in November. Our hope was that our service would eventually open a door to share the gospel in the classrooms.
“At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word”
Colossians 4:3a.
Axl (from church) and Jesus preparing pineapple juice to serve to 50 students from a school close by. For 4 Wednesdays they came to our church to eat breakfast, converse, and hear a short bible message. Many of them normally go through the day without eating breakfast or lunch.
Praise God for:
- My team, our unity, and their hard work.
- God’s Word sustaining me.
- The open doors to share the gospel.
- People’s testimonies in the church of repenting, loving greater, joy, peace, and many other works of God.
Prayer Requests
- That Calvary Moyobamba can be a culture of arriving on time