Wow. How kind and awesome is our Father God? How blessed are we to have this great God Who loves so unconditionally. Everyday I am blown away by His love for people. Knowing how much He loves motivates me like nothing else to reach out and introduce others to Jesus. Each Sunday now, five to six new people are coming to the new community of believers (church) we have started. The brokenness in these young people’s lives would totally overwhelm us if we did not have a revelation of how much Jesus loves them and how powerful His love is to heal and make whole. This is our hope.
Other than one young man named Juan, and Gracia and Krizia, I don’t know of one person in our group that has a Dad in their life. Some don’t even know who their Dad is. That is rough but little by little they are getting to know God as their Father. Each Saturday and Sunday Julie and I cook for them and love on them. We give lots of hugs, we listen, we encourage, and we pray. I think sometimes this kind of love means much more to these young men and women than the message we teach or even the times we worship. It seems hard for many to access God’s presence even though it is so strong in the meetings. Please pray for us that God will give us the keys for them.
In other news, the owners of the farm that I wrote you about last month, backed out of the lease contract even though it was signed before a notary and I put up a deposit? However we will not sue and know God has something even better. We have gone to plan B and are currently renting a place called Villa Verena every Sunday. It’s extra work transporting food and equipment back and forth but we are happy there and it is allowing more people to come.
Also we rent a meeting room at a restaurant on the main square in downtown Rionegro called the Mannatial (the spring or fountain). Each Tuesday night we meet there for Bible classes. Currently, Gracia is teaching on the Love of God and Efrain on Forgiveness. That’s a good place to start don’t you think? We wanted to prefer our young team members and let them teach first. A big part of what God has us doing is activating and helping young ministers to grow. They are doing an amazing job.
We are now preparing for our big Easter season campaign. Because so many people travel during Semana Santa (the week of Easter) and are involved in all kinds of religious activities, this year we will have it after Easter. This time we are reaching out to the town of Carmen De Viboral which translates, “Carmen of the snake nest”. I don’t even want to know the history on that one, haha. This is a town of about 50,000 inhabitants and it is a rough place in every sense of the word. We have stepped out in faith and have made a deposit to rent the Central Convention Center (very nice) for four nights on April 7-10th. This will not only keep the crowd out of the rain, but it will give substantial notoriety to the meeting. I am enclosing a picture of our team in front of the Convention Center.
