CT News April 2023

April 2023

Dear praying family!

Please click HERE to see this report and much more in pictures! 

April brought to us an assortment of discipleship issues to deal with starting with folks within our home Bible study and spreading to the entire assembly. “C” was eager to join our bible study, visibly moved by her first love for Jesus and a desire to know Him more. Having abandoned common law living, she struggled with questions about baptism mainly due to her family vocally denouncing it as a cultic practice. At the end, her unwavering decision twisted her relatives’ arms to reluctantly, and for the first time, step into the chapel and witness a believer’s baptism and hear a Gospel message. Two days after and in our weekly study we asked, “So, what did your family think about your baptism?” Her reply was precious: “My mom came with her nose way up high and thought she’d see and fix me later. But then she realized that we were all ‘normal.’ Now she’s more intrigued about my faith.” We all celebrated this testimony and praised our Lord.

“B’s” case was somewhat similar. She was brought up in a home where mixing Jesus and religion with witchcraft was a normal and expected way to live. When Jesus saved her and she began to live a Spirit led life, her faith began to clash with all her relatives at home. As she confessed: “they began to hate me because of who I was.”  So, it was a big surprise that they showed up to her baptism on Easter Sunday. “B’s” testimony was clearly evangelistic and called for her relatives to open their eyes to a newness of life in Christ Jesus.

While celebrating and praying for “C” and “B,” we struggle dealing with “K.” We have loved this young man dearly as we baptized him and saw his faith grow in practical ways when he committed to study the Word and sacrificially give towards missionary work. He was a great asset when he accompanied me on several trips to the mountains and jungle. He thrives being surrounded by saints and searches out opportunities to be around the saints. But then he let his heart fall for a nonbeliever at work and even started to live with her. With deep regret he admitted he was wrong and that it was not pleasing to the Lord. As leadership we have tackled this with fear and trembling asking the Lord to help us navigate through this with the congregation. “K” has since stopped living with the girl and is praying that she’d come to faith in the Lord. The girl has started to attend our home bible study and is connecting with truth she wasn’t aware of. We perceive a desire to make things right before the Lord. But ultimately, the Lord knows the heart. As they are part of our Bible study, we are particularly sensitive about this as we want to do what is right without going to the left or the right. Please pray for us!

Providentially, we haven’t planned trips to the interior all of April, this allowed us to spend many hours with individuals and couples in the assembly in need of counseling and direction as we have seen a surge of questions about church discipline, integrity in ministry, how to go about finding a spouse, and more. We have decided to open a Q&A time for the assembly on the last Sunday evening of every month.

Prayer & Praise

-       Pray for the 16 children at Hogar de Esperanza. A recent assessment of everyone’s teeth evidenced minor and major treatments that need to be done. The more urgent and severe cases have to do with the special need ones who will need some kind of sedative to get things done.

-       We had a neat season celebrating the Lord’s resurrection with all the students at the Elliot school. We sense the middle schoolers are more challenging and worldly than those in the high school side.

-       Praise the Lord for baby Joshua, Jared and Claudia’s son who was operated on and is making great progress. He was dedicated to the Lord a couple of weeks ago.

-       For the building projects we are slowly moving on to having completed and new ones to start. In Yurimaguas children’s classrooms are just about done. In Menocucho we will be having permanent doors very soon. This June we are going to Solterito (to complete the sidewalks) and Ricardo Palma (both in the jungle) to get the site ready to break ground in October.

-       Our daughter Hannah Fe celebrated her 18th birthday, having passed through major milestones besides becoming an official adult. Thank you for your constant prayers for our family.

-       For the Lord relentlessly working in the lives of believers who, left to our own devices and wisdom, would cause us to give up and get discouraged.

-       For the teaching the last two years in the book of Luke. We are considering taking the congregation through 2 Luke, meaning, the book of Acts.

-       Thank you for remembering our daughter Abi attending Lancaster Bible College. She just completed her second year with all straight A’s, has a job lined up for the summer, and is making big progress in her walk with the Lord.

-       Thank God for a good report on Pablo’s health following a check up 1+ years after his colon operation.

-       We are working on preparing for our summer teams in June. We will be selecting some in the assembly here to accompany us and those coming from Maryland!

-       Pray for the assemblies in Yurimaguas (jungle), as they work on unity and fellowship after an assembly leader was placed under discipline.

Coming up

-       May 7, Pablo will be speaking on the Glorified Body based on the last segment in Luke 24.

-       May 13, sharing on building strong relationships to give direction to questions in our youth/college and career group.

-       May 13, Abi’s 20th birthday.

-       May 21, speaking to believers in Ciudad de Dios. Hopefully Timothy will make that trip with daddy and get to meet believers north of us.

-       May 28, “ask the elders,” a Q&A time for the entire congregation.

 

With much love and gratitude in Him,

Pablo & Sarah CT