Harvests of Grace

Wow! Sorry that we haven't written for a while, it has been like riding a whirlwind - in a good way! This has been a month of new work and watching ex-students succeed in exciting ways.
  • In March we had to go to Lima to renew our visas and while there, we got to watch an ex-student of mine (Antonio) leading a conference on forgiveness. He was great, and his church is growing, it was such a thrill to see him serving.
  • When we got back up here,we found the problems at Munay Wasi still unresolved. We decided to move out and had a dinner of reconciliation with the French side. Now, although the Munay members continue accusing one another, we are free to use the facility for conferences and events no matter who wins, and were able to get out with a good testimony. We started looking for an apartment and found a nice one in one day - it had just come open and we snapped it up, as we were signing, other people were coming to try to rent it, whew!
  • Then, we were invited to lead a youth conference at the church of another ex-student (Feliciano) about an hour out of town. When we got there, I was amazed and pleased to see all the youth and the growth of the church there in Nueva Esperanza. They now have a Radio Station, have been able to get a laptop and a projector, and there were over 60 youth there. And they were a great group! We taught about Restoration and the youth really soaked it in.
  • The next week, I taught a 3 day conference on the Holy Spirit for the 57th anniversary of the first Evangelical Church in the province. My old, used projector died, but the church had been given one by another missionary, so God came through at literally the last minute. The conference was exciting, with many visitors and several people accepted the Lord! I have been invited back to teach an apologetics conference on Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses.
  • That same week, we started a course for several current pastors, who lack Biblical training. We are holding this in our house, but the class is growing and we may have to seek out a bigger site.
  • A Christian Engineer has volunteered his services to design us a physical plant for the Kawsay Institute and the first plans are awesome, and just today, we had visitors from one of the larger denominations known for not working with others. They are asking to participate in the Institute as long as we respect their doctrinal distinctives, which is fine. They are Evangelical.
  • Finally, I am looking at a piece of Gold ore, This was brought to me today from another of my ex-students, Eusebio . He picked it up where he is ministering. Three months ago, he left his comfortable position in his established church to another pastor and went into a district that is about 8 hours from here, an isolated and idolatrous area where there are no churches. He wanted to let me know that yesterday he baptized 6 people, that added to the 13 last week is not a bad start. The mayor of the largest town in the district is paying Eusebio to teach the Bible on the radio, because they don't have enough programming. This has led some existing believers to him as well and as of yesterday, he has planted 2 new churches. By the way, he is 63 years young!
Thank you for your prayers and support! I wish that you all could see how the Lord is working here thanks to your partnership with us. As Antonio, Feliciano and Eusebio would say to you , "¡Muchissimas Gracias!"

God bless,
Mike