El Salvador Campaign--March 2015

During most campaigns the team members arrive on Saturday morning/afternoon and we have an event in the evening.  This time, however, they didn't come in until Saturday night so our first event was on Sunday evening.  The group is small--9 people from 2 different churches in California and 6 from 2 different churches in Louisiana.

Sunday night's campaign was in a neighborhood close to our Miravalle campus.  It was a great evening, with almost 40 professions of faith.

What a Saturday!

There were five things on our Saturday calendar and we managed to work four of them in.  

My day started early with a 7:30 a.m. breakfast/baby shower for Annie Sofia, the baby girl that Erick and Lila are waiting to meet.  Keeley and I went together, but due to the next thing on the calendar, we couldn't stay the whole time.  We enjoyed the breakfast and the first game.  

The afternoon was filled with lunch with our IDEM group (yes, we just had breakfast with them last Saturday.)  Today's lunch featured "sopa de frijoles," Salvadoran style.  Not only did Delmy and William host the lunch, but she also prepared the soup.  Last Saturday when we asked what kind of soup she was making she said, "bean soup with everything" and she was telling the truth!  There was every vegetable imaginable (some we couldn't identify), boiled pork (with bones included), corn flour dumplings and, of course, lots of beans.   The soup was served over rice, with hot homemade tortillas.  A picture is worth a thousand words:

At 4:30 we were back at the apartment waiting for our landlord, Miriam, her son and his girlfriend.  We invited them to see the presentation of Soñador at our church in Miravalle.  They really enjoyed it and it was so fun to watch them laugh and clap.  What was even better was that Miriam made a profession of faith at the end of the evening.  

It was an amazing day from start to finish and evidence of God's hand at work!

Koinonia 2014

Since our church has multiple sites, every three or four months we have a joint "Koinonia" service.  Yesterday more than 1000 member of the various Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva sites met together to hear Pastors Julio Contreras and Steve Kern present the 2014 vision for the church and witness the ordination of 24 new deacons.

As you can imagine it is amazing to hear and be a part of more than 1000 voices singing praises to our God.  Yesterday's music included "Our God," "Great is Thy Faithfulness," "We Adore You," "In Christ Alone," "The King" and "Praise and Honor."  Some of the songs you will recognize, but others were originally written in Spanish.

 

Pastor Julio presented the 2014 vision for the church, "Expansion3.0," which included:

• Continuing to advance all of the ministries of the church
• Sending a two missionary couples to Bogota to plant a new Vida Nueva church
• Adding additional services at the Lourdes and Apopa sites to accommodate growth
• Remodeling the sanctuary at Miravalle and constructing an anex for the administrative offices
• Offering seminary classes online
• Offering a new cycle of IDEM (discipleship 2) classes
• Searching for God's strategy on how to unify the Miravalle and Crown Plaza sites
• Establishing the program "Love and Respect" to reach married couples for Christ

We also witnessed the ordination of 24 new deacons who were nominated by the church members and approved by the pastors.  There were new deacons from each of our four sites (Apopa, Crown Plaza, Lourdes, Miravalle.)  What a blessing to see Godly men willing to take on a greater leadership role in the church.

Pastor Steve preached from Acts 11:19-25 focusing on the importance of having the hand of the Lord upon the church/the believer, seeing the grace of God in the life of the church/believer and working with purpose of heart to see people added to the Lord.

It was an awesome service and one typical for a Koinonia (started at 10:00 AM and finished at 12:45 PM.)

Lives Were Changed

The 40+ people who came from Valley Baptist, Bakersfield, CA; Copper Springs Church, Clovis, CA; Faith Baptist Church, Youngsville, NC; and Crossroads Church, Benson, NC, and the group from Vida Nueva saw God do a great work this week.  There were more than 700 professions of faith and, with the exception of a few group presentations downtown and after the movie each night, these decisions were the result of faithful one-on-one sharing of the gospel message by the team.  Although a large number of professions of faith is not abnormal, they are usually the result of a combination of sharing lessons/gospel in the schools in the mornings and one-on-one in the evenings.  Not so this time.  Because the decisions were made with individual team members and their translator, the personal information they gathered is likely to be complete and accurate which makes the follow-up process much easier.

The campaigns were divided among our various church sites:  Friday and Saturday night we worked with Pastor Koky Lopez and IBVN Lourdes;

Monday and Tuesday with Pastor David Guadron and the IBVN Crown Plaza site;

Wednesday with Pastor Alex Hernandez and the IBVN Miravalle site;

Thursday with Pastor Chitty Lopez and IBVN Apopa 

and Friday with Pastor Manuel Orellana and IBVN Coyolito.  

I know I've mentioned it before, but if you've never had the opportunity to participate in a mission trip, then you have missed out on an unbelievable blessing.  A trip is "life changing" for those who are now part of God's family and for the team members who were able to see God work through them.  Please pray about what God would have you do--we'd love to see you here in Central America this year.