Judgment House Wrap-up

Judgment House is over for 2017.  The final weekend was held at our Lourdes campus which meant that everything at our main church was taken down, loaded up and then set up at our church there.  Of course, the layout and configuration of the rooms is completely different so the set up isn't easy.  

Once again Pastors Steve and Julio were thrilled with the attendance and number of decisions across the seven days of performances (5 at the Miralvalle Campus and 2 at the Lourdes Campus.  Praise the Lord for the final results:

Attendance:  3,624

Professions of Faith:  387

Rededications:  283

Please continue to pray for the campus pastors as they start the follow-up process.  The first step is to invite those who made decisions to a breakfast or a dinner at the campus where they would be attending.  Here is a picture of the group that came for the first dinner at our Lourdes Campus.  

Guatemala Wrap Up

Friday was our last campaign day in Guatemala.  We shared door-to-door in the Proyecto 410 neighborhood in the morning and returned in the afternoon for the family festival.  The park was awesome and many, many people attended the festival.

It was an awesome week with a total of 570 professions of faith!  Please pray for Pastors Nelson and Javier as they mobilize their teams for follow-up.

After the campaign the team from Faith Baptist took Pastor Nelson, Rosemarie, Camila and us to dinner at Kacao, a beautiful restaurant near our hotel.  It serves typical Guatemala soups, as well as other favorites.  We loved spending time with the team and the food was outstanding.

We followed the Salvadoran bus out of town on Saturday morning about 8:00 a.m.  About a half hour out of Guatemala City the bus stopped for a bathroom break.  We stopped to get gas and then went on our way.  Once again the trip was very easy, with no lines at the borders.  We pulled into our apartment building just after noon. 

Monday in Bogota

Monday, January 19, was our last day in Bogota.  We slept in until 8:00, said goodbye to Bayron as he headed off to work and enjoyed the breakfast that Teresa prepared.  After reorganizing our suitcases, Teresa, Marco and the two of us hailed a "large" taxi, which is nothing more than a car with a trunk.  Teresa and Bayron thought it would be very difficult to take our 3 pieces of luggage on the bus on a workday.  

Pastor David invited us to join their family for lunch at their apartment.  Pastor Alex and his family and Mike Buss, one of the Valley Baptist team, who was staying an additional week to help with the follow-up, also joined us.  It was a great time of fellowship and an opportunity to debrief after the campaign.

We said goodbye to everyone about 2:00 p.m. and took a taxi to the airport.  The flight was smooth and the immigration line was short.  However, when waiting for our luggage, I was paged by an Avianca employee who told me that, for some unknown reason, my suitcase didn't make it on the plane.  After describing the suitcase and giving them the directions to our apartment, they promised it would be on the first flight out of Bogota on Tuesday.  If a piece of luggage is going to go missing, it's much better for it to happen on the way home, as there wasn't anything in the bag that I had to have.  They were true to their word--I had the suitcase in hand by 2:00 p.m.

We were blessed to be a part of the first trip to Bogota.  It was a beautiful city and we look forward to visiting again later this year.  We are excited about the 500+ persons who made professions of faith and for the follow-up and discipleship that have already started.

Knock on Doors

This has been a week of knocking on doors in the morning and in the evening.  It's been obvious this week that the "fields are white unto harvest" and that the Lord has sent these teams to help gather the fruit.  We have consistently found people at home or out on the streets and Pastor Rodrigo has received 60-70 yellow cards (professions of faith) each day.  The church is thrilled with the excellent contacts and follow up will begin next week.

Please pray that many of those who made a decision will start the discipleship process.  Studying the Bible is the most important next step for each person.

Fruit That Remains

If you've read my previous post, you know that our first evangelistic campaign of 2014 finished last Friday and that it was a week filled with more than 800 professions of faith.  Even more exciting was the following picture and comment which was posted by Pastor Koky Lopez after the service at the Lourdes church last Sunday morning.

These 12 adults (and 9 children) visited church Sunday morning as result of the 

campaigns last weekend.  What a blessing!

Here's the news from Pastor Chitty Escobar after the evening service tonight at the Apopa church.

Wednesday night service at the Apopa campus with visitors
from the recent evangelistic campaign.  

Please pray for the follow-up teams from each campus as they continue the important work of following-up with each individual who made a decision.

Last day of last campaign--2013

The 2013 campaigns are now all over.  Yesterday was the final day and it was a great one.  We have tried something different here in Managua this year.  Each time we've come here, we have always had Kids' Clubs in the parks in the morning.  Each day we would go to a different neighborhood and set up 5 stations (Bible story, Bible verse, games, music, refreshments) and invite the neighborhood kids to spend 2-3 hours with us. 

The Pastors continually evaluate the results of our efforts and have realized that although Kids' Clubs are fun, they have not been a very powerful tool to grow the church.  In fact, they are very costly and there has been very little "fruit that remains."  Most of the time the parents send their kids to the park without joining them.  So, this year it was decided that we would forego the cost and effort and try something different.  For the two weeks before we came, Pastors Felix and Rodrigo distributed fliers to the neighborhoods we planned to visit.  This announcement told the neighbors about the upcoming family festival in their park.

In the mornings we all went to park where the evening campaign would be held, put up the inflatable as a "teaser" for the kids and then the team went out to share the gospel door-to-door. Unbelievably, we had 30 to 40 decisions every morning.  Even more importantly, the pastors have realized when people make decisions in their homes, those decisions are more likely to be genuine--more of them will visit the church, more will start discipleship and more of them will have transformed lives.  In the evenings we've returned to the park to find the kids waiting for us.  The attendance at our evening events has been great.  The team went back out to share door-to-door and found "new" people home. 

Both Pastors Felix and Rodrigo are excited abou the number and quality of the contacts they received this week.  The follow-up phone calls have already started and the Los Robles church site is holding a reception this afternoon.  The Bolonia church has their reception tomorrow.

As far as the team goes, almost all of them are on their way home.  The bus left at 2:00 AM this morning (and we're thankful we weren't on it.)   A group of 15 went to the airport this morning at 6:00--their flight leaves in about 30 minutes.  Our flight is not until this afternoon, so we are taking it easy this morning.  We will be eating lunch with Pastor Felix and his family and then heading to the airport.

Please pray for the follow-up and for the US teams as they transition from a very warm week and mountain top experience to "normal" life.  We pray every single one of them will arrive home as a different person.  Thank you for your faithfulness to pray for us and the work here in Central America.  We leave for the states next week and even though we're not happy about the cold weather we will face, we're excited to spend time with family and friends in the Kansas City area.