Update on Prayer Request

Update from my brother about my niece, Liz:

Friends, I wanted give an update on Liz since so many have been interceding in her behalf. We are forever indebted. Good news- no signs of rejection! Likely some sort of infection which caused an acute reaction. Clearly, prayers work. She will be in the hospital in Denver until Tuesday while they confirm the type of infection and start treatment.

Praise the Lord for this great news. Will update again if anything changes!

Dinner with Friends

We flew to California on Tuesday, September 13, and Daniel picked us up at SFO about 4:00 p.m.  We had a quick dinner with the family before Daniel left for Bible Study Fellowship.  Afterward we had some time to play with the grandkids.

Wednesday morning after breakfast we drove 3.5 hours to spend some time with William, Gilma and Amy Flores.  We started by having lunch with William and Gilma at In-n-Out!  

After lunch we followed them to Porterville and checked into our hotel.  Once Amy was out of school, they picked us up and we went to Gilma's sister's restaurant for a Salvadoran snack--first time we've eaten "real" Salvadoran pupusas in the states and they were really tasty.

William and Stephen went to church early to set up for the Wednesday evening service.  Gilma, Amy and I joined them just before the service started.  It was a special praise/worship service with Stephen singing (in Spanish), William singing some of his original songs and then Stephen playing along with William for some congregational songs.  It was like a little slice of Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva!  We ended the night with ice cream.

Thursday morning we had breakfast at Black Bear Diner.  They had biscuits (the size of hamburger buns) and gravy which was a pleasant surprise for Stephen.  After lunch we began our 4+ hour drive to Santa Cruz to spend the day/night with our son, Jon.

Koinonia--Alma y Verdad

Yesterday was the final Koinonia (all four of our sites meet together) for 2016.  The first Koinonia was a kick-off for the 25-anniversary of the church.  The second Koinonia was the enormous anniversary celebration and this featured a concert by the Orquesta Sinfonica Cristiana (Christian Symphonic Orchestra) of El Salvador.  The 80-person orchestra and 20 person chorus presented a program of ten songs, including Majesty, You are the Air I Breath, Agnus Dei, Amazing Grace, Oceans and Revelation Song.

The theme for the concert was "Alma y Verdad" (Truth for the Soul) and after all the beautiful praise music, Pastor Steve preached the message of salvation.   The greatest blessing was the number of people who made professions of faith at the end of the service.  Praise the Lord for a church that finds ways to reach the lost and is faithful to preach the gospel.

A Morning of Ministry

Today, as representatives of Hilo, Aguja y Biblia, Ena, Isabel and I went to our campus in Apopa to share with the ladies ministry.  We didn't arrive in time to have breakfast with them (they start at 7:30 a.m.) and we had a bit of a drive, but we did get there in time to join them for the praise/worship time.  

After the singing, Isabel taught the Bible study lesson.

When she finished, all 35 of the ladies moved to the room next door for craft time--we made fabric flowers which they can put on headbands, in their hair or on their clothes.  It was a little crazy trying to explain to all 35 at the same time, but we made it and they loved the results.

It was a great opportunity to get to know these precious women better.  

Maria Antonia--leader of the women's group in Apopa

Isabel, Ena and Me

Remar Orphanage--CCBC

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, we spent a second day at the Remar Orphanage in La Libertad.  This time we brought the inflatable and lunch!  

The CCBC kids also lead a praise and preaching service for the older kids. The Salvadorans presented a drama and one of the CCBC leaders gave the gospel.  It was amazing to see them all worship together.

Lunch was the next challenge . . . we cooked 500 hotdogs!  The littlest kids were the first to eat.  Guillermo is leading them in the prayer.

Busy time in Lee's Summit

We are having a great time here at our "home away from home."  We flew in from California on Tuesday and were treated to dinner (at our favorite pizza place) by my brother and sister-in-law.  It was a nice time of catching up with them as they are going to be out of town for most of the rest of the time we are here.

One of the main reasons we came back was so that Stephen could have two procedures (colonoscopy and an EGD.)  He had both of them yesterday morning and, thankfully, the results from both were normal and we are praising God.

Last night we had dinner with two of Stephen's brothers, David and Michael/Denise.  Tomorrow his third brother, Mark and his wife, Tonia, are driving up from Oklahoma.  With everyone's busy schedules, it is normally impossible to get all four of them together, so we take what we get.

We don't have Internet access where we are staying, so blog updates will continue to be sporadic while we are here.  

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.)