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.  

Judgment House, 2017

The last minute prep finished up on Wednesday afternoon and the work of "presenting" Judgment House began about 6:30 p.m.  Stephen's is playing the piano in the sanctuary where the groups await their turn to enter the presentation--he's at the very beginning.  I'm working at the very end--in counseling.  We see only those people who are ready to make a decision for Christ as a result of the presentation.  I'm on the computer, keeping track of all the names and compiling the results for Pastor Julio and Pastor Steve.

God has provided miraculous results over the past three nights (Wednesday through Friday.)  Here are some of the stats so far:

ATTENDANCE:  1,369

PROFESSIONS OF FAITH:  155

REDEDICATIONS:  124

 Praise the Lord for the lives that are being changed!

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.

Costa Rica Trip--Wrap Up

If the trip ended almost two weeks ago, it's definitely time to finish up the blog entries.  

During the week, we had the opportunity to share the "Forgiveness" lesson in two high schools.The lesson has several great illustrations, including the use of a backpack and three or four large rocks.  Adding rocks to the backpack one of the students is wearing illustrates what lack of forgiveness feels like over time.  The burden can manifest itself as bitterness or pride and it gets progressively heavier as we refuse to ask for forgiveness or forgive others.  When we are forgiven or offer forgiveness the load we've been carrying disappears.  This is a very visual illustration for the kids and before the lesson is over there are almost always some students who are crying.  The most exciting result is that they begin to understand that Jesus offers them forgiveness, no matter what they have done up to this point in their life.  The come to understand that all they need to do is admit their sins, believe Jesus died and rose from the dead and confess their sins and ask forgiveness.  He is faithful to forgive them.  Praise the Lord, there were 150 professions of faith in the schools in Costa Rica.

   

Bogota Campaign, Part 3

Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning we went downtown Bogato to share along the "Septima," or 7th Avenue.  The street is closed to traffic for at least a mile, so there are pedestrians everywhere.  There is cross traffic to watch out for and people on bicycles, but otherwise it is wide open to walk and share the gospel.  We ran into several people who spoke English--one pair was Jehovah Witness and the other pair was Mormons!  

There is a little bit of everything on this street, including two beatiful Catholic cathedrals, typical fast food places, souvenir markets, bookstores, street musicians and dancers, people with carts selling everything from bread to Colombia soccer jerseys to ice cream treats.  There are also many people who will stop to talk and listen to the gospel.  There were 25-30 professions of faith each morning.

June Campaign, Sharing in the Schools

We were able to share in five different schools during the week.  Some of the schools were quite small, while others were large.  Four of the five were public K-11 schools, while one was a public vocational school.

The 30 people on the team were divided in to 8 groups.  The value lesson for the week was "Forgiveness."  There were close to 600 professions of faith across the five schools.  

Tuesday was a special day in the school, Canton Las Tunas.  This rural Aguilares schooll has only 190 students; half of them come in the morning and half in the afternoon.  Guillermo, Manuel, Hayden and I visited the school the previous week to see if we could schedule a visit.  The director was very excited to have us and invited all of the students and their parents to come during the morning.  It's always a special privilege to be able to share with the student's parents.  At the conclusion of the classes, we were able to distribute a gift bag full of clothes, school supplies and hygiene items.  The kids and the parents were so excited to receive the gift bags.

June Campaign, Day 2

In order for Pastor Steve to do the orientation for the week, the team went to the second service at our Lourdes church on Sunday morning.  We took the simultaneous translation equipment with us so they could understand Pastor Steve's sermon on Revelation.

Sunday afternoon we went to a neighborhood in Zacamil.  It was threatening to rain so we didn't unload the inflatable, but the team was able to go door to door at the apartments.  

As it started sprinkling, we set up the sound equipment, chairs and refreshment in the community room of the apartment complex.  Minutes later it was raining buckets upon buckets.  Some of the team were still out in the complex getting soaked.  Little did we know that there was a giant hole in the ceiling of the community room and the buckets and buckets of rain were coming inside.  The men quickly grabbed some buckets to catch what they could and then began sweeping the water out of the door as best they could.  It was quite a challenging night, but people still got saved!