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Sukkau Newsletter October 2007 |
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Our previous Trujillo Times reported on our church’s response to the earthquake disaster south of Lima the middle of August. A week before that we had a baptism. Kimberly is the first in her family to accept Christ. There were both laughter and tears as she related in her testimony how Jesus has become real to her this past year as some of our young people have helped to disciple her. We praise God that her mother was present at the baptism. Three young men were also accepted into membership from other churches. They are very involved in our church’s worship team.
Miracle of the month: A member of our church, Miguel, who is 24 years old, works at a cane sugar processing plant about half an hour outside of town. One evening he was checking a belt that takes in the cane to a large processor when suddenly his arm was caught and he was slowly dragged into the machine. Unable to reach the emergency switch; all alone, and unable to get at his two-way radio, he struggled for about 15 minutes until suddenly the machine stopped and he was able to pull free. Right after he had extricated himself the machine started running again! When we visited him in the hospital we saw the severe burns he got to one arm and shoulder and a deep cut on his hand. Fortunately not a single bone was broken. He prayed the whole time he was fighting the machine. He realizes now that without God’s help he could have died. He agreed that this has been a wake-up call because for several months he had left his relationship to Christ to one side.
We would like to finish the construction of our church building within the next year. Groups of people willing to come to paint, build book-shelves, make banners, etc. and relate to the people will be showered with love. Some of the group could also teach English as a way of reaching out to people. If you are interested please contact an MBMSI office or us directly. Financial contributions to our building project C0152 will also be received with much gratitude. We are still lacking funds to complete the walls on the third floor and finish the pastor’s apartment.
In addition to our normal duties of pastoring and discipling, Erika is involved in counseling. A very pleasant task Bob has had lately is to have a preaching lab with three young people. Because all three of them are busy at university or seminary and working at the same time, we have a class Sunday mornings before the church service. In addition to taking a programmed text on homiletics we evaluate each other’s sermons. All three have done an excellent job and have gotten good comments from the congregation. They are also forcing me to use Power Point to illustrate my sermons and make them more relevant.
We were glad to have Ray Harms-Wiebe from the MBMSI office and Lowell Stutzman, a pastor and member of the MBMSI board visit us. Ray’s messages on how to be a missional church were well received. They also visited the churches in northern Peru and Lima and met with the national committee to plan for the future.
Prayer Requests
(1) Pray for Kimberly and her family and the three young guys that have joined our church so that they will continue to mature in their faith.
(2) Pray for the government and other agencies as they deal with providing aid and rebuilding in the area hit by the earthquake.
(3) Pray for Trujillo which is growing rapidly, but is considered to be one of the most violent cities in Peru. The major university where some of our youth study has shut down because the professors have gone on strike for higher pay. Strikes like this can go on for months and students fall behind a semester or even a full year.
(4) Please continue to pray for our leadership team in Trujillo as it plans for the future. We are hoping to have a baptism before Christmas. Erika is busy now planning for the Christmas program.
(5) This coming November one of our members, Koky Rodriguez, is once again organizing a city-wide 72 hour Marathon of Prayer which brings together many of the churches to pray and witness to others in a central location.
(6) Pray for a retreat of the pastoral teams of our churches in northern Peru on November 1-3.
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