If we had to summarize what our first fourteen years as missionaries have been, we would start this way: We arrived as two young people deeply in love and called by God to serve Him in Venezuela. With work, sweat, tears, much prayer, and the undeserved grace of God in the community of Palo Verde Sanare, there is now a church growing, knowing, and practicing the Word of God. By God's grace, this church is aware that the gospel is more than a message from a brochure or a pulpit, and that it includes a tangible love that we give to the poor, the widow, the sick, and the hopeless.
The work of God in Sanare has produced two missionary families who are serving the Lord in other countries. This church has a national pastor who teaches by example and encourages the church to go and do even more for others. There is a group of leading men who love their families and are striving each day to teach others through evangelism and discipleship what God has graciously taught them. Its congregation responds to God's call to do everything possible so that their neighbors might know the Savior through the feeding children ministry, the hospital outreach, evangelization in the streets and squares, transportation for medical care, and donating funds that alleviate the overwhelming need that our nation experiences .
It would be unrealistic to say that serving in Venezuela has not been costly, especially in the sense that food, gasoline, propane gas, electricity, water, medicines, etc., are no longer common, but are rare essentials to be found. When attained, they are considered a miracle that leads us to a deep sense of gratitude and recognition that it is God who made it possible for us. In all honesty, witnessing illness without the possibility of getting treatment, severe malnutrition, and extreme poverty has touched my wife's heart more than we humanly anticipated. However, to God be all the glory, because His Word renews and strengthens those who have nothing and gives hope and peace in the middle of the darkest night. The prayers of our brothers in the faith were felt in our lives, and today we can say that the right hand of God sustained us and will continue to sustain us.
During the last eight months God has been writing a new chapter in our ministry, beginning with our relocation as a family to the city of Barquisimeto. This will open the opportunity for us to help five different pastors and their families in church planting and/or the training of churches in urban and rural areas. We can specialize in the establishment of a biblical and solid ministry of marriage and family counseling which will lead toward evangelizing and discipling new families, as well as provide the necessary supplies for the health and restoration of the families already congregating.
We are excited to visualize these five churches making an impact in their communities with the gospel of Christ! We see ministries that serve the most vulnerable, that are present in public schools as promoters of life and marriage according to God's design, and that are living proof of the transforming power of the cross!
Our new chapter will be developed with the establishment of a church in an urban area together with a national pastor and his family. We ask for your prayers that God will direct our steps regarding the location of this new work. May it be His perfect will that this church bears fruit through the establishment of a Christian school, which has been a dream yet to be fulfilled.
As a family we cannot stop thanking Him for your prayers, your faithful giving, and your love for the ministry in Venezuela which continues to grow in these times.