(Click on the table for a clearer image)There was one baptism this month. This is a 23 year old girl, a baby sitter, who was reached out by the group from Guararí, the Nicaraguan ghetto, that meets on Sunday evening. The people around her were very supportive and kept giving her a great example of commitment and dedication, so this made it easy for her to make a decision. No pressure whatsoever was exerted, it was just the pure gospel being taught to her personally that convinced her. The good thing is that she continues to study with us every Thursday morning, because she starts working at 11 a. m. So, this is keeping her faithful.
My brother Roberto and I started the “elder training program.” With God’s help, this is what we are doing: We are asking the church members to submit petitions for prayer, with their names and their specific needs. Then Roberto and I meet on Wednesday from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. During the meeting we go over the whole list of 120 members, discuss a little bit about them, and then make a separate list of those who missed services. Then we alternate praying for each member who missed services and each member who submitted a petition. After the prayer, we select at least one family to be visited during the week. During the visit we explain that we are there because we feel a responsibility to care for them spiritually, we are there to listen to them and hear about their needs, and then pray for them.
This is proving to be great encouragement for members who had slacked in their attendance, and a great opportunity for us to be trained to be elders. Once Roberto and I feel that we have enough training in doing this “shepherding work,” we may split and each one of us will take another potential elder to be trained the same way. We have done this during the last two weeks and are very excited about the results.
According to the plan originally submitted to Bammel, I had thought about installing elders by the year 2014. This is because I was thinking in terms of setting up a program by which some men would be trained with lessons on theological subjects, during a period of one or two years. After looking more closely to Jesus’ method of training, my vision has changed. I see Jesus doing the actual job along with the trainees. God is full of surprises; he may surprise us with elders long before that year. This doesn’t mean the formal classes will not be taught. We may set up Saturday mornings for such classes, but we don’t have enough would be elders yet. I am thinking in terms of ten men.
We are still meeting in the same place. A “Facilities Committee” of 5 members was elected and prayed for before the church in June. 3 ladies and 2 single adults make it up. This was a goal for the third quarter of this year. The need for better facilities obligated us to carry it out during the second quarter. So, we applied the principles of Acts 6. The church selected seven members of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we put in charge of the facilities task, so that we the leaders could devote themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word, because it is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to worry about the facilities (paraphrase of Acts 6:2-4). The members selected were Miriam Brenes de Hernández, Carmen Bonilla, Noris Milanés de Ulate, Michael Chacón, and Isaac Montero. They are working on the option of moving the eastern wall to make more room, and already have a proposal to be presented to us.
We finally acquired a video beam. Andrés Hernández, one of the single adults in charge of the Youth Group, had offered to use his credit card to buy it, and 33 working members committed themselves to pay for it in a period of 12 weeks, which is the maximum to pay for it free of interest. Andrés led the initiative by presenting a plan for each of those members paying close to 4 dollars each Sunday, on top of the regular contribution. So, I already presented the first two lessons with videos and slides support!
Study Measures
Cell Group Members/Visitors
Northeast 15-19/ 1-2
Southeast n.d./ n.d
Northwest 9-12 /1-2
Southwest 5-9/ 1-2
Heredia Church of Christ 14-19 / 1-2
My brother Roberto and I have had three Bible studies with a man who used to be a congressman. He was looking for Roberto to divorce him of his sixth wife. Apparently, this man’s life has gotten very complicated, and now he wants to settle down. He seems to be very sincere in his desire to study the Scriptures with us. He lives in a mansion, so we go to his mansion once a week, and have become friends of him. He loves us and we love him. This man may prove to be a key member because, being a politician and a businessman, he has connections to important strata of the Heredia population.
There are 10 people we are having Bible Study with, either in group or individually.
On Saturday, June 13, my brother Roberto and I drove to Guápiles as I was invited to preach that night for the gospel meeting they hold every year in that location. Guápiles is across the mountains, an hour and a half to the North of Heredia. I preached on Saturday evening and on Sunday evening. Also, I translated for the English speaking Sunday School teacher and the preacher. There were more than one hundred people on Sunday morning and close to one hundred in the evenings. I was able to spend time with my brother Roberto and his son Joshua. I also spent time with brother Tom Brandon an elder from a church in, Alabama. Roberto was very interested in getting to know from Tom about the work of elders in the States.
The ladies who meet on Thursday morning, have been using their meeting time to split in two groups to visit other ladies. This week they went and visited members who had been discouraged by family situations. Roxana, Mirna, Socorro, Noris, and Damaris are leading these efforts. They are reaching out to ladies in their homes, and creating a lot of good will. They organized one baby shower for a young lady who lost her husband after ten months of marriage. She was pregnant and has been working as a waitress in a small restaurant. Thankfully she lives with her grandma. The ladies were able to provide her with lots of gifts. One lady gave her a cash gift. 40 ladies came to the event at Roberto’s home. Noris, his wife, taught the lesson.
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