July 2011

The church in Heredia continues to fulfill its God given purpose.

See assembly figures for July at: http://carlosulatecostarica.blogspot.com/p/statistics.html
There is a school break during the first and second week of July. Many people were gone out of town on the second Sunday of July. This explains the low attendance on that Sunday.

The work is difficult. It involves helping others in their healing process. Still others are not yet aware of their need to heal. Many who allow us to draw closer to them, are truly growing, and helping others do the same. The teaching and the preaching are focussed on learning to see God as a Father who is truly present in the good and in the bad times. A lot of effort is devoted to the development of a personal relationship with God, so that all of us may feel truly loved by Him. Those members who learn to see the Lord as the only source of true and perfect love, are the ones who grow spiritually and become effective in their influence of others. They keep me busy with contacts. The transition from influencing a member and then influencing others through him or her has been successfully implemented. This work doesn't provide dramatic numeric growth, but it provides the foundations for leadership and future church planting.

A group from the Cedar Hill Church, Texas, was here for ten days. They were led by former missionary Ron McClung, and one of the elders, Rob Frankee. Their presence generated quite a flow of visitors to the church building. Anticipating this, the local leaders had planned a series of gospel meetings to be held during four nights. I preached two of the nights and Ron preached the other two. There were attendances of 80 and 100 people. 10 members came forward asking for prayers to be restored, and two teenagers were baptized.


The ones baptized were Adonis, son of Roberto and Noris Ulate, and Brenda, daughter of Alexis and Frida Mora. They are 17. Since they have been in the list of teenagers, their baptisms can not be interpreted as an addition of members.