A new life and a new vision!

We want to tell you briefly about what God's been up to in one of the houses this week. On Saturday we revisited an elderly lady we visited the week before. The first time we saw Carmen, she was drifting in and out of consciousness at the point of death. Her family by her bedside, awaiting her final breath at any moment. She had been confused and incoherent in recent days and suffering from intense pain. Her intestines were riddled with cancer, she hadn't lived a normal life for some time and was unable to perform normal physical functions like feeding herself or using the bathroom. Mario prayed for her in the name of Jesus, she opened her eyes and smiled. The pain began to leave and she and eight of family members put their faith in Jesus Christ. This week, Carmen was a new woman. Frail but improving, she's smiling, walking and talking. We shared stories of the goodness of God, and Carmen told us all about how wonderful Jesus was to her. Two more family members were present, and accepted Jesus into their hearts that day, we went on our way rejoicing! We're delighted to see such a transformation in an entire family and pleased to report that a dear friend will be visiting weekly to encourage them in their faith and see them grow in the Lord.

In addition to all this, our dreams are becoming reality. So far we've been seeing between 50 and 100 people come to Christ each week. With a vision to see the local church grow in attendance by a factor of ten, a local pastor who leads an association of 100 churches in the city has contacted us to arrange for outreach teams to be set up in each of the churches, so that this vision has just grown 100-fold overnight. Who says we can't take Tuxtla for Jesus in just one year?! Isn't God good!? Isaiah 40 tells us that “those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”