Dear Friends and Family,
I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
– John 9:4
These past three months have flown by. It is hard to keep track of the time. There is much work to do and we can see the night is coming fast upon us!
Ministry News
In January we had another wonderful conference with Fires of Evangelism. Many people were saved during the week, and several made decisions. It was a great blessing. We had more local pastors this year than before, even though the crowd was smaller. Elmer Fernandez, Kevin Wynne and Antonio Gomez were our special speakers this year. We look forward to next year’s conference, where we will be focusing on the family.
Henry Vasquez & Family
Pastor Henry, our assistant pastor for the hearing has resigned to become a missionary in the jungle city of Pucallpa. We had the privilege of commissioning him and his family to go and start a ministry to the hearing as they begin the watch-care of the deaf work that is already there. We are looking forward to what the Lord is going to do through him and his wonderful family. We will miss them greatly here at Efata. The hearing ministry has grown tremendously under his leadership and labors.
We are thankful that we were recently able to build a new home on the property for the missionary and his family. We have about $3500.00 available to begin the construction of the new church building as well, because the old one is about to fall apart because of jungle rains and termites. Please pray for this, as we need about $4000.00 more to be able to complete that project. Thank you so much to those who have given to this need.
The new school year is upon us, and we have several new deaf children in the school. We are so excited to be able to start from the beginning with these children. We have had much greater success in reaching the parents of these new deaf children. Several have accepted Christ as Saviour. Just this afternoon, Pastor Victor was able to lead the parents of a new deaf child in our school to the Lord. We are thrilled about these blessings.
Family News
Jennifer is growing fast. All the kids are doing well. I traveled to Ft. Myers for my doctor’s appointment at the VA clinic, and the doctor advised that I was doing well and would not need to come back for a year. I was thrilled with that news. The blood pressure is a bit high, but we are working on that. While there, I had reward points and was able to book a free flight to Pastor’s School in Hammond, IN. What a blessing and time of spiritual refreshing about the Cross. I was also able to meet and coordinate with the mission team they are sending to Peru next year to begin a work here. We are excited about this new mission effort to reach the Spanish-speaking world from Peru!
I was able to see Joseph while I was home as well. It was good to see him and to know that he is doing well. We look forward to having him home for the summer. He will be graduating, Lord willing, in May of 2012. We are planning to coordinate a short furlough to coincide with his graduation.
Please continue to pray for us as we serve here in Peru. We are blessed to have a wonderful team of Americans and Nationals working together to do our part to evangelize the Deaf and hearing world.
Thank you for partnering with us!
Joe & Lisa,
Joseph, Julianne, James, Jared, Judson, Joy, John, Joel, Jessica, Jennifer