Dear Friends and Family,
“Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.”
– Proverbs 27:1
We have been very busy during these last couple of months. The work continues to move forward for the Lord. We do not presume that we have tomorrow, thus, we work today for “the night cometh, when no man can work”!
Ministry News
We have seen several saved and baptized during these past two months. Services have been steady post COVID. Of course, we are dealing with the current wave of COVID fear etc.
I have been preaching some Sunday Evenings in one of our mission churches in Callao near the airport. It is an hour and a half away from Efata. We needed to rework the leadership in the mission and I am excited about what the Lord is going to do there.
In June we had our Missions Conference for the first time since 2020. What a great spirit and blessing it was. We had great participation for our international banquet. We are currently taking our Faith Promise commitments and hope to increase our missions giving and add two more missionaries to our support.
We have been preparing for a mission trip with our church to our mission work in Pucallpa in the jungle. This is the first time that we have done this as a church. Our Deaf and young people have been saving for several months for this special trip.
After the Missions Conference, we hosted a ladies’ conference directed by our missionary friends of International Baptist Church. That was a great blessing; several ladies made commitments to be greater lights in their families and churches. Several were saved as well.
We continue to work on transforming our soccer court into our main auditorium. We have completed platform construction and have built a separation wall dividing the nursery and bathrooms from the auditorium. The right side mezzanine is built, but we need to finish building the chair levels for the seats. That will take some time and funds to build.
We are thankful to our supporters who have given to help redo the floor of the auditorium. We are far from what we need, but we are grateful to begin putting the funds aside to do this. Thank you for giving. Please do not forget to designate special offerings to “floor project.”
Family News
Lisa and the kids are doing well. We enjoyed a 4th of July celebration with Joseph’s family with chicken on the grill. Our good friends and missionary family Markos Lindsey were visiting Efata to pick up their daughter from the airport, and we enjoyed an American celebration. We are thankful to God for our country. Even though it is in great need spiritually, it is still the greatest nation on the earth.
I returned to the States on the 6th of July for medical care. It looks like I will have to have surgery on my right shoulder due to a torn rotator cuff. Please pray for this and those that help care for me. If I have the surgery, I will be delayed for a few weeks before I can go back to Peru due to follow-up and recovery.
Thank you for your prayers, friendship and financial support.
Blessings,
Joe & Lisa
Joel, Jessica & Jennifer