Dear Friends and Family,
We are constantly amazed at God’s goodness and care for our mission work and ministry in Peru and our family. The beginning of this year has been wonderful.
Ministry News
In February, I was in the States for a mission conference and to attend my yearly medical appointments at the VA and eye doctor. I returned to Peru, and we had a wonderful Fires of Evangelism conference where several young people made decisions and several were saved.
The day after the conference, the entire family flew to the States to begin the short furlough that I mentioned in my previous prayer letter.
One of our goals for this short furlough is to raise funds to build a church two hours north of us at one of our mission works. Our national pastor there was advised by his landlord that he would be losing the use of half of his small building in a couple of weeks and may lose the other half as well. We purchased property to build the church and are now raising funds to construct the initial church building for them nearby where they have been renting.
So far, we have raised $12,000 – to God be the glory! We are looking for an initial $20,000 to build a 200-seat auditorium and another $5000 to equip it with water, sewer and furniture. Later we will raise funds to build Sunday School and multiuse rooms as well as a pastor’s home. We plan to begin right away as funds come in.
Please make this a matter of prayer. If you can help with this project for the initial building or for the future classroom and home space, that would be a blessing. Please send the support to Macedonia World Baptist Missions designated “Efata Building Project – Chancay.”
We are planning another evangelism explosion for the second and third largest cities in Peru – Arequipa and Piura – around the middle of the year. We are praying for a soul harvest in both locations. We and the Peruvian churches that are partnering with us will be printing the tracts, and Pastor Mark Smith From Tacoma, Washington and partnering churches in the States will be printing and sending us two containers of Bibles and New Testaments to distribute in these two cities.
The school is moving forward with more Deaf students this year. Our goal is to be able to accept high school students again. We are working with the legal department of the Ministry of Education on this. Please pray that we will be successful. The Deaf need this, and we need to have this influence on the future generation for the Lord.
Family News
Julianne and Frank are having a new baby boy, to be born any day now! This will be their seventh child and our fourteenth grandchild. Then in May, our son Judson and he wife Valeria are expecting their first child. Joy will also be graduating from College in May. We are grateful we could be in the States for these few months to share in these wonderful milestones and report to several of our supporting churches and present our ministry to a couple of new churches.
We return to Peru the first week of June and immediately have our Mission Conference. Fabio Betancourth, Spanish Pastor from Bible Baptist Church in Bradenton, FL, will be our special speaker. We are thrilled that he is coming.
As I mentioned before, we will do a longer, more robust furlough of reporting in 2026 or 2027, the Lord willing. Joseph, our son who works with us, will be going on Furlough for 2025. Thanks you to all of you and we are sorry if we did not get by to see you. There just was not enough time. We will see you next time around, and, as always, you are more than welcome to come and visit us.
Blessings,
Joe & Lisa
Joel, Jessica, Jennifer