One Lady Saved! Praise the Lord!
This last month has been very busy. During the beginning of the month there were several fires outside of the city which brought smoke into the city. Between the smoke and the crazy weather changes we had more sickness (congestion, runny noses, lost voice). Even with problems, the Lord has continued to bless. On the 12th during our Wednesday night Bible study, a lady had visited us with her two children. That evening I taught on John 14 about Jesus and the way of salvation. After the service she prayed to be saved! Please pray for her and her children. There are many difficulties in her life that the Lord is helping her to work through.
“Have nothing to do with them! They’re Baptists!”
This is what one of the false prophets in town said about us to the elderly lady that has been visiting with us for several weeks. There are very many prosperity “gospel” pastors here in Argentina that want people to come to their church so that they can demand offerings. If people turn to the true Lord, their means of income is being diminished. Ravening wolves will always eventually show themselves for who they are! For a couple of weeks she did not come to our Bible study, following the command of this “pastor”. They start at 8:00 and we have been starting at 6:00. For the two weeks that she was staying away, she was hearing us sing and play praises to the Lord and us teaching, not demanding their money and she longed to be with us! She determined for now to be with us at 6:00 and then go to the other to not rock the boat. Pray for her as she struggles through making important decisions. She is in a position to hear our message and theirs and to compare them! Spiritual slavery is very common here, where people willingly put themselves into bondage of a religious system of works to either try to earn salvation or to work to try to keep it.
Thank you, Lord, for holding the security of my salvation in Your strong hand!
There is so much more that I could share about the work in Malvinas, if there was more space to tell! I could tell you about how excited they were when I brought a wooden stamp to stamp their address on the back of the tracks! I could tell you about his oldest son who has already visited for two Wednesdays in a row and has enjoyed coming! Many, many, many more blessings!
God is truly good!
More importantly, the book uses chess to touch on several Biblical lessons for life!
Thoughts from Stacie
Birthday Party
We were invited to a Birthday party by a family in our Homeschool Co-op. I took Elijah, Elisabeth, and Joanna to the party. While we were there one of the mothers asked me what the differences were between us and one of the other churches near us. I had a good conversation with her and later sent her the PDF of our Gospel of John Books. She and her husband are very interested in learning all they can. Sometimes the problem isn’t the desire to learn more but the lack of information available to them. One thing we find is there are people that study the Bible and might agree with us but there is a shortage of churches teaching the truth about what a New Testament church really is.
Independent Baptist Church Organization Service
We were blessed to be able to visit an organization service of an Independent Baptist church in the province of Ojo de Agua. Scott, Hannah, and Jonathan were invited to play with the other musicians during the worship service. We were blessed by the service and happy to see a small group become a self-supporting church with a national pastor. There are so many towns, cities, and provinces in Argentina without any gospel presence. There is so much work to be done.
Día de las Madres – Mother’s Day
The following Friday, Templo Bautista, the Independent Baptist Church we’ve been visiting on Sunday Mornings hosted a Mothers’ Day dinner. I brought Eufemia with me to the dinner. (Eufemia is the wife of Juan. On Wednesday Evenings we are meeting in their home in Malvinas Argentinas.) She really enjoyed getting to meet other Christian mothers.
Female Driver
There are a lot of women in Argentina that don’t drive. Of course as an American I surprise them a lot by being a fairly confident driver. I picked Eufemia up in Malvinas and drove to the church where the Mothers’ Day dinner was held. It was about a 20 minute drive. Once we were inside the building I looked in my purse and realized I didn’t have my wallet. I immediately messaged Scott because I didn’t have any of my important documents nor my driver’s license. We left the church and I took her the “back way” to my house where I knew there weren’t police guards set up. Scott was waiting for us with my wallet and he rode with us back to Malvinas. Eufemia really enjoyed sharing the story about my driving and how confident I was. We had a good laugh about my avoiding check-points which is a very Argentine thing to do.
Homeschool Co-op
Scott taught the chess class again and I taught the younger children’s sewing class again this month. The mother I visited with at the Birthday party earlier in the month brought her children to the co-op for the first time. Her husband also came with them and that gave me the opportunity to share a physical copy of our Gospel of John books with her and for Scott to get to visit with her husband.
More Books and Bibles
We have been giving away a lot of Gospel books and Bibles. We gave several Bibles away in Malvinas Argentina to various visitors this month. We are having to be careful how we give Bibles out.
The culture here is very opportunistic. It’s so ingrained in people to look for a good deal that they might take advantage of our generosity. So we’re having to be real careful how we give things away. Our method is to be super generous with gospel tracts and the gospel of Johns which are our cheapest options. Then if someone asks for a Bible we give them a New Testament. Then the full Bibles are given to those who we feel are genuinely seeking to learn more about God.
Bonus Pictures
We took the kids out to eat the last Sunday in October. When Joanna saw this advertisement with a bacon cheeseburger taller than her we had to get a picture!
