Thursday, June 3, 2010

June 2010 Lovely Feet Newsletter



MINISTRY AT THE WITCHES MARKET
Many of you may recall that God spoke to me in 2008 about going to the witches market here in La Paz. This market sells potions, gods and llama fetuses to bring blessings. God told me to bring one bible, highlighted in yellow over verses of salvation and verses of deliverance. Four of us prayed and sought the person God wanted me to give that bible to. God told me that she would then preach the gospel to others. We found this woman in a witches booth and prayed with her about salvation, leaving her the bible. While Sofia and Astrid were here we returned to the sight of the booth where I found that person. She was not there…in fact, the entire booth…the entire building, is no longer there as well as some other booths. I am convinced that this is a victory of God and that she and others have closed their stands to serve God, the true giver of blessings! Praise God!




SPECIAL THANK YOU
We wanted to give a special thanks to Living Word Church, Cleveland, Tennessee and Straightway Baptist Church, Steelville, Missouri for you special giving as a church to this ministry. The mission is before your eyes and we are grateful and you are in our hearts.
Also special thanks to all of those who have given special gifts for the projector and generator which enables us to bring the Jesus film to the villages. And for those who gave for the Proclaimers that bring the Word of God in the language of the Aymara to the people. We are continuing to distribute these blessings!

MISSIONARY TEAMS FROM THE U.S.
In March and April we were blessed to have two teams of missionaries visit us. Astrid Lucas, a board member from Lovely Feet, and Sofia Miranda, the daughter of Pastor Andres Miranda, blessed us in the churches and streets of La Paz and El Alto, and took a trip with us to the village of Sicsilla where they ministered with us and presented a Proclaimer, an Aymara Bible and a Strong’s Concordance to the village leader. This village was so blessed they sent representatives to the Conference through the mountains on dirt roads for three hours to see us again and hear more of the Word of God.
Early in April, Steve Reed’s team of twelve came from Florida to minister to the churches in El Alto by working side by side with them to build a church building for the people. Steve and his team has been working on one such building over a period of years and now that building is holding regular services and looking forward to the day when a radio station will begin broadcasting the Word and orphans can also find shelter in the rooms still being constructed on the first floor. Additionally, our church, Rey de Reyes, has founded a church inside the prison and Steve’s team bought beams to repair the structure inside the prison being used as a meeting house.
Thank you both teams. You have no idea how far your influence is going. Praise God.

BACK TO HEALTH
Thank you all for praying for me. Most of you know that I began getting sick in April after a long period of exhaustion. I had a fever that went away but left me with weeks of diarrhea, weight loss and fatigue. Then the fever returned with a vengeance of 104 degrees. I was hospitalized for a week and nearly met the Lord before my time. Our prayers were answered and I was delivered from dysentery. We are convinced this was an attack of the enemy before the Conference, but by conference time, my strength returned and I was blessed to preach and teach the Word. Glory to God.

FUTURE PLANS AND PRAYER REQUESTS
• We are planning a much larger conference here in the city of La Paz in September. Please be in prayer for this and give generously. We will again be offering Bibles at a discount.

• This is a typical road to a village in the Altiplano. We believe that in order to reach the people in the villages in the Altiplano that we need a vehicle. Currently we have to rent a microbus that costs us about $100 for the day. This restricts our visits to a village to once a month. In addition the further villages we are not able to reach as a micro driver is not willing to spend the night. We are praying for a used pickup truck with an extended cab for supplies and other ministers


To give for specific purpose send donations to: Lovely Feet Ministries, PO Box 21715, Chattanooga TN 37424 and designate “TRUCK”,”CONFERENCE”,”BIBLES”. Or you can donate through our website at www.lovelyfeet.org and send an email to info@lovelyfeet.org to designate your offering.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR FAITHFUL GIVING!


VILLAGE CONFERENCE FOR PASTORS AND LEADERS
The Village Conference in Patacamaya was a great success and blessing of God. Last weekend we were able to bring together leaders and pastors of more than twelve different villages in the middle of the frozen dessert of the Altiplano. We were about 3 hours away from La Paz, 14,000 feet above sea level, in a place that looks like the New Mexico dessert. The ground is rocky, the soil terrible, the weather, always cold warmed by a bright sun in a brilliant blue sky. Sun burn can occur in 10 minutes for this white boy! We were in a town called Tolar, which means bitter water...and unless you want to die you do not drink the water! This spot is smaller than Benton, TN but it does have a hotel...the Gran Poder which means Great Power....don't ask me why.
70 people came, all Aymara. One village was more than 3 hours away by a good bus...which I'm not sure how the people were able to come. I do know that several villages pitched together for a bus, but there is no telling how far they had to walk first.
At first, the people were nervous, not knowing what to expect and many never experienced anything like this before, never stayed in a hotel before. But as the day began with a DVD of culturally relevant music except that it was Christian and the teachings started they warmed up more and more. Friday night we hired a music group to come, again Christian music but culturally familiar. You could see the smiles on their faces as some of the people began to dance. Rhonda got swept away by the music group to dance with them in a circle holding hands! The people smiled and clapped.


Some of the younger people went outside and played volleyball together. It was wonderful to watch them enjoying themselves...villages that rarely can get together because of the great distance. And they were excited to get their rooms...3 people to a room. I have been to some of their houses which don't have a bathroom in the house...some villages don't have a bathroom period, they just go in the field and their houses are simply one room adobe blocks with a bed and a chair, some having only dirt floors. Here in the hotel they had floors and an indoor bathroom with a shower (although the water doesn't get exactly hot) yet the hotel did not have heat, although we had 5 blankets...Sam shivered his way through the night!

Some of the villages were only able to send one person, one leader but other villages sent 3 or 6 people. The people were engaged in every class and we sold Spanish bibles for $1.50 or 10 Bolivianos while they cost us 27 (about $4). We gave each person a coupon for this discounted rate. Most of these people never could afford a Bible and didn't have one. One man thanked us for the opportunity saying he and his wife shared one Bible and now they would be able to have two...an answer to prayer. We sold 55 Bibles to 70 people and then at the end we said if you want another you can have it for 10 Bs as well and in 5 minutes the rest were gone...all 100 Bibles, many of the people taking a Bible back to the village for someone else.

NOT A SINGLE PERSON LEFT THE CONFERENCE EARLY even though they had a long way to go back and would have to travel through pitch black darkness. All remained and we gave them a certificate of completion which they held up in victory. They do not have cameras but they wanted us to have a picture of them and many held their certificates up to have a picture taken with us...for us. This is culturally normal, they will never see the picture but they wanted us to have one of them for us to remember.

The blessing and the influence that this conference will have on their lives can never be measured, and I am not sure who received the greatest blessing, them or us. God was there, real and tangible, and the whole event became easy.

The list of classes was Old Testament, New Testament, How to Study The Bible, How to be a Leader (like Jesus), the Doctrines of Salvation *almost the whole place came forward for prayer*, Evangelism, The Gifts of the Spirit, and Spiritual Warfare.

Thank you for praying, they were answered. Most of the cost of this conference, including meals and rooms was paid by you, Lovely Feet partners. It is impossible for the Aymara to pay these costs. The gospel was preached because of your prayers, your giving, your sacrifices. Thank you! We thank God for all of you.

No comments:

Post a Comment