It is with joy, excitement, and gratitude that I share some blessings from the work here in Salvador, Brazil, with you. In January, we had several new folks baptized and added to the church. We enjoyed a very successful evangelistic trip to the interior of our state, where we saw over 200 people show up to a Bible Cub and had dozens of salvation decisions. (Some of you may have seen an update video we posted on social media about that evangelistic trip.) Then we immediately went into our 5-day summer Vacation Bible School, which was a tremendous success. We had over 20 church members working in all facets of the VBS. Our average daily attendance was very close to 100 people, and we have since seen many of those young people begin faithfully attending our church. Even our youth group has nearly doubled in size as a result of that outreach effort. To God be the glory!

February was also a wonderful month of ministry, but it brought several challenges to the forefront as well. Over the course of 5 weeks, we have now spent just over US$3,000 to repair our church van and our own vehicle. Frustratingly, the van is still getting sorted out. Praise the Lord, we had the money on hand to take care of these repairs, but it definitely lowered our church’s account balance. Why is this important? Because we are at the point where we are seriously trying to purchase property for our main church here.

Our building rental contract is due for readjustment in August of this year, and we fully expect our rental price to skyrocket. Beyond that, our church has grown to the point where we really need a larger space. To be able to purchase a piece of property, we will need to put down about 30% of the total sale price, so we are trying to save everything possible to get closer to that number. Some of you may remember the land that was donated to our church a year ago. While we are fully intent on using that property, it will be used to plant an entirely new work due to its distance from where we currently minister. We will be posting video updates over the next month or so explaining the situation and various opportunities in greater detail, so please be on the lookout for that pertinent information.

It is an exciting time to see God working here in the Northeast. We praise the Lord for souls being saved, baptized, and discipled. We are eager to see more workers trained and equipped, and we are praying for the Lord to make His will plain for our future church property. We also would like to ask you to be in prayer for our Evangelistic Conference at the end of March. We want to see many souls saved during those three nights. We love you and appreciate you.

Declaring His glory,

Wesley Palla
Psalm 96:3