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Dear Friends and Supporters: May 2013 Newsletter
Tuesday, the 14th of May, Pastor Jose Miguel passed away. Pastor Jose Miguel used to be an avid trout fisherman who went fishing every weekend. Pastor Lorenzo Owens led him to Christ, and he became a great fisher of men.
Back in 2005 I led a group of soul winners to the city of La Cocha to start a new church. We had an evangelistic campaign for 3 days, with close to 300 people saved. We knocked on all the doors of the city of 8,000 people. We preached on the street corners and on the downtown square. Pastor Jose Miguel was at this first campaign. He went soul winning with me and slept on the ground at night.
God led Jose Miguel to become the pastor of this new church. He started out by going soul winning up and down all the streets of the city three days a week. He rented storefront buildings and preached on the downtown square. Eventually he moved his family to La Cocha, even though he did not have a place to live. He lived by faith! Praise the Lord that Global Church Planters supported him for three years under Pastor Clayton Reed. (We would like to give a big thank you for all the supporters of Global Church Planters for your support and help in starting this new church.) By God’s grace a dear family in La Cocha loaned them a house rent-free for them to call home.
Pastor Miguel worked hard in getting this church up and going. He worked a job at a local bakery and went door-to-door selling cleaning supplies and witnessing to everybody he came in contact with. On the 14th of May, he went to put gas in a vehicle that was loaned to him. On the way home, he had an accident with a truck. He was able to live for a few hours after the accident. His wife was rushed to the accident scene, and the last words that he spoke were words of love for his wife. He requested to be buried at a local cemetery. It took 2½ hours for me to get to the city of La Cocha. We were able to be with his wife and three boys.
The people all over the city dearly loved him. The local mayor of the city was in shock when he heard the news. The city of La Cocha paid for all the burial expenses. The custom here is to bury the body 24 hours later. In the morning people started to show up to show respect and love to Carina his wife (they live on the outskirts of the city in the country). People came walking from many miles to be with them. At 4 p.m. we had close to 150 people there. We started preaching the Gospel to all the people present. We had a testimony time until they took the body to the cemetery. The people were deeply touched.
By the request of friends of Jose Miguel and his wife, we will have a city-wide Memorial Service on Sunday, the 23rd of June, at 4 p.m. We will use a local government auditorium that has chairs and a P.A. system. I’m going to work hard in promoting this event by thousands of flyers and on the three local radio stations. Our prayer is that many will be saved during this event. We plan to pass out pictures of Jose Miguel freely to everybody present. Also, to each family present we will give an audio CD of four sermons that Jose Miguel preached. We will also show a 20-minute DVD of the life of Jose Miguel. Please pray for this event!
Thank you for your prayers and support! By God’s grace the Gospel will go forward in a greater way in the next few weeks. Please pray for a revival!
For souls,
Brian R. George and Family
