Dear Praying Friends,
As the year moves forward, we thank God for His blessings in our ministry. When we first started our church in Surco about a year ago, it took a few months to find a location. We thought that it would be hard to find a bigger location in the future once we outgrew our first. Just about a month before our contract expired on our first location, a new location opened up right away at a busy intersection. After discussing a good price with the owner, we came to an agreement and moved into our new location at the beginning of March.
This new location is a storefront with sliding glass doors, which means that by being near a busy intersection, we are seen more by the people in the Surco area. Very often we see people walking by the church during our services, stopping to hear, and then coming in for the remainder of the service. To us this is a great blessing, because we are having more visitors and more people saved. In this new location, there is room for expansion. There was a dividing wall that separated a quarter of the total space of the location, which we took down for our one-year church anniversary.
Our anniversary celebration began with a prayer meeting on Friday night, May 23. Saturday we had our regular visitation time in the morning followed by a “taking down the wall” day, which we involved the men and women in our church. The men helped with the construction and painting while the teenagers and women passed out some Peruvian treats to the public passing by the church and invited them for our big day on Sunday, the 25th. Two ladies, whom we invited while passing by, wanted to come into the church to see what all the commotion was about. As they hung around for a little tour, Chrystal was able to lead them to the Christ.
Sunday we had a big day followed by a lunch on the grounds. Our goal attendance for the big day was 60; but—praise the Lord—we had almost 120 in attendance and 12 saved.
Even though we had knocked down the dividing wall and expanded our church, there was still not enough room for the amount of people that came for the big day. People were standing outside, some in the hallway, and some behind our auditorium area and where we have our kids’ classes. We rejoice in how God blessed the day more abundantly than what we expected, and we look forward to what He has in store for the future.
We are thankful for the people in our church who want to be involved, like Abel Vallejos. Abel had a burden for the youth in our church and asked me if he could start a weekly youth meeting. He has been meeting with the youth for a few weeks now, and we hope to see great things. Abel has been a Christian for a long time and has some pastoral experience, and I thank God He brought Abel our way.
Also, one of our team families has recently started helping us in our church in Surco. My brother-in-law, Mark Rader, is doing a great job teaching the kids’ class and training Peruvians. He also has a successful Bible study where he teaches about creation. We appreciate both Abel and Mark’s help, and we thank God for bringing them to our church.
Thank you for helping make this day possible through your faithful prayers and support. We are proud to be your ambassadors to Peru.
The Martinez Family