Henry and Tammie Gonzalez Prayer Letter: 26 Years!

The Iglesia Bautista Independiente de Santa Ana turned 26 years old in March of this year. Tens of thousands of souls have been saved. Hundreds if not thousands of lives have been changed, families have been nurtured, preachers and teachers have been trained, missionaries have been sent out, and other churches have been started. By God’s grace, the church continues to grow. New soul winners join the ranks, and more young people surrender to serve our God Who has been so good to us.

Since February of this year, there has been an increase in our church attendance due to the four new bus routes that have begun to bring people to church. We are very encouraged to see a group of church members join us in inviting others to attend church with them. Praise the Lord!

Another great blessing is that we now have a piano player and a choir director. Bro. Lemus is a well-known music teacher here in Santa Ana. He is also teaching music to the junior highers of our Christian school, and a small orchestra has been started. Not only are he and his wife serving with us in this capacity, but they are also starting a new bus route in the area where they live. They have been able to bring 12 different people to church. God has answered our prayer for help in the music ministry of our church.

SPECIAL EVENTS

• On Mother’s Day, May 28, we had a special Sunday. We had an attendance of 45 mothers—4 were saved and 1 was baptized. Praise the Lord!
• On Father’s Day last week, we had 18 fathers attend; they all had breakfast and a special Sunday school class.
• In July, our teens get to attend a Youth Conference a couple of hours away. Please pray for them to be open to God’s leading in their lives. We have a great group of teens.
• The last week of July, a group of our men and I will be attending a Leadership Conference in Honduras.
• In August, we be having two different evangelists visiting us from Mexico. One will hold open-air meetings in the different areas of town where we have our bus routes. The other will visit public schools and preach the Gospel to thousands of young people. Please pray for these two opportunities to see people saved.
• September is our big month. We have the annual Pastors’ and Workers’ Conference, where we expect to host upwards of 500 delegates. Please pray for God to provide for this conference. We already have people registering to attend. Please pray that those who come will be challenged to win souls and train them to win souls others for Christ.

Please take the time to read the attached update on our Christian School in addition to a couple of personal soul-winning experience stories. Thank you for praying for us and for being so faithful in supporting the work here.

Joyfully in His service,

Henry Gonzalez

*************************************************************************

Planting Seeds

Recently, one of our state representatives visited our church and school. Her name is Lorena Fuentes. When she arrived, she recognized Tammie by name, but Tammie did not remember her at that time. The purpose of her visit was to deliver a wheelchair to Gloria, a member of our church. After she made the delivery, she addressed our school student body and encouraged them in their education, took a few pictures, and left.

After her visit, we posted this photo in our school chat group, where our church secretary Claudia recognized Lorena immediately. She had attended our church for a brief time when she was a little girl. She had been a part of our King’s Kids Bible Club on Wednesday nights, along with her sister. That triggered Tammie’s memory, and she communicated the next day with Lorena. They reminisced about her few months of attendance to our church and remembered together the night she had received Christ.
A few weeks ago while out soul winning, Tammie knocked on a door, and a lady answered. A Gospel tract was handed to her with the name and address of the church on it. When the lady looked at the tract, her comment was, “Oh! This is Henry’s church!” Tammie did not know her, but the lady immediately started telling the story about how 20 years before, I had knocked on that very door and visited with her and her husband. Blanca had been my childhood friend. I witnessed to her husband, who received Christ that night. She told Tammie that since she was already attending another Baptist church in town, her family had stayed in that church. She gave testimony of how God had restored their home after her husband came to Christ.

These are two brief testimonies of God’s grace in the lives of people who have been changed by the Gospel. We were not aware of how God had worked in these lives. This serves as a reminder that all we do is plow and plant seeds, God gives the fruit.

School “Daze”

We are presently halfway through our school year. Last Friday, we held our first Science Fair. What an opportunity we have to train these young people and watch God work in their lives. It was a thrill to see them work hard, do their best, and enjoy the competition.
We currently have about $450.00 coming in to support this ministry. The remaining $2,400.00 comes from our monthly support to cover the school ministry budget. We have a total of 17 students. Our students pay between $35.00 and $50.00 a month to attend. To fully sponsor a student in our school would cost $160.00 a month. Please consider sponsoring a student in our school. Any amount would be a blessing.

Visits from a Far Country

Our short visit from Bro. James Belisle was of great encouragement. He was able to preach two services that were focused on the Christian home.

On May 29, our son Daniel and his family arrived for a two-week family visit. We took a couple of days off from school responsibilities when they first arrived and enjoyed a brief family vacation with the grandchildren. Our hearts overflow with joy that we get to spend this precious time with them.

Daniel preached Wednesday evening in our church on the importance of loving the coming of Christ. It was a challenge to our people and to me to continue serving the Lord, seeing souls saved, and teaching others to carry out the Great Commission.