Tim and Christa Simmons Prayer Letter: New Focus in Our Ministry

Vacation Bible School

The church we have been helping in held their summer Vacation Bible School the second week of January. It is a great time to invite new children to church. Last year, our family brought close to 30 new young people to the VBS, about half of whom still come faithfully, but on the last day of VBS, there were about 90 in attendance. This year, there were around 60 to 70 in total who participated in the VBS!

Even though this is less than last year, we still are thankful for the many visitors who came. We praise the Lord that many of those visitors trusted in Christ to save them! Please pray that these children would be faithful to church. On January 14, we said goodbye to the church we have been helping in. We will still see them, just not on a regular basis, since we are focusing on our own ministry now. We praise the Lord for the teens and children we’ve reached there who are still coming faithfully and growing in their Christian walk.

First Bible Study

We started our first Bible study with Maria and her mom in January. We’ve been in contact with this family since shortly after arriving in Uruguay. Maria’s brother had contacted us through Facebook and asked us to visit them, which we have several times. We are meeting every Friday afternoon. We started with the discipleship series, Foundations of My Faith. Maria has a heart for reaching the rest of her family and neighbors with the Gospel. She has four adult sons who live with her, along with their families. A few are saved, but none of them are in church. Please pray for Maria’s family members—Nicolás, Pablo, Matías, Samuel, and Rodrigo—to be saved and follow Christ. We are working on planning another Bible study with a family in a different part of the city. Please pray that we can start more Bible studies in homes or parks.

Residency Update

We finally received our permanent residency on January 30! We have been in communication with the Uruguayan government on and off regarding our residency for more than two years. We want to express our heartfelt gratitude to those of you who have been faithful to pray for this, even when the only news we had at times was, “We’re waiting to hear back.” We now are able to stay here indefinitely since it doesn’t expire. We have the option to become citizens here as well in the future.