Tim and Christa Simmons Prayer Letter: Soul-Winning Fruit

Winter Vacation Bible School

In January, the hottest month of the year here, the church we are helping in normally has their Vacation Bible School. This year, they added a winter VBS during the time when the children have two weeks of vacation in July. I printed up some invitations, and we invited many new children to come. The theme was on the Bible, so the kids were taught songs about the Bible and verse songs. After the lesson, the children had the opportunity to play various games. We ended up having a good number of visitors, and on the last day of VBS, there were 59 in attendance. The teens helped with the games on that day as well. It was exciting to see them getting involved! We praise the Lord for the 36 professions of faith in total!

Soul-Winning Fruit

If you’ve been going soul winning for any length of time, you’ll probably agree that we never can tell who will trust Christ or not. We just need to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. In July, I had the opportunity to witness to a number of men who had a wide variety of beliefs. I witnessed to Gabriel and Facundo, who said they were atheists. I talked to a university student, who said he was spiritual but not religious (a phrase we hear very often here). He said, “There has to be something out there. It just doesn’t seem possible that all this just happened!” I talked to Manuel, Diego, and Brian, who all believed in God and the Bible. I witnessed to several others as well whose names I didn’t get. Manuel, who is 24, actually came to church in July, but he isn’t saved yet. Manuel’s older brother Diego saw me when we visited his house. I talked with him for a while, and he gladly accepted Christ as His Saviour! Also, our six-year-old son Evan told my wife Christa that he wanted to be baptized. To which she replied, “You have to be saved before you can do that.” She then showed him how to be saved, and he also sweetly accepted Christ as His Saviour!

Update on Our Permanent Residency

Currently, we have temporary residency status, which expires this November. A month after we arrived on the field, we started the process of applying for permanent residency. We have had a lot of little issues with the paperwork. In July, they asked me to present the boys’ updated passports since they expired during the residency application process. After I did that, I was getting ready to ask how much longer it might take to get our permanent residency, when I was told that we should hear very soon when we can come and sign the paperwork for permanent residency! Please pray that we will not have any other issues with this.

Praise

• Visitors and 36 professions of faith in VBS!
• Open doors to present the Gospel!
• Our son Evan’s salvation!

Prayer

• Salvation of Gabriel, Facundo, Diego, and Manuel
• Our Spanish
• No more problems with our residency
• The Lord’s leading as we are looking where to plant our first church

Thank you for continuing to give and pray! We love you all so much.

Your missionaries to Uruguay,

Tim, Christa, Ethan, Evan, Emmalynn, and Elizabeth Simmons