Tim and Christa Simmons Prayer Letter: Upcoming Decisions

Ethan, Our Oldest, Trusted Christ!

There was a good group of children in church on March 6, including several visitors. An invitation was given for those who were not sure about their salvation to be able to hear about it in a separate room. Several children got up to listen to the Gospel, and I went to help. Christa helped watch the kids who stayed in the class. Ethan asked Christa what all the commotion was about, so she explained it to him and then immediately went back to doing what she was doing. About five minutes later, Christa noticed that Ethan was crying. When she asked him what was wrong, he responded, “I want to go to Heaven, too, but I can’t speak Spanish!” My wife and I have explained the Gospel to him multiple times, and he has made a profession of faith before; but when we followed up with him, his answer didn’t assure us of his salvation, so we’ve continued to pray for his salvation. As soon as I returned from the witnessing room, Christa asked me to take Ethan separately and explain the Gospel to him. We ended up taking close to 30 minutes because I wanted to make sure he understood it thoroughly. He then sweetly trusted in Christ to save him. There were 13 others who had made professions of faith shortly before him. We praise God for those salvations and that our son Ethan is now saved!

Using Our Spanish

We are able to converse with others in Spanish much better now, although at times it is still very difficult to understand the fast-spoken Spanish. I’m thankful for some opportunities to begin using my Spanish to serve in the church. I’ve been able to help in the children’s class on Sundays. I’ve had the opportunity to teach them some new songs in Spanish. I love hearing some kids after church still humming the song we had sung that day. I normally write a devotional in Spanish once a week and then get corrections on it from a lady in the church. The devotional is then shared in the church WhatsApp group. We were able to print 6,500 church invitations for the main church and the three annexes. We’ve started passing those out and have received good responses from people. Please pray for our continued growth, as we strive to speak the Spanish language the best we possibly can.

Upcoming Decisions

As I mentioned in our March letter, the Silva family planned to return to Uruguay after being in the U.S. for eight months. They made it back safely on March 24! We have been patiently awaiting their return, because we need their help with some decisions. We plan to ask them how we can be more involved in the short-term as we learn the ins and outs of ministry here. We have also held off purchasing a vehicle until they arrived, because there is a possibility that we can purchase a vehicle and register it in the church name. That would save us thousands of dollars every year in taxes. Please pray that we would have wisdom as we approach these decisions and that we can be a help to these dear missionaries.

Thank you for praying for us here. Please know that we deeply appreciate every one of you who pray for us and support us.