Changes coming!
In November, I reported the exciting news that more than 20 of Richard’s students at Freedom Christian School had come to know the Lord and I asked you to pray with us regarding the fact that most of them do not have access to solid churches in their communities.
After a lot of prayer and conversations with our pastors (both here and in Ohio), we have decided that the Lord is leading us, in conjunction with our local church here (the one Richard grew up in), to plant a new church in the town of Ramon Santana. The new church will be called Iglesia Biblica Cristian Pan de Vida Ramon Santana
Why we chose Ramon Santana:
- Ramon Santana, a small town of about 9000 people, hosts only a couple churches of sound doctrine
- It is centrally located amidst the bateyes (sugar cane villages) where Freedom draws their students and is very close to batey Concho Primo where we have been working all these years.
- l allow us to both minister unreached people in Ramon Santana and draw people from the closer bateyes who do not have access to solid churches.
- The current batey we have been working in (Concho Primo) is scheduled to be demolished in July and the majority of the people will either move to Ramon Santana or be redistributed to other bateyes.
Where we are at in the process:
- The assistant pastor from our church, Franklyn Caines, will be the pastor/coordinator of the new church
- Richard and I will continue to be involved in various aspects of the ministry such as leading Bible studies and discipling. We will also be working with the young adults both in the new church plant and in our church in Consuelo, and Richard will be preaching in Ramon Santana two Sundays a month.
- Various other members of our church from Consuelo will be assisting in music and children’s ministries as needed
- We are have rented a building for meetings and are working to get it ready to begin services next month.
- This past Sunday, we announced the upcoming changes to our current congregation in Concho Primo/Los Rijos explaining to them that our Sunday services will no longer be held in the batey but in the church in Ramon Santana. We also explained that we will be providing transportation for them to get to and from the services.
- Pastor Francis and his wife Noemi will be stepping down from our current ministry at the end of this month, allowing them to focus more fully on their other 2 church plants.
As you might imagine, change is hard for some in our current congregation. In the long term, the changes will lead to a much healthier church body and opportunities to reach many new people; but in the short term, there are some hard things coming: saying goodbye to Francis and Noemi after 5 years, moving to a new location comes with its complications, and change in general can be hard. You can pray with us for grace to accept and embrace the changes and new opportunities.
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