We had three more members leave the church who have been here since the first Sunday of the church. Minerva is the widow of a brigadier general. She and her son and daughter were closet Charismatics. The good thing about preaching and teaching is that it lets people know your position on things and sooner or later the doctrinal differences of the people come out.
They now go to a church they feel comfortable in. They are attending the same one as the ladies that left last August. We know it is for the best; but we lost another good, steady tither.
The disappointments of the ministry is also balanced with its joys. Erica is Gaspar's wife (he is now my right-hand man). She was saved in Pastor Gilberto`s church the fall when I returned to Mexico and preached one Sunday morning of their campaign. They have attended our church from its beginning as they live much closer to us.
She has read the Bible through since then and is on her second time. She just took a trip to Vera Cruz to see her newborn sister and witnessed to her family there. She also just started going soul winning last Tuesday.
Speaking of soul winning, we are starting to see results in the neighborhood where the church is. It is a difficult neighborhood as the people are upper class, but in our second sweep of the neighborhood, two of our ladies led a soul to the Lord two weeks ago, and I had the privilege of leading my first convert of our immediate neighborhood to the Lord from door to door soul winning.
I knocked on the door of Alejandro three weeks ago and he said he could not attend me, but to come back the following week. From that moment, I started seriously praying for him. The following week, no one answered. Last week he answered, but asked if I could come back in an hour as he was just eating breakfast. I returned and his father said he was in the shower, but let me in to the living room. After talking to his father, Sergio, who does not believe the Bible (unusual for Mexico, but not for our neighborhood); Alejandro came down with his Catholic Bible he had just bought the week I first knocked on his door.
As Alejandro is soon going to be married in May, he had started thinking about spiritual matters and had bought the Bible and had already started reading some of it. He had tabs in the Bible, so I let him look up the verses and read them for himself in his Bible. I could tell God was working on his heart and he had several questions and good comments. He trusted Christ as his Savior and he said I was welcome to return, although he has misgivings about attending our church as he is very faithful to the Catholic church and feels like he would be betraying it by going to ours; but I believe with time and more teaching, he will attend.
I have two more cases of people with good hearts that are receiving the seed of the Word of God. One is a lady named Victoria. I had knocked on her door in December and the Holy Spirit told me to go back to her apartment after two months. Rhonda and I went there and she received us and I found out that, though she is Catholic, she was getting mixed up with some cult. I asked if we could do Bible studies with her as I knew it would take more that one session with her to get her thinking straight as cults undercut the foundation of Biblical truths.
In our first session, she told me that the cultist made light of the book of John and I warned her of those who make light of the Bible. In our second session, she let me know that she had told the cultists that she does not want to see them again. She is a very thoughtful, God-fearing woman that understands many of the truths of the Bible, but I can see that she believes that good works can save her. We will be touching that point in our next session. Please pray for her.
Last of all, pray for Enrique and Erica. They both came to our couple's banquet this February. Since then, they have received us into their home. Last week, Enrique said frankly that he would not change religions, but invited me back, so this weekend we returned. He is very thoughtful about things and agreed with me that repentance is not just feeling bad for suffering the consequences of sin, but a change of heart toward sin because how it affects God. I had to go to prayer meeting, so we could not finish speaking, but please pray that he and his wife trust Christ soon.
All three cases above mentioned are "good ground" for the Gospel seed and I truly believe that the seed can grow roots that will go deep into the soil bringing forth a profound, sincere conversion.
Please pray for them, that the Holy Spirit will do the work. Thank you for your prayers.
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