Harvest Baptist Temple

May, June 2009
Dear Pastors and Praying Friends,

A New Church In Ciudad Colon!

We started a brand new church here in Colon April 5th. We had been searching for several months for a place to meet without any results so we felt led to start here in our home. The first service we had 11 people. That’s more than double the people we started with in Coronado where we started with four. The Mora family joined our first Sunday, Praise the Lord! What a blessing they are to us. Vladimir, his wife Maria Elena, their two teenage daughters, Jennifer and Jessica, and little Danny are such a blessing to us. They live about 8 minutes from us. They have been faithful members of our church in Coronado for several years now. The drive to that church takes between 1 and 1½ hours. When they heard we wanted to start a church here in Colon they were thrilled. Jennifer insisted that she be our first member. She has been working in VBS and in the Sunday School in the Coronado church for several years and is very excited to be teaching our first Sunday School class. Wow, what a blessing to have a trained teacher right away. Vladimir has been teaching the new believers class there, and is a wonderful teacher. We are truly blessed to have this great family working with us.
We have averaged 10 with visitors nearly every week. We realized that we were not going to grow very much until we had a building to meet in. The seven of us, the Mora family, Sandy and I, took a “Pray Walk” around our city. We stopped on several corners in town and prayed for our city. We asked God to give us souls and to give us a place to meet. It was so exciting and very moving to hear everyone pray with such compassion for this city and the souls of these people.

Two weeks later God answered our prayers and gave us an incredible place. We were looking for a small office type space but God provided us with a much bigger, much more practical place. It has a large meeting area and a space for a Sunday School class to meet. It is on the ground floor so we won’t have to worry about complying with the handicap access laws. It has a parking lot next to it so we won’t have to worry about parking issues. The bus stops right in front of it and it is located in a very busy area so it is very accessible to the people. The landlord was willing to negotiate the rent and deposit with us. He is also going to clean and paint it for us. God is so good!
We will take possession of the building the 15th. Our men’s prayer group from the Coronado church is coming tonight to bathe this new ministry in prayer. We are excited about having our first service in our new building May 17th. Please continue to pray for Iglesia Bautista Berea de Colon.

Our Seminary students took their midterm exams last week. This week will begin the second half of the first semester. So far things are going very well. Pray for the students and teachers as we finish out the first semester and plan the classes for 2nd semester. There are many needs, both financially and spiritually with this ministry as well.. Please continue to faithfully partner and pray with us concerning these Ministries.

Randy & Sandy