(Jorge is on the left & Alejandro is on the right. Both got baptized!)
The Lord has been doing some cool things in CCJ this week so I thought I would take a minute to tell you about them. First let me tell you about Palmera. This is a guy who works on the streets of Jaco making things out of palm branches and selling them. He truly is a talented guy. Sadly, he is also a troubled guy. He struggles with different vices and has a history of cutting himself… a lot. One time he was asked why he cuts himself so much and he said the devil tells him to do it. He has scars all over his body from this. Recently, life took a turn for the worse for him. We were told that he was in the hospital about an hour away. Thursday, Daniel, Gabe, and myself decided to go visit him. It was a really cool time of just ministering to him and sharing the love of Christ. We gave him a bible and asked if we could pray for him. He gladly accepted our offer. As we prayed over him he began to sob heavily. As we finished praying he told us that he wanted to receive Jesus into his heart… he wanted to start living a new life! You can only imagine our joy as we witnessed him pray the sinners prayer. Please pray for his recovery and for his spiritual growth. Living in Jaco won’t be easy for him spiritually but all things are possible with God!
The next praise report is about the Baptism / Superbowl potluck we had on Superbowl Sunday. We decided to have a potluck with everyone from church and to offer to do a baptism during halftime of the Superbowl. Praise God we were able to baptize 4 people. The people we baptized were people in whom we have seen God do really awesome things. We baptized 2 of the young girls from Kid’s Club that Revae has been ministering to for over 3 years. Revae was blessed to be able to lead them to Christ just that afternoon and then we got to baptize them that night… Amazing! We also baptized Jorge, who got saved during our BWO missions team this past summer. They reached him and lead him to the Lord. Now he is faithfully attending CCJ and God is growing him.
The last person I want to tell you about is Alejandro. You may remember him from a blog post last year. He came to us for help 9 months ago. He was seriously hooked on drugs. The Lord opened the door for him to get into a Christian rehab about an hour away that is run by missionary friends of ours. The rehab is called “Casa de Amor” (House of Love) and they have done an amazing job with Alejandro. He has been clean for 9 months and is being taught God’s Word daily. We were so blessed to see him this weekend and how God has been answering our prayers concerning him. To be able to baptize him was like the icing on the cake!
That Baptism was the best Superbowl half time show that I’ve ever been a part of! Please continue to pray for all of them. God is so good!
In His Grace,
Mike
