Elections

Next May, the people here will vote in their local mid-term elections. The streets are already filled with posters and ads for all of the candidates from the three different main political parties. All the candidates are already campaigning to get as many votes as possible.

How does this affect the church work? Much of the campaigning is done on Sunday when people are off from work. For several Sundays now, Juan has had to postpone the beginning of the service while we wait for a candidate's parade to go past the church. This video was taken from the door of Juan's church.

As you can tell from the video, it gets VERY loud and the parade is quite long. Those people who don't have speakers blaring, are honking their horns and playing their radios full-blast. It is impossible to begin services or to concentrate on the Word with such a racket going by.

After the parade is past, your ears continue humming and buzzing for a while from all the loud noises. When we start singing our hymns -- it sounds very sweet!





In other news:

We want to again thank all of you for your prayers for the work here and for our safety. On Friday night, one of our members, Juan Fransisco, received a gunshot wound. Bible class had finished and he had already taken one person home on his motorbike. He was coming back to the church to pick up a second person to give them a ride home. Some other men on another motorcycle began following him, pulled out a gun and shot him in an attempt to steal his bike. Juan was able to continue riding his bike and arrive once again at the church property. There the members that were still around attended to him and took him to the clinic. Thanks to the Lord, the bullet exited his body and all he needed were some stitches.



We are all rejoicing and giving thanks to the Lord for His loving protection of Juan. Please rejoice with us that Juan is well and recovering. The Lord sent his holy angels to watch over Juan. And we thank you, also, for all your faithful prayers.