Dear Praying Friends,
We are thankful for another year of God’s blessings on our ministries. Dasmariñas City is growing by leaps and bounds and is nearing one million in population. God has placed us in a tremendous area. There is so much to do here!
Following are some of the blessings/milestones that we experienced in 2013:
• There were 4,457 people who professed faith in Christ as a result of personal and church-member soul winning and 81 souls who followed the Lord in believer’s baptism.
• More families and lay workers became involved and faithful in the ministry.
• Our attendance has increased, with adults and drive-in folks comprising most of that increase.
• Roy Arteta, my assistant pastor for over six years, and his family left for the mission field of Nepal on December 16. To the best of my knowledge, they are the only Filipino missionaries of any faith in Nepal.
• We had our church’s 8th anniversary and our Bible college’s 7th anniversary, and our Christian school is in its third year.
• We celebrated the first anniversary of our outreach in July. Our average attendance there is 59.
• We have raised $7,611 toward our goal of $45,000 to purchase property for our church.
We would appreciate your prayers for the following needs:
• Finances for our ministry—Ester and I are doing what we can. We have not been receiving any allowances or personal expenses from our support and gave up the house we had been renting and moved into a small apartment at church.
• More young men and women to surrender their lives to reach the Philippines and the unreached
billions in our hemisphere
• Property and facilities for our church and its ministries
We appreciate your prayers for those who were affected by the typhoon last November. There is still much that needs to be done to get many thousands of people back on their feet. We have received $3,480, including donations from the States and people from our church here in the Philippines. People in our church also donated food and clothing. Thank you so much to those who gave. We plan to send a small team of builders and preacher boys there in February to share the Gospel, distribute donated goods, and help rebuild at least one home. Jomar, one of our Bible college students, finally got word that his family is okay, but they lost their house. I’m considering starting with their home and, as resources permit, work on other homes in the area.
Communication with those who support and pray for our ministry is extremely important to us. I established a separate e-mail account to send prayer letters and updates and receive related e-mail. A few weeks later I was not able to open it. It’s possible, if not likely, that some of you have sent e-mails that I did not receive. I am very sorry about that. FBMI has some excellent online resources for communication and ministry updates. I’m working with their system and hope to have it set up before our next prayer letter. In the meantime Aizabelle, one of our staff ladies, is very diligent about posting pictures and updates on Facebook. Please see facebook.com/pbcdasma.
Thank you again for your sacrifice and prayers to keep us in the white harvest field.
Yours for souls,
Courtney and Ester Godsoe
John 4:35