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Dear Friends and Prayer Partners,
We send you greetings from a rainy and uncommonly cool Santa Ana, El Salvador. Our rainy season is in full swing, and that brings cooler temperatures and luscious green mountains and valleys. It is our favorite time of the year, as far as the weather is concerned, but it does affect the ministry results to some extent. If it rains all week and the sun peeks out on Sunday, the women stay home from church to wash and take advantage of the sun to dry the laundry. If it is raining on Sunday, many children are not allowed to attend church for fear of them getting sick because of the “cooler” temperatures.
At the beginning of this year, we had a goal and have worked hard towards that goal of 300 people in regular attendance to Sunday school. Our people have worked tirelessly alongside us in an effort to reach that goal. Although our soul-winning results, baptism results, and the number of people serving in church have remained stable and increased in some measure, our attendance has not increased much. This can be frustrating, but we are encouraged when we see the church faithfully serving, praying, and giving towards the work of the Lord.
The two newer churches started in the last two years are seeing growth in attendance and in other areas of the ministry. The young pastors and their families work very hard to weekly see new people come to church and to see souls saved on a daily basis, dedicating a lot of time to mentoring teenagers in the area. Roberto Salguero and Manases Rivera do this work with the help of their wives and are a great blessing to me. Please pray and consider giving financially toward these growing and productive works.
Lastly, I would ask that you pray for our church, as we will be hosting a pastors’ conference, where we expect over 50 pastors to attend from all over Central America. This conference is sponsored by the ministries of Fuegos de Evangelismo, which is directed by Dr. Elmer Fernandez. We have had the privilege of hosting this conference on three different occasions.
On a personal note, we took our son Daniel to Hyles-Anderson College to embark on his first year of Bible college. We appreciate your prayers for him during this transitional period. He is very happy and excited about being there. The Lord provided a good job to supplement his financial needs. God has been so good to us.
Thank you for your prayers and your faithful financial support. A special thanks goes to those of you who take the time to correspond with us. We enjoy hearing from you.
Joyfully in His service,
Henry Gonzalez