Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you! Greetings from hot and humid São Paulo, Brazil! We appreciate your concern for our missionary support. We apologize that we have not been able to leave the field these past nine years to report on our ministry. Our only furlough in 2011 was a medical furlough (for the birth of the twins), and as soon as Amy had somewhat recovered from her emergency cesarean section, we rushed back to our church on the field. It would be a joy for us to thank you all in person one day. We have invested nine years here, and we cannot leave without someone to attend to the needs of our church. Thank you for your faithful support, allowing us to keep working and reaching lost souls! Your church has been a great encouragement to us with your prayers, financial support, and personal notes and cards to our family.
Praise the Lord for David’s zeal in soul winning! He was overjoyed to lead 14 to the Lord and his first adult in November! I even saw someone videoing him as he explained the Gospel in the street. We thank the Lord for the many souls that have been saved in these last two months. I have prayed for a professional couple for months and explained to them that I was concerned about their eternity. I explained what the Bible teaches—what does it profit a man to gain the whole word and lose his own soul? They were receptive and willingly bowed their heads and trusted Christ as Saviour one afternoon in November.
Juan, age 11, and David, age 9, are teaching the Junior Church. They have been diligent to teach and record points for all of the children. Esther helps us in the nursery, and the little ones love her. Amy runs back and forth from the Junior Church to the nursery supervising them. She gathers the choir to sing a special and sets up the refreshments after each service, as well. A few of the ladies volunteer at times to help clean the church and stamp tracts.
Our family of nine currently lives in a building behind the church. We have yet to plaster, paint, build closets, and make many repairs. We have turned the building in front (our previous small home) into a sanctuary with a nursery. We were at capacity with the first construction. We have had a very urgent need for Sunday school classrooms and a need to remove the tarp roof and build a second floor. We recently stepped out in faith with a $40,000 project to build the second floor. Our church people have sacrificially given of their time and resources. We have run out of church funds and still have much work to do. We are using the money from our support and helping with our time and effort as well to try to keep the work moving along. We need to put a roof on the second floor and a layer of concrete to seal the floor. The rains are leaking through to the first-floor auditorium and destroying our chairs and furniture. I have installed the electricity and invested as much time and labor as I can in order to keep the project going, yet we are in urgent need of help in order to complete this project.
The last Sunday of November, 3 ladies trusted Christ as their Saviour, and 6 people came for baptism. Please pray for the Brazilians we are reaching with the Gospel. They have a desire to follow Christ, yet they struggle with making a commitment to faithfully serve Him. Please pray for us as we strive to teach and train these dear souls. We thank the Lord for those who came and participated in our Thanksgiving service. Once again, we realized how important it is to finish the construction project, as we were very limited on space for this event.
I am burdened to start another church, provide a Family Camp for our current church family, start a Bible institute, and many other ministries for which God has given me a vision. Of course, with enough resources we would be able to do much more for the cause of Christ and lost souls. There is a very great need for the Gospel to reach out farther into this populated city of 20 million. Thank you again for taking part in our ministry.
Not only are funds important to run the ministry, we also ask you to pray for laborers. We are one family striving to reach as many as we can with the Gospel. We have been working alone since the first door we knocked on in 2007! With your help, we could do so much more! We are able to host groups for construction work, a single young lady to help with homeschooling and caring for the young children, a young man to help us on visitation and with church ministries, and a family or couple willing to help on a short- or long-term basis.
May the Lord bless you!
Missionary Juan Vallejo and Family