This December God poured out the blessing here in Peru. Souls have been saved. Converts have been baptized. Lives have been changed, including our own. Many of our church members have given themselves this month to help with Family Fun Night, church maintenance, cleaning, 1,000 gift bags for our neighbors, our Christmas event—the Star of Bethlehem and Singspiration, special music, Baby Dedication Sunday, our Christmas-play night, preparing meals, soul winning, etc.
For several weeks, our church family had been preparing signing groups for our main event, the Star of Bethlehem. Guillermo Vallejos, who is 83 years of age and plays the accordion for our services, prepared a choir of our teenage girls for the event. Three of our families formed signing groups. Overall, we had eight musical specials that night, including two choirs from other churches. We had 142 in attendance that night. We were so full that we had people sitting outside, not including the other churches. We had more than 100 from our own church present, including 20 visitors. Because of the crowd, we shared the Gospel publicly. People were saved, but we could not tell you how many. God is so good!
We cannot begin to express the joy of seeing God’s people rise to the occasion, roll up their sleeves, and do whatever needs to be done for the Kingdom of Heaven. After preparing literature and collecting bags and boxes of candy from our church members, we started at 8 a.m. preparing the bags. Until 8 p.m., 16 of our adults prepared 1,142 gift bags containing candy and cookies, a professional letter of invitation to our church, a full-color flyer to our Christmas event, a Gospel tract, and Christmas greetings. The next day, starting at 8 a.m., even more of our members helped blanket the neighborhood with the gift bags. I can’t tell you how blessed I am to work with people of such great faith.
The Sunday before Christmas, five of our families publicly dedicated their children to the Lord. That evening we acted out the Christmas story in costumes. Our lines and narration were directly quoted from Scripture.
We are driven by the thought of your sacrifice, and we are so grateful to partner with you in the work. Thank you to those who sent Christmas-gift money for our children. We did our best to spoil them rotten this year. Please keep us in your prayers. We see and feel the spiritual warfare every day. Thank you for your friendship, love, support, and prayers. God bless you.
Happy New Year,
Mark, Sarah, Savannah, Paul, & Samuel Rader
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- Sarah led Anthony and Melody to Christ.
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- We are having fun while preaching the Word.
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- Mark led 10 to Christ at one time.
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- Gabriela was baptized.
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- Our church came together to prepare and share over 1,000 gift bags for our neighborhood.
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- Fernando was baptized.
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- Our church was filled for our Star of Bethlehem Bible Study.
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- More than 25 of our church members helped with special music this month.
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- Mark enjoyed playing King Herod too much.
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- Five of our families dedicated their children to the Lord.