I pray that all of you had a wonderful and fruitful holiday season, and I pray that the Lord’s presence and blessing will be evident in your churches and your lives this year. For us, 2023 ended on a wonderful note, and we are eager to see what the Lord will do this year.
In November, we had our second Missions Conference, with two church planters taking part. We collected Faith Promise pledges through the first couple weeks of December, and we rejoice to report that our church’s pledged giving to missions more than doubled! We held our annual Live Nativity service the Wednesday before Christmas, and I was really hopeful for a big night. We expanded the scene a bit, and this year, we had a lady in church who made all of our costumes—I didn’t even know we had a seamstress. Well, the night of the service, we had torrential rains like we’ve not seen in years. Needless to say, this affected attendance a little, but we praise the Lord for the good turnout and for salvation decisions that were made.
At our New Year’s Eve get-together, one of our attendees told me that this was the first New Year’s in many years that they were actually sober and with their family. Praise the Lord for the power of the Gospel. Please keep our church’s numerical and spiritual growth in your prayers.
January is Stewardship Month here. After that, we will get through Carnaval, and then it is time for the ramp up for our Evangelistic Conference. We are currently doing soul-winning workshops and training our church members to be comfortable and competent in sharing the Gospel. By the time the conference rolls around, my prayer is that several of our people will have already won their first soul to Christ.
Thank you for supporting the work here and for loving Brazilian souls. It is a privilege to serve here in Bahia, and we are excited about what this year holds in reaching souls for Christ. God bless you and use you for the furtherance of the Gospel.
Declaring His glory,
Wesley Palla
Psalm 96:3
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- Church service
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- Baptizing a convert