December ’13 Prayer Letter

Dear Prayer Partners,                                                                                                             December 2013

We had the chance to go to Portugal for Christmas. And what a blessing that was! While there I had the chance to preach our church plant and at the church in Albufeira. The services went well and in all services there were new people that have been attending or have gotten saved since we left for the US in August. I also preached at my father-in-law’s church plant in Castelo Branco and it was a great joy to see how the Lord is blessing that work with a good group of people that have a sincere desire to be fed with the Word of God.

We had good planning meetings with Bros. Tito and Lenildo, and their wives where we talked about the on-going ministry and the future of the church planting work in Portugal. Even though we were not able to make the trip up north, I had a good phone conversation with our other Portuguese pastor, Bro. Rui Simão. Please pray for these men, their families and ministries. I believe these men are the first of many national pastors that we will see the Lord raise and we will have the chance to train to reach Portugal with the Gospel of Christ.

In Albufeira, we were part of the special New Year’s night service. We spend all night in church with a dinner, service, games and, around 11:30 we start a prayer service until the start of the new year. This was the 10^th year that this event was held in Albufeira. Our people love to start the New Year on their knees asking for the Lord’s protection over family, church and nation and for the salvation of lost souls. We had almost 60 people in attendance, some for the first time. During the service, we asked all the people that were saved during 2013 to stand. What a blessing to see about half a dozen people stand in testimony of their new found Saviour!

We arrived back in the US on January 3^rd and will be in Arizona and California until the end of February. Please pray that we can find meetings for the dates that we still need to fill before we go back to Portugal. Also pray that we start hearing back from the churches we have already visited. We need nothing short of a miracle! We need a much higher rate of positive responses than the average missionary on deputation. We are praying that the Lord would bless us with some new support during the month of January.

In His Service, Mark and Aura Pereira