November ’16 Prayer Letter

Dear Prayer Partners,                                                                         

[Click here for PDF version of this letter. Email us at mark@reachportugal.com to get our monthly news]

I am writing from the United States. We arrived a few days ago for a furlough, but also to raise needed ministry funds. We were able to spend Thanksgiving at Aura’s brother and sister-in-law’s house near D.C. This is where Aura’s parents have come to live while Aura’s mom is undergoing chemo treatments for a recently diagnosed ovarian cancer. We would ask you to pray for Aura’s mom, Barbara Newton. Next week an exam is to be made to determine if the chemo is working. If so, they will operate to remove the tumor. If not, they will continue with the chemo.

Thank you for praying for the missions’ trip to the Azores. We were able to take a group of young people from different churches and spend a week in Sao Jorge island. The Azores, even more than continental Portugal, is a very religious place. Roman Catholicism has a big hold there and permeates its whole culture. In this island in particular, there is nothing but the church of Rome and Jehovah’s Witnesses. The people are religious, but lost. Very few have ever heard the good news that there is free salvation in Christ. We spent the week meeting people, visiting family and friends and passing out evangelistic literature. At the end of the week, we held a public service and the good news of salvation were preached. The Azores was going through elections at that time and the main political party scheduled a big rally for the same day and time as our service. They were even offering free food for anyone that would attend! Even though we had had some good conversations and some people had told us they would be coming, we did not know what to expect. By the grace of God, 11 people showed up. Including our group, there were 21 people in that service! At the end of the service a 15 year old girl asked “how can I know that I have been born again?” I had the opportunity to share from the Bible with her and I prayed that the Lord would give her full assurance of salvation.

We want to add here a special word of thanks to all that were used by God to help our young people go on this missions’ trip. This was a very important trip for them. It was a joy to hear them talk, to us and among themselves, of the different ways they had seen the Lord work during the trip. Let me give you an example. The day before our special service, one of our teens (Fernando) had run out of invitations. He saw another teen boy (Moises) walking towards him and, even though he did not have an invitation, he decided to invite him just the same. It turned out that this young man has been to some Pentecostal services and was interested on what the Bible had to say. He was one of the people that turned out for the service. Last week, Fernando was able to go back to Sao Jorge for three days. He went there specifically to visit some of the people that came to the service, pass out Gospel literature and to meet up with Moises. Please pray the we would hear of Moises’ salvation soon.

The church in Castelo Branco is doing well. We are seeing great involvement and sweet fellowship. A man in the church (João) and our Bible Institute student (Fernando) are doing a great job with some of the teaching and everyone is helping with the different activities. I am continuing the Bible Institute classes through Skype and it is working well so far.

Thank you for your love and support for the ministry in Portugal.