The Lord is at work in Portugal and it is our privilege to see Him at work and to be called to be in His ministry.
[Click here to view a PDF version of this Prayer Letter]
Church planting: In the city of Castelo Branco, the first three months of the year have been spent working on the or-ganization aspects of the church. We have led several members’ meetings to work on the church’s constitution and by-laws. Soon we should be able to approve these important documents. This time in the church’s life has been used as a teaching moment and each step has been taken with prayer. The Lord has also allowed us to better organize the chil-dren’s ministry at this church. Several of the church members help in the different teaching positions and we have seen an increase of the children that attend. We have also continued the services at the new church plant in the city of Fundão. So far, we have been meeting at someone’s home, but we have closed on a building and we should have the keys on May 1st. Please pray as we prepare for the opening services of the new church plant.
Training: I continue to study one-on-one with one of the men in the church of Castelo Branco and will be starting stud-ies with a second one. Recently I finished two online Bible Institute courses and now we are preparing to start another one. So far, we have had many enquiries regarding this new course (Old Testament Survey) and we should have several people attending the classes, online and in person. In February we had our youth winter camp. About 12 teenagers at-tended and the theme was “To Know God and to Walk with Him”. We are praying for some of the teens that have ex-pressed a desire to continue their ministry studies. Also, please join us in praying for a couple of teens that attended from a nearby city that had never heard the Gospel before or attended anything that wasn’t Roman Catholic. We have met with the two of them since and one of them has attended our Saturday teen meeting at our home. Please pray for them to be saved. It was a huge blessing to recently receive an offering from a church in Portugal towards remodeling the camp’s bathhouses. We are happy the inform that the renovation work has started!
Get involved: There two immediate ways to get involved with what the Lord is doing in Portugal through our ministry. The first is to pray about being a part of this year’s “Portugal Day Offering”. June 10th is Portugal Day and we en-courage individuals and churches to be part of our ministry through a one-time, any amount offering that day. Contact us for more details. The second way to get involved is by coming here in person. We are in the middle of some projects at the camp and really could use skilled electricians, builders, plumbers, engineers, etc. Contact us if you would like some details on that.
Furlough plans: We are postponing furlough plans for this year. We will be in the US only for the month of July. That being said, we still have some Sundays and midweek availability if you would like to schedule us in your church. Also, let us know if you would like to schedule us for the Fall of 2020 and we will start putting together a proper furlough schedule.
Thank you for your love and support for the ministry in Portugal.
In His Service, Mark and Aura Pereira
Thanks for the update! God bless y’all!