Thank you for your interest in our updates and in what the Lord is doing in Portugal. The Lord continues to work in this country and it is our privilege to be involved and to be used of Him. The church in Castelo Branco continues to grow. Since the last letter, we have had one baptism and three other people have joined in membership. The church plant in Fundão is going well. We have started services in the new store front we have rented. We have had several visitors since we started meeting at the new place and we have about 12 people meeting every Sunday. In Fundão we are going through the Gospel of John, leaving space for questions. There is a great interest in the Gospel and we are praying specifically that the Lord will save some of the people already attending or that have visited. For others, we are praying for full assurance of salvation. Will you join us in prayer that the Lord will form one of His churches in the city of Fundão? And that we will see souls saved soon?
We are praying we get to use our house, more and more, as a means to reach out with the Gospel of Christ. In November we moved into this new house (new to us, anyway). It is in a village about 10 minutes from Castelo Branco, called Retaxo. This area is full of these little villages, each with only a few hundred people. We have begun getting to know our neighbors and we’ve had the privilege of having some of them come in. We’ve also used the house for teen meetings and other church activities, including our weekly Bible Institute class. Will you pray with us that the Lord would allow us to reach more people through regular Christian hospitality and our home?
As you probably know, we have been upgrading the bathhouses at our camp property. We had a very generous offering from a church here in Portugal that cooperates with our camp ministry, and we were able to purchase a prefabricated building to replace the boy’s bathhouse. In April we had the new bathhouse delivered and the work to make it fully functioning is almost complete. The “Portugal Day Offering” campaign is going on until the end of July. Several people have sent specific donations for this project and we praise the Lord for each of you. Will you pray that the Lord would continue to provide for this need?
In May, we had the visit of a dear brother, from Mexico, whom the Lord has called to be a missionary in Portugal. He came to do his survey trip. They are raising the necessary funds to move to Portugal to do the Lord’s work. What a blessing to meet this brother. Will you pray that the Lord would help them raise their support quickly? Will you pray that the Lord would help others obey the calling to come to this country? Will you pray for those Portuguese people, in our churches here, that are being called for the ministry? Will you pray that the churches in Portugal will have the necessary faith to support and send out their own missionaries?
Thank you for your love and support for the ministry in Portugal.
In His Service, Mark and Aura Pereira