 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 Prayer Letters |
Jonathan
and Angela Stone December 21, 2003 Dear Prayer Partners, Merry Christmas! This is our third Christmas together as husband and wife. Where does the time go? It seems like yesterday we were graduating from college and planning the wedding. God has blessed us wonderfully. Angela continues to work as a nurse at a local hospital. She is developing skills she will use for ministry in Peru. Two days ago she started her first I.V.! (OK, it doesn’t exactly thrill me to think about needles either, but she was pretty excited about it. ?) I finished my last final for the semester on Friday. What a relief! I know this letter won’t make it to most of you by Christmas, but I got right to work on it as soon as the exams were done. :-) I plan to finish my coursework for the Master of Divinity this summer. The enclosed picture is our Christmas card for you. We do appreciate your prayers! God continues to provide as He moves us forward according to His plan. We now have 44% of our monthly support. Our Outfit and Passage account is at 70%. I recently read a suggestion by a pastor that every church should set one “big hairy audacious goal” each year. Well, our big hairy audacious goal is to reach 100% of our monthly support by July, 2004! We will need to reach 85% by April 21 in order to participate in a Field Preparation Seminar. Should God choose to keep us here a little longer, we would shoot for the next seminar in November. We are grateful to God for the 11 churches and 4 individuals who are currently supporting us financially. Please pray with us as several churches are considering taking us on as their missionaries. Below is a schedule of our meetings in the next two months. We are planning a trip to Florida to visit several churches in January. Please pray that God will provide more opportunities for us to present our ministry in the spring. I wish we could report to you regularly on the results of our ministry in Peru…but we aren’t there yet! However, God is doing great things and we are excited to rejoice with our Peruvian brothers. The church my family started in Las Viñas, Lima just finished a fantastic Christmas program. 200 people filled the auditorium. The program included testimonies from several of the 20 people who were just baptized. Sometimes God uses our planning and working, but other times He does things we never thought of just to show Who’s in charge! The church hadn’t planned to start a daughter church yet, but during the last year God has brought several people from a nearby town to our church. One of the families from our church in Las Viñas began traveling to Manchay to hold a Bible study with this group. 7 of them were just baptized. The Las Viñas church has become increasingly involved in the new work. On Saturday they held a “chocolatada” (hot chocolate party) for children in Manchay. The enthusiasm of the new believers is contagious. More and more believers from Las Viñas are seizing the opportunities for everyone to be involved in evangelism. Praise God for changed lives and growing Christians! I would like to close with an “eternal investment opportunity.” The church in Manchay will need a facility soon. They may be able to create a small auditorium by putting a roof on the second story of the house where they currently meet. But this is temporary. A piece of property will cost about $15,000. Manchay is a poorer area of Lima, so 15k will buy a good piece of land! We currently have about $1,700 which will cover the new roof. Would you consider making a contribution toward land and a building for this new church? Please send donations to ABWE (address below) designated for “Jonathan Stone – church planting” or donate online at www.abwe.org/donors/secure/donate-now.htm. In our meetings during the coming months the love offerings from churches will go toward the Manchay project and other church planting efforts in Peru. We can’t wait to be there and be involved! Thank you all so much for your prayers and support. May God bless your holidays with family love as you celebrate Christ’s birth. Because of the Christ, Jonathan & Angela
Stone ABWE Goals for January-July,
2004 Meetings |
||||||||||||
|
