All done and halfway there.

All done! …with seminary classes. I have finished my last class for the M.Div. program at Baptist Bible Seminary. Of course, I still have a 30 page paper due Friday. :-) The final part of the degree is a one year internship which will we will complete once we arrive in Peru. During our first year of ministry in Peru, we will be working with my parents at the New Life Baptist Church. The internship time will help us get our feet on the ground and evaluate where God might most effectively use us in ministry.

All done! …raising Outfit and Passage funds. After a very generous gift from Braintrim Baptist Church we now have 100%!

Halfway there! …raising our monthly support. We are now at 54%! Please pray that God will provide the additional 46% so we can leave for language school by December or January.

Praise the Lord for answered prayers! What a joy it is to watch Him work. Last month I asked you to pray for three new churches. Here is what God has been doing.

Llanavilla (“ya-na-VI-ya”)

I just heard from Pastor Alejandro in Peru. I mistakenly thought they were shooting for an Easter Sunday service, but Palm Sunday was their goal. Here is what he told me…

“Our goal was to move to our new land on our anniversary day: Sunday, April 4. We began the project by faith since we had only the first offering you sent ($440 from Open Bible Baptist, FL). The work was hard, but God helped us. We were able to put up a roof of rebar and corrugated metal sheets. The brothers were working until 3 AM on Sunday the 4th moving our things from our previous building. Everything worked out well, thank God. We didn’t have time to finish the walls and poor the floor, but we are working on that this week with the help of the brothers. All the labor in building the roof, finishing the walls, and pouring the floor was an offering from the brothers of Llanavilla – they are doing it all themselves. I am sending you some pictures of the anniversary…”

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Manchay

Pepe and Gladys Zapata, one of the couples from our church in Las Viñas/La Capilla, began a Bible study in another area of the city called Manchay. God provided funds from several churches here in the States so they could construct a meeting room on the second floor of one of the believer’s houses. They have space for about 90 people. The Bible study has averaged about 12 adults and 40 children. Pepe just sent me some pictures of their Mother’s Day service. They had 80 people there, including 26 mothers, and three people accepted the Lord – praise God! The most recent offering God provided through churches here in the States paid for benches and a pulpit. The believers send their thanks to all of you who have partnered with them by giving and praying.

Please pray for the Zapata family as they have answered a call to pastor a Spanish church plant in Ocala, Florida. Pepe was ordained last Sunday at our church in La Capilla. Ronald and Maria Funegra, another couple from our church, will be taking over the leadership of the Manchay church plant in July.

The Poconos, PA.

On Easter Sunday Living Hope Baptist Church held its first official service. Praise the Lord for 178 people who attended, about 140 from the community! The church planting team has a dream to plant a multi-cultural congregation in the Mount Pocono area. God brought a very diverse group of people together to hear a clear gospel message from Pastor Tim Hutchinson. There were about 8 people who made professions of faith!

I thank you all for praying for this new church. It was a joy for me to participate with them in their Easter service and see a church born here in the States. I have really had a very small part in this church plant, but God has given me an opportunity to develop their website and do some video work for them. Please pray as God continues to work in this ministry. I have heard that their attendance continues to be strong as they follow up on many new contacts.

Please Pray!
- that God would continue to develop us as tools He will use for His glory.
- that God would provide opportunities for us to share our ministry in churches.
- that God would provide 100% of our monthly support by December.
- for my sister Lisa’s wedding on July 9.
- for my sister Christina’s missions trip to work with an orphanage in Lebanon later this summer.

God bless! May He work in and through all of us to fulfill His heartbeat for this world: “that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ… (Ephesians 1:10).” And, “In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him (1 John 4:9).”

In Him together,
Jonathan and Angela Stone