Dear Friends in Christ,
… pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified …: 2 Thessalonians 3:1
Camargo: The Bible Baptist Church just celebrated its 5th anniversary. The Lord really used Bro. Hector Jimenez from El Paso, TX, with the Bearing Precious Seed ministry out of my sending church, to encourage our church to keep on year after year, living sanctified lives and winning their families and our city to Christ. The altar was full every service, as people made decisions to serve the Lord in a greater capacity. We baptized 3 that Sunday, 2 teens and “Beto”, a young mentally challenged man who in another “church” had just been “baptized” to appease him, without dealing with him about his lost state and salvation. He trusted Christ, repenting of his sin, and was baptized! Praise the Lord!
Assistants: Twenty-one year old Arturo who was saved a year ago, has been working with me for a few months, will be going to Torreon to a Bible institute for 3 years. He is to return here to Camargo upon completion.
Jorge, 26 just came to work with us in October. He is in his first year of Bible institute training by correspondence. Pray that I will be able to teach and prepare these young men to be ready to do whatever the Lord would lead them to do. At 61 years of age, I’m not as patient as I might be, but I’m trying. I assume they should know common sense things, but they have either never been taught or never learned basic logic and reasoning. It seems this generation struggles just to pay attention, and working in another language doesn’t help. And when it comes to building renovation and physical, mechanical things, I have to show them how to do everything and why.
Coxcatlán, San Luis Potosí, MX: Bro. Lucio Hernandez, one of the missionaries our church supports, invited me to preach their mission conference. Coxcatlán is in the jungle of eastern San Luis Potosí, Mexico, 18 hours from here by bus. Many of the Nahuactl people there live as rural America, 100 years ago. Not one house I was in had an indoor kitchen sink. Some had an outdoor fire pit and the fire pit inside, with ceilings of palm leaves, the smoke rising up into the ceiling. The walls were a type of large bamboo, with a corrugated metal roof, and or palm leaves.
I bathed with running water, that is, running to get water with a bucket from a tank outside. It was rainy and chilly, so with no water heater, very refreshing!
They grow about whatever kind of fruit you could imagine and many I had never heard of. There are banana and orange trees everywhere, with coffee beans, etc. growing beside many houses.
It is absolutely beautiful, but not an easy life. They are such a sweet, hospitable people when they get saved, but very superstitious, idolatrous Catholics until then. It was such a blessing to be able to eat in several of their homes, and experience what it is to literally live by faith, something most Americans only talk of. It was a great time of encouragement for me! Amen!
It was a challenge preaching, as they show very little emotion, but their conference was a success, with the Faith promise doubling what had been promised and given the year before! Two new lost men came out every service. They wouldn’t trust Christ at the time, but they heard the gospel again! Four people surrendered to be baptized and followed through, a week later.
Our church here wants to raise the money and go help them put the roof on their new building!
Praise: People Saved; Fifth anniversary of Bible Baptist Church, those baptized; Assistants’ desire to learn and serve; Great conference in Coxcatlán and the blessing and encouragement it was to me
Prayer: Arturo going to Bible institute, Jorge studying and working here; Building roof Coxcatlán
In Christ’s Service,
Bro. Ron Winter
Camargo, Chihuahua, Mexico