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March - April 2002
Dear
praying brethren,
In
April 2001, I met a man on visitation and led him to the Lord
in his living room. He came to church and immediately
requested prayer for his wife to get saved. And sure enough,
this April, one year later, she got saved on a Sunday morning.
However, the sad part is, they will be leaving in five weeks
to return to the States. I despise this part of a military ministry. "In every thing give thanks..."
‑ and I do, but I still HATE to see Uncle Sam ship them
out after these folks get saved, start learning what it means
to be faithful, study, witness, and tithe. Please don't give
me too hard a time, I'm just being honest! Pray that God would
lead Brother and Sister
Woods to a good church, so they would have a good chance
to keep growing.
Also,
Eric Verduzco (a Roman Catholic) got a good dose of salvation
in my office just last week. He had a narrow brush with death
in a really bad car accident, so he agreed to come to church
when one of the Bible Institute students invited him. I took
him out on the four wheeler to "get away". We found
an old bench in the mountains and sat down to talk. He had
just said, "I'm lost, Preacher, and I need some
guidance..." and what did we hear but thunder... yep, you
know it, it started raining. (If it hadn't started to rain, a
baby would have cried or a phone would have rung; just par for
the course.) So, we continued the conversation in my office
where he got a cup of coffee and the sure word that would be
able to save his soul. He was pretty "cool" while I
was talking with him; down right expressionless. So I drilled
him and grilled him (I really make sure nowadays) and he said,
yes, he understands exactly what I'm saying and, "YES, I
WANT TO GET SAVED." So we prayed. As we lifted up our
heads, he was in tears and asked, "Am I supposed to be
crying?" AMEN & THANK GOD! After his salvation, I
warned Eric that now he's a child of the King and has just
been snatched from Satan's nursery, and he needs to walk
circumspectly. Four nights ago, he had all night staff duty
and was "caught" by an Army Chaplain reading
"The Next Step" and some other Chick comics. The
chaplain told him those were not "authorized Army
literature." Thank God he handled it right. Eric simply
said, "Oh, thank you" and returned to his reading.
I
mentioned to you in my last prayer letter that we have been
receiving all sorts of phone calls from Germans. Last month a
German couple asked us to sing some "gospel songs"
at their wedding. Initially I thought this will go nowhere. We
figured they had "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" in mind.
They came to check out a Sunday service. The wife went on and
on about this being just the type of music they were looking
for. I was amazed; it was just the old time hymns. They came
back and brought two German friends to the English service.
One man said afterwards his English wasn't good enough to
understand. So I asked if the service had been boring for him,
to which he replied, "Oh, no. At least, it was something
to SEE!" Needless to say, the next week we finished
setting up our wireless translation system. PLEASE PRAY FOR
THESE GERMANS. Pray
that they would get in and bring more folks.
Then
on a Thursday evening, I got a phone call from Mehdi, my
Persian buddy, who got saved two months ago. He had friends
visiting for a week from Iran and he preached at them all
seven days. One of the young men got saved and was scheduled
to leave on Saturday. "Can you baptize him?" We
filled up the cold baptistery (we haven't figured a way to
heat the water yet), gathered about 15 folks who could make it
to an impromptu baptismal service and like Acts 8, we dunked
him with great joy on Friday morning. Needless to say, I had
my time of drilling him to make sure he was really saved.
AMEN. Pray for Omed. He'll have a hard time as a Christian in
the "Islamic Republic of Iran."
This
is the first time that some of my disciples are beginning to
win their own to the Lord. Brother Eric (the former Wiccan)
just led his second soul to the Lord. Mehdi got one and others
are on the way!!!
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