By the grace of God we continue to see more people coming into a relationship with the Lord at the Mirante Church and throughout the movement. Below is a picture of several weeks at the church where people came and accepted Jesus as their personal savior. I love the first picture of Junior receiving Christ. Junior has been coming to the church for over a year faithfully and consistently. His wife is very involved in the church and works with the youth, the dance group, and the adolescents. Both of them have been wonderful additions to the church. Throughout the time that Junior has been coming to the church he never made a commitment to receive Christ as his personal savior. Personally, I am not sure what he thought about Jesus all the times that he came to church. Maybe he thought, Jesus is a good guy who did many good things and it would be good to replicate what he did in his life. I am not sure, but what I am sure of is that when Junior decided on Sunday to receive Christ he was very emotional and deeply touched as well as many people in the church who knew Junior. I really admire Junior for waiting until he was ready to accept Christ. He did not give into peer pressure but instead waited until it was the right time for him. It was a powerful moment in his life and it was an answer to many prayers.
This month we hosted a pastor’s retreat for our regional pastors. Every year Elba and I, along with other leaders, get the exquisite honor to go and be ministered to by Godly men and woman in the Vineyard USA. We always walk away from the experience feeling refreshed and recharged. In addition, we always walked away saying “how can we reproduce this experience for our regional pastors?” Well this year, we were able to make this a reality. We had the honor of bringing in a wonderful counselor by the name of Dan Thiessen who taught on a wide range of psychological patterns in people and warning signs. This really helped equip the pastors. Later, we then taught on the Lectio Divina which is the practice of scriptural reading, meditation and prayer intended to promote communion with God. It was a great time and very refreshing for our pastors.
Below are pictures of the girls. We took these photos and gave them to Elba for Mother’s day. She was so happy and surprised. The pink foliage on the ground is from one of our fruit trees called Jumbu. It matched perfectly with their dresses and the pictures turned out really nice. We hope you enjoy as well.
Please continue to pray for spiritual, physical, and emotional health for us.
Love and blessings, Steve, Elba, Camilly and Alyssa
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