Special
Prayer Update
Pray for Peru
The
prayer recorded in Acts 4:24-30 is an amazing prayer. I encourage you
to read through that prayer right now. How they prayed informs us how
we ought to pray when opposition to the gospel comes. They
immediately praised God for Who He is: He is Creator and He is
Sovereign. In other words, He made everything and He rules over
everything. He is in no way ignorant of the opposition to His work.
They understood that God was in control of the greatest opposition to
His work: the death of Jesus. All that the Roman authorities and
Jewish religious leaders managed to do was to further God's
plan.
Regarding their present condition, notice how they
prayed. They did not ask for vengeance upon their
opponents. They did not ask to be delivered from all suffering
and adversity. They did not ask for the Jewish leaders to be
removed from office. They did not ask for a change of
circumstances. They asked instead for God to give them greater
boldness, greater confidence, in speaking His Word. They asked for
more signs and wonders which would show the presence and power of
Jesus. (Remember, they just got arrested for this…now they are asking
for more?!)
We sent out an update 2 weeks ago regarding some
political turmoil in Peru. In case you missed that message, you can
see it here. While we have
seen little indication that President Humala
will choose to change the law anytime soon, we still know that God is
in control and that He will continue to further His work.
Yesterday one of our coworkers submitted an
application with Peru's government to maintain Baptist Mid-Mission's
legal standing. Our lawyer has received the paperwork and will be submitting
it to the Justice Department tomorrow. The deadline for the law
to take effect is this Friday, January 18.
The current law states that a religious
organization must have 10,000 adult members in order to remain a
government-recognized entity. With regard to that stipulation, our
coworker submitted the following claims: in churches
where Baptist Mid-Missions currently works, there are 830 adult
members; including churches where Baptist Mid-Missions has had a
presence in the past, there are more than 4,000 adult members;
including the number of churches that have descended from Baptist
Mid-Mission church plants (over the past 75 years), there are more
than 20,000 adult members.
We do not know what the outcome of this situation
will bring, but we ask that you continue to pray for God's will to be
done. Pray for wisdom, patience, and grace to be evident in the lives
of our teammates. Pray for God to change the hearts of those in power,
if He so wills.
Thank you for your faithful prayers for us and
for Peru. Your response has been tremendous and very
encouraging.
Until
all have heard,
Caleb,
Ecko, Joe, Jack, Isabel, and Isaac Stein
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