Urgent prayer request for Lupe in Negritas.

Please pray for Lupe, the pastor of our church plant in Negritas, Mexico. His mother is an alcoholic and of course the family (and especially Lupe) has been trying to get her to quit for some time. This week Lupe's mother drank too much and fell down. She received a large bruise on the side of her face. To save face, she is telling everyone in town a lie - that Lupe was trying to get her to stop drinking and hit her.

• Pray that people would not believe her as Lupe has a good reputation of being a Godly man.
• Pray that Lupe and Leti would have wisdom to answer the questions and allegations in a way that would glorify God.
• Pray that the Holy Spirit would convict Lupe's mom and bring her to salvation.

1 Peter 2:12, "having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation."

Good Friday went well!

On Good Friday we served a great home cooked meal. Then we had a worship service. Then we played basketball past midnight. Our Good Friday Outreach is an outgrowth of our Open Gym ministry. Way back in 1994 when we first started our Open Gym we had a first Good Friday service. Open Gym was held on Friday nights and when Good Friday came around we couldn’t just ignore it. We had a special short service in the middle of our gym night. In 1997 it grew to what we have today with a full blown meal and an hour long worship service followed by playing basketball “until we drop”.

This year Carmelo and Cristina gave their testimonies during the worship service. Two years ago Carmelo received Jesus as his Savior during our 10 Days of Prayer. Cristina received Jesus in our living room a couple months later. Jon had the privilege of baptizing Carmelo and Cristina last September during our family camp. Carmelo is teaching an evangelistic home Bible study. Also, our church van sits outside their house and they fill it each week bringing unsaved neighbors and friends to church.

This year we only had 120-130 come to Good Friday. This is down quite a bit from our normal 180 or so. On the bright side, of those who attended there were about 100 people who do not know Jesus as their Savior. Several people expressed an interest in receiving a Bible and/or attending a home Bible study. As a result one new Bible study has been started. We hope to start at least one more as a result of this year’s Good Friday outreach.