May the peace and goodness of God and our loved Jesus be with each one of you. I hope you all know of our profound gratitude for being permitted to be in Tarija and continue sharing the Good News of salvation. We are happy and continue to advance little by little with confident steps ahead with a lot of hope and expectations to see what God will do in Tarija. We thank you for every one of the prayers lifted up for us and our families.
This month has been very interesting. I had forgotten that on the 16th of August they hold a special mass for pets in Bolivia. The church of San Roque was full as people took their pets (usually dogs) to be blessed. For those of you who don’t know about San Roque, he is a saint in the catholic religion, and one who is held special here in Tarija. I was walking along and it came to my attention a large statue of San Roque. The people around the statue were very happy to see such a great statue. What caught my eye was one woman specifically who was making comments on how beautiful the statue was and Paul and his time in Athens came to my mind:
“ Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship —and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. “(Acts 17:22-23)
Very religious… And I felt sad but at the same time was reminded of the great challenge of helping people get to know the living God. Without a doubt, it’s a lot of work, but we are convinced that with God’s blessing, we will do the work for His glory. We desire to plant a church here with a solid base of Jesus Christ, where the love of Christ is reflected in every person who comes to the knowledge of the truth of God. We are encouraged by the challenges and goals that come up day by day in our ministry. In the end I did not stand up like Paul did in the Areopagus :)
This month we met a group of street rappers that get together every Wednesday in the Plaza Sucre to share a time of improv. Our friend Christian (brother of one of the members in Sucre) invited us. We enjoyed it and hope to get to know them better. It would be so great if becoming Christians they could use their talents to bring other people to Christ. We invited them to El Camino (the contact center) and hope they come by. I ask that you pray for this group.
We also want to share that we have been having marriage classes with Ronald and Noemi. It has been nice times to get together to grow and share and learn in our marriages. We have been mutually encouraged in these times to persevere and make stronger our marriages and to continue in the love of God and serving others. We’ve been meeting every Friday sometimes at El Camino and sometimes in their home.
Sincerely,
The Torres
Grace and peace to you from Him who was and is and is to come.