Wednesday, October 30, 2024

October 2024 Update

Greetings! I hope everyone is doing well. Thank you very much for your support as you pray for the work God is among the displaced indigenous people here in Bogota, that the word of Christ would speed ahead and be honored, and that the gospel would advance throughout the world unhindered. Our desire is for people from every tribe, nation, people, and tongue to worship around the throne. And that task is accomplished through the faithful preaching of the Christ throughout the world. God is faithful. He will be with us as we go forth.

My work in Bogota focuses on the displaced indigenous in Bogota. About 1,000 of them were living in a park near my apartment. But a few months ago, many of them have been returned to their territory in western Colombia. I have kept in contact with one family who moved away. The ones who stayed in Bogota have moved to several places throughout the city, including a shelter that I visit once a week. A man from Bethania Baptist Church has been coming with me as I visit that shelter. There is another park just outside the city limits with indigenous. I have made a few visits out that way. A few colleagues of mine are visiting there more frequently. But I will likely begin to make more visits there in the coming months. There is another shelter that I visit once a week. There are national partners working with me


during my visits. We have been working a lot with the children at that shelter. In all of these places, we have been evangelizing, telling Bible stories, and building relationships. In the next few weeks, we will be doing a relief project with two of the shelters which will provide food and hygiene kits to help meet some of the material needs present among them. Pray that our time at each location would be fruitful.


The number of national partners (individuals and churches) is beginning grow and become involved in the displaced indigenous work. We are working on getting together various tools to help train new workers. We had an in-person, one-day training event last month and hope to have more in the future. Pray that more national partners would become involved with the work among the indigenous and that we will be able to train them to minister well in a cross-cultural context. The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly for the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers (Mat 9:37-38).


Please continue to pray for my visits with the Wounaan. I have been able to make several visits to “Silas” to study the Word and pray together. I will sometimes visit him when he is selling in the market. Pray for the small Wounaan church that is here in Bogota. Pray that they will grow and be strengthened by the gospel and mobilized to reach their own people.

Please pray for my visits with “Mike.” I visit with him once or twice a week to talk, pray, and study the Word. Life is hard for him as he struggles to find work to support his family. Pray the he would come to see his need for Christ and trust in Him.

Please continue to pray for the ministry in Las Cruces. I haven’t been able to be as involved in it as I once did due to time. But pray for that ministry there as Daniel and his family start a new church and reach their neighborhood with the gospel.

Please continue to pray for my team. Pray for us as we seek to reorganize our labor in light of those who were moved from the park to the other side of the country. Also, one couple on my team is retiring at the end of the year. So pray for the changes that that will 


Jesus is teaching parables about the kingdom illustrating for us how God's reign works. The parable here speaks of what we can do and what we can’t do. We can scatter the word. And as we saw in the parable of the sower, we must sow the word everywhere indiscriminately. That is what missions and evangelism is all about. But though we can scatter the word, we can't make it germinate in someone's heart. We can’t control it or manipulate it. We faithfully scatter the word by preaching the gospel to all people everywhere and then leave its growth to Him. We can trust that the seed is going to do its work as God makes His kingdom grow (cf. Isa 55:11).

This teaches us that there’s a simplicity to kingdom work. The farmer scatters the seed and then goes about his life; he sleeps and rises, night and day. It’s not something flashy that appears grand and glorious. It involves the simple proclamation of Christ and what He has done for us. It is the foolishness of preaching. And in the eyes of the world, both the message [the gospel] and the method [preaching] seem foolish. And at times it may not appear that much is going on. But we know that God is at work in the preached word and that genuine growth will occur—first the blade, then the head, and then the mature grain. As we faithfully plant and water, we can have full confidence that God will cause the increase (1 Cor 3:6-9). We can be confident of a harvest on that final day when our Lord returns (Jam 5:7-8).



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