 We can honor You and bring our attention towards You and to hear the Gospel once again. We pray, Lord, that You would help us to consider more about You and Your glory, less of ourselves. Help us, Lord, now in this hour to think about what it means to glorify You and to serve You in the context of Your Kingdom. Thank You, Lord, for this opportunity to explain the good things You've done. I pray that You would be remembered throughout this time. Do you say amen? Well, I see a few new faces. I'll introduce myself just in case, but most of you are my family. I'm Mark Mudge. I'm one of the missionaries that Cornerstone Baptist Church supports. I've been planting a church in Guatemala City for the past year and a half. Before that, my wife and I were members of Cornerstone for 12 years. And then I served as a pastor for a few years, a couple of years. It's hard to tell. It's hard to tell, but for some time. So today in this Sunday School time, for the next 45 minutes, what we'd like to do is give a report about the work the Lord has been doing in Guatemala and to be able to answer any questions about that work. So I thought that I would describe some of the main purposes first of what we're doing. And then after that describe sort of like what's happened since the last time I saw you last year. And a very fly-by overview and hopefully with in the short enough time to be able to answer questions. So if you remember, one of the focuses in biblical missions is to do the work of the Great Commission. So in the work of the Great Commission, we're focusing in on church planting, discipleship, evangelism. And so when I give a report to the church, those are the things that we like to focus in on and what's been happening in regards to those areas of emphasis. And the reason why we focus in on those things is we believe that there's a biblical way that missions should be done. In the local church, not in a paratroops organization, it should be done with the focus of discipling, not simply preaching and then leaving. They should be done with evangelism. It should be a focus on preaching and glorifying Jesus Christ through His gospel. And so those, I'll bring you to the choir. So I want to express how grateful we are for your love. I've often communicated to other pastors, other churches how loving you all are in supporting us, praying for us. Your prayers have been a great encouragement and blessing to us that we know there's more done by that dependence on the Lord than what we can see. And so I want to encourage you that the Lord works through those prayers in great ways. I want to encourage you and thank you for the support that you've given us as we've been able to be there and focus in on all this work because of you guys. Like I'd say 90% of our financial support comes from you guys. So we have been able to plant a church in Guatemala City because of your support. So the fruit that I'm speaking about today is your fruit. It is what the Lord has done through you. I'm a pastor, Mark, so I've got to cry before I get started. Let's go ahead and open to Luke 24. I'll read verses 44 to 49. Luke 24 verses 44 to 49. He reads, Then he said to them, These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you. That all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning me. And he opened their understanding that they might comprehend the Scriptures. Then he said to them, Thus it is written, Thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day. And the repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things. Behold, I send the promise of my father upon you, but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high. You can see when you look at your Bible from verses 44 to 45, you can see how the Bible is Christ centered. You can look and see verses 46 to 47 and see how Christ should be declared to all nations. You can see verses 48 to 49 that this work can only take place by the power of the Spirit and will take place by the power of the Spirit. When we consider verse 44 and how Jesus reminds the disciples and those with them that he has told them before the cross would happen, before the resurrection would happen, that all these things must take place. And he uses day the divine necessity to say that they are ordained events in his sovereignty, that they must be fulfilled. And then he points to all the Bible and says, all the Bible has been pointing to this to be fulfilled. The law, the prophets and the Psalms are all written concerning me. And they all point to him, to glorify him. The law in the moral law, the civil law and the ceremonial law, all of them written for the purpose to draw attention to Jesus Christ. The prophets prophesying of Jesus Christ, who he would be, the government be upon his shoulder in Isaiah 9-6. How in Daniel 7, which you'll study, and I think it's a small group, right? You'll study in a small group about how the Son of Man in the heavens and all the nations praising him and glorifying him. And then in the Psalms, how the Psalms have prophesied, how he sits in the heavens and laughs, how he's the Lord who, the prophecies of his crucifixion and his resurrection in Psalm 110. And in verse 45 he opened to understand that they might comprehend the scriptures. Apart from the mercy of God, apart from the work of the Spirit, we cannot understand the things of God. But look at the connection between the work of God in the hearts of men with the connection with the scripture. It's not the Spirit working apart from the scripture, but he's working so that we might comprehend the scriptures. And for what purpose? For what of all these things? That we might glorify him. In verses 46-47, this message will be handed to us. This message that in verse 46 it's written, it's written so it must be declared, it's necessary for what? For Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day. So that in this work, in this work, in his name, repentance and remission of sins or forgiveness of sins should be preached. It should be preached to everyone of every ethnicity and every country and every time and every place. This is a timeless truth and a timeless message that needs to be declared. It's a baton that needs to be passed from generation to generation. A baton that has blood on it and it is our turn. It is our turn in this generation and in this time to do this work of glorifying Jesus Christ in all nations, in all places. I've been very encouraged and excited to hear about the work in Haiti and to hear from the pastors and I couldn't imagine more fish out of water than Pastor Mark and Haiti. It's very enjoyable to see the pictures and hear all the stories and to think about how other works are taking place in other places to glorify Jesus Christ's name. That this message should be preached there. So we're witnesses of these things. We have that responsibility in verse 8. You have that responsibility here but then you also have the responsibility to send people to other places and for some of you to be sent to other places. How can this take place in verses 48 to 49? Only by the mercy and the power of God. It can't take place in our own strength with our own planning. Yes, we need to plan. Yes, we need to work towards it but ultimately, apart from the Spirit of God, all those efforts are in vain. And so he's the one who's given us the desire. He's the one who's given you the desire to nod the head and say, Right even right now to this brief explanation of these words. Because it's been him at work in you that it's not simply a words on a page. It's something in your soul. It's a person inside you, the Spirit inside you who has given you the passion to glorify Jesus Christ in this way. And so we've been working to be able to obey this scripture, obey this scripture by, I keep on thinking about some words in Spanish now and trying to translate them in English. I keep on saying edifying a church but we don't have edified churches. We build up churches. So I came last February and so now I'll just begin to describe briefly what's happened since then. In Guatemala. In last March we were able to do, we're doing studies through the book of Strange Fire, which is a book by John MacArthur about cessationism and about how the sure foundation that we have in the Bible and how we don't need apostles, prophets, healings and revelations, that we have everything we need in the sufficient Word of God in order to worship him and glorify him. And the Spirit works in other ways, other ways than what the charismatic movement is telling, but he works in better ways, more powerful ways, more significant and lasting ways. And so we've been continuing through the book of Mark, verse by verse. It's a good gospel. And we were in Mark chapter 4 last year and now we're going to begin Mark chapter 11 when I come back. If you remember the book of Mark has three main, if you think of the book of Mark, you think of three books and then the three books on a shelf with two bookends. So the first bookend is like an introduction to the prophecies of who he is and an introduction with John the Baptist. And then you get to the three books. One is his ministry in Galilee. The second is his road to the cross. And lastly is his time in Jerusalem with the cross. The last bookend is the last chapter in the resurrection. And so we are just about to end that second book and begin the third book, if you think about it that way. And the progress through the book of Mark. In April of last year, we were able to have a new church location. We were meeting in someone's home and now we're able to have a more central location in the city. And the Guatemala city is in a valley. A lot of the cities in Latin America are in valleys and that they were built in places where the temperature is nice. Because if you go down to Central America and you go to the beach, it's going to be as hot as here. And then if you go to the mountains, then it's going to be cold and you could even get a little bit of snow. And so then if they go summers in between, then you get a very nice Hawaii-like temperature. And so it stays between 50 and 80 all year round. So we moved from a home that was in one of the mountain sides down back into the valley where the city was at back in April. And then we had our first teams from Orlando come at that time. And they were great help to us. They were preaching and teaching from the book of Colossians back in April. It allowed me to go to a pastor's conference in New Jersey where there were other Latin reform Baptist preachers. So the reform community is very small. And then when you go to other countries, the reform community gets much smaller. So in the Latin world, for instance, what was there? Somebody like Andres, right? Andres was somebody visiting here. Yeah, so people who were visiting our church and I'd met them in the conference. The world was so small of reformed Latin community. So it was a joy to be able to go to a pastor's conference, be edified, hear Jeremy Walker preach. I don't know if you guys remember, we studied the book, The Broken Heart of Angeles, a few years ago, that he wrote, and here are all Martin preachers, very encouraging to be there. In May, we began a study through the book of Romans in our sort of version of small group study. And so we're still in the book of Romans going through verse by verse through the book. We're in chapter 14, this stuff coming next week. And we also studied the Ten Commandments by Thomas Watson, which is very edifying, very convicting. He's very much of a pastoral heart. Last June, we had some key families come to the church. The Gonzalez family and a cousin of Ashley's was converted in that year. It's been a great blessing to be able to have him, Alex, and he's also come and visited you all too. So in July of last year, our son Samuel passed away. We're very thankful for all the love and support from you all in that time. And in August of last year, we changed our focus from open-air preaching to more street evangelism. Because some of the newer people in the church were a little bit overwhelmed with the open-air preaching. And in open-air preaching, some of them would have to be off on their own sometimes. So we transitioned in order to focus on discipling them and helping them to be able to have the ability to have those conversations on their own back in August. In September, we had another missionary team come from Cornerstone in order to focus in on a conference, the First Church Conference. And we had a conference about the Holy Spirit. It was very encouraging, it was a great blessing. Many people came from Miami, people came from Honduras. We had as many people as we could fit in our little church building, church room. I don't think we could have fit anybody much more than that. It was very hot, right? There's no air conditioning or heating in Guatemala. So I was able to go to a conference after that in Bolivia and be able to preach there. It was very encouraging to see about 700 people come to the conference, people from all over the country of Bolivia. So they're planting churches in Bolivia. And it was a great encouragement to see many old friends and faces there, people from Bolivia and the churches there. In October, the Russi's were able to come and visit here and give you guys an update. And we were also around that time being able to begin the essentials class again in our church. So Lee would be able to teach that essentials class and I would continue to teach through Romans. And that's been a blessing to be able to input some of the newer people through the essentials class to move them towards membership. And we also began to study the 1689. And so we just covered the law of God. I don't know if you remember what chapter that is. In November, we began to do planning for the next year or this year. And we were able to go back to more open air preaching. In open air preaching, it's just so good there that it's hard to get away from it. Because of how many people will be able to hear the gospel in a short amount of time. And so we continue to do that in the downtown open air, downtown park there. In December, we were able to have our first baptism and membership service. That was a great blessing. I hope you were able to see some of the updates and pictures from the people or testimonies. We also filled out a membership covenant and signed all the founding members signed. But I forgot to bring that with me to put in the wall outside or the plaque outside. So I'll try and give that to the missionary team that comes next month. So that you all can see that it's very meaningful for us to have that first class of membership. And that first official constituting of the church. And then last month, praise God, Lee was able to get a job. And so I know that many of you have been praying for that. We've been praying for that. He's been looking diligently. He's been doing many different things. He'll fix cars. He'll play music in the park. He does work in the gym doing physical training. He does many different things. And so now he's gotten a job teaching English. And he remembers his English still. But he does have to brush up on grammar. So you can imagine it's cool to go back to school. He is very happy to be able to have a job. And we're very happy. That allowed us also to be able to look for a new place to live. Because we were living together for that first year or so, year and a half. And so we've just moved in this past week. We've moved into a new place. We've traveled to Costa Rica. We've come here. And it's been a whirlwind tour doing all those things in one week. And so we were very happy. And also we found out last Friday that we're pregnant again. I'm not, but actually I'm not. So that's kind of the year in review or in a few minutes. A typical week for us would be... I'll give you kind of the perspective of the muggies. A typical week for us would begin on a Sunday. And our Sunday service starts around 9.30 so we get to sleep in a little more. And then we have small groups instead of Sunday school. It works out better that way in Guatemala instead of focusing on Sunday school. And we switch Sunday school to midweek. And what we would do in a Sunday school time. And so on a Sunday morning, the first thing we'd do is pray together and go over accountability, encouraging one another. And then we'd go have a class for 45 minutes at that time. And then we have a break. And coffee is important here, but I think maybe it's a little more important there. And so the coffee break is a very important time. Between services. Then we'll begin our regular worship service. And we have a worship service in the same way that you all have one here. With the different calls to repent and calls to worship. And then we'll end around 1 o'clock. Which is a little bit later. Or maybe you guys do run till 1. Do you guys run till 1? I've forgotten. Okay, so then on a Monday, then I'll begin to work a little bit on getting resources together for the sermon for the next week. We will take Benjamin to music class. Mostly it's a rest day. And then on Tuesdays, I'll begin to go to a Spanish class. It's very important for me to be maintaining continual study and growth in Spanish. And then I'll begin to work in the Greek work of the Sunday sermon. And studying some for Romans in the week. On Wednesdays, I'll begin to work on Spanish homework. And studies on correlation texts and word studies for the Sunday sermon. I'll meet in the morning with a brother at his nearest workplace. And we'll eat just as you know typical. It's like typical breakfast for Guatemala, which is beans, no rice. Beans, tortillas, wafers, eggs. And we'll have a cup of coffee, of course. So we'll go over to 1689 together. And then he's a manager at a music store. And he'll go back to work. He's invited someone from his workplace. A young lady there who's a cashier. He's a manager. And so she's been coming to the church since September. She's one of the people that come to the church and attend. But we're hoping that she'll understand the gospel. She's a single mother. And so the ladies are patient to continually explain the gospel to her. And you remember some people have been paid. Sometimes some of you have had that experience to come to church for months. And somebody explained the gospel to you. And the Lord has saved some of you that way. So we hope the Lord will save her in that same way. Her son is named Anthony. He's about 10 years old. And Benjamin considers him one of his friends. So on Wednesday evening we'll do a leadership equipping training. So we're going over the deliberate church by Mark Devere. We're going through church ministry study. Then on Thursdays we will... I'll be doing more Spanish homework. Then I'll also be studying the 68-9. And that day's kind of the day to study Romans all day too. I'll meet with the pastors on Thursday morning. They have their elders meeting here. And so I get to Skype in almost every week into that meeting. So it's not a new thing for me to see their faces. FaceTime really helps make the... Continue and keep the relationship. Like Benjamin knows his grandparents by FaceTime. So we're not like suffering like the missionaries of old where they... They went on a boat and then they didn't see their family for decades. We're able... To FaceTime we're able to see them on a weekly basis. So it's not the same. We have it much easier than other missionaries. We're... The technology and transportation make the world much smaller. So we're very thankful and grateful for that. That's why I was waiting so long to be a missionary. I was waiting for FaceTime to develop in Guatemala. So the... On Thursday nights then we'll have a... The 68-9 study. And we'll typically have it in our house. And it's more of a welcoming... We'll pray and we'll... We'll study the 68-9 in that evening. It's in a small group setting. Usually maybe 15 people, something like that. And then on Fridays, then I'll go back to Spanish classes again for the second time in the week. I got to have my homework done by then. So I'm always... It's always good to be learning something and maintaining that. On Friday I'll work on commentaries in preparing for the sermon. On Saturday we'll have a morning discipleship time where typically it's more time with guys. More young guys are coming and then we'll go evangelizing together. And then in the afternoon then I'll work on the sermon more until the evening. Some of the times in the... In Sundays we will... Every other Sunday we will have a... Maybe half the church over at the house. There are people that maybe they can't make the midweek study. And so they want to continue to... Or they can't make evangelism. Maybe they work six days a week. Maybe they live an hour and 20 minutes away. And so they come in. And so it's hard to make it from that far away during the week. And so... It makes it a degree more difficult is the traffic. The traffic in Guatemala City is... So what would be an hour away then becomes two, two and a half hours away by traffic. So we try and make it so that we have two Sundays a month for those people. They're able to come to the house, study 69 and then we go evangelizing on Sunday afternoon. Since we don't have a Sunday evening service it makes a good use of Sunday Sundays. And then on the weeks we're not doing that then we do counseling with particular people that we're helping with biblical counseling. So that gives you an idea of a typical week, an overview of the year. And then what are some of the things for the future? Some of the things for the future we're looking forward to is another baptism service. There's some people who are wanting to be baptized and become members again. And so it's exciting to be able to do that again. So we got to set a date probably in the next month to be able to go back and baptize them. And we'll continue through our study in Romans. Finishing up Romans 14, 15 and 16. Looking forward to Mark 11 where the Lord will be coming into Jerusalem and his final week there. It's a lot of very good exciting passages that are revealing the Lord Jesus Christ to the people. We're excited about the evangelism around the church now that we've moved. We've moved closer to the church where we meet at church. So typically our house becomes the center for where evangelism takes place because people end up coming to our house a lot. So since we've moved the center and the places of evangelism have moved to where our home is at. And then we're also looking forward to studying prayer this year through a book by John Bunyan and Thomas Goodwin. It's kind of combining those two authors on the subject of prayer and the book of Proverbs. We're going to study Proverbs verse by verse in some of the small group studies. And then like I mentioned, we're looking for the baptisms. So in all these things we want to be intentionally seeking to glorify Jesus Christ by taking this commission that he's given us to plant churches, to disciple, and to evangelize. And we're trying to be intentional, very intentional with all of those things to be faithful to what we believe the Bible says about Jesus Christ. So again, I want to emphasize that that's for him, that's for his glory. And anything good that has been done in those things are from him and for him and all the glory goes to him. So I want to thank God in front of you all that he has been good to us. He's been good to us to provide for us. He's been good to us to keep us safe there. He's been good to convert people, save people. That's been a great blessing. Because when you see a picture of Cornersome Baptist Church, Eglésia Baptista Reformada Antorcha. When you see a picture of our church in Guatemala and you think, I haven't had any fruit. I haven't had any fruit in my life. I've been faithful doing this for 10 years and 20 years and I haven't had any fruit. Well, look at the picture. That's part of your fruit. That's part of the Lord working through you. Through your prayers, through your support. There's people there who have been safe. So the Lord is faithful. He's sovereign. He's sovereign for all individuals. That all things work together for good. Those who love him, those who call. But he also is sovereign in doing that same thing for churches. I used to think of that verse in a very individualistic basis. Like just for my particular plans. But it's not just that. It's for this particular church. Because it's made up of believers. The Lord has particular plans that everything works together for good for the particular churches. And so he's doing that for you. He's doing that for all his churches. And so I want to thank you as well. For, like I said, I cannot express how much your prayers have meant and how much your support has meant. And so there's a difference between doing missions God's way and doing it the way that's common and the culture common and the way churches commonly do it. And it makes a big difference. It makes a big difference. So I just want to encourage you on that. I want to leave the rest of the time open to questions. And Pete. You guys want me to wait for the mics to come to people. I'm usually watching online and eating breakfast because our service is later and we're an hour or two hours later. So normally, I don't know if Lee and Gabby are eating breakfast and watching on their phones on YouTube. But that's what we typically do in Guatemala. So I'm very thankful for all the guys handing the mics around. That's the point. Go ahead Pete. When do you have time to write your sermon? Typically the way that I preach, I don't write out the sermon. I do all my study and notebooks so you can see it's pink this week. So I'll keep my notes from the point of Mark 10 verse 32. And so then as I study, I have a very intentional plan about where everything goes so that I'm able to preach from my study notes. Different people do it different ways. So that way I'm refined enough so I'm not just going off memory. So I have notes but it's quick enough so that I'm not reading it. So I'm able to communicate and make eye contact. So it's the way that's worked best for me. I've done it that way since before I came to Cornerstone. So it's hard for me to change and do something else but I might need to start to do a manuscript though in order to make the jump from to Spanish. Right now I'm still preaching in English. I'm teaching in Spanish but I'm still preaching in English. Please help me with that. Ron, nice to see you. So the Russi's, they are living in a separate apartment. How far are they from you and the church? It's a good question. We were able to find a place where there's two homes on the same property. So we share the backyard with the ladies, their own house and yet we still open the back door and then there they are. Or we come into each other's kitchens or something like that. So we're still working on the new house balance and how that all work out. Yes, Barbie? Do you guys already have a plan for the team this coming month? Like as far as the itinerary and why is it that it's going to happen to whoever is going to come? As far as the itinerary for the next trip we're going to have a meeting today to be able to talk about those things at 4.30 with the Bishop Edgar Nazario. He's the team leader so that's why I'm referring to him as the apostle of bishop or something. Yes, in the light. If you go on the glory Troy I can't see you in there. I see the shine around your face. It's all those hours I worked. So what is it like in terms of when you evangelize and the safety and kind of you've been there for a while now so it's not used to go down for it's only to go down and evangelize for a week and then you leave, right? You come back maybe a year later you get a chance to go down again. But when you're living there it's a little different how it flushes out. So maybe what's the evangelism like? What is the tone of the people and how the conversations kind of take place and then what about the safety? Like are you able to just kind of like here? You don't worry about going into let's go to Castle Burry. Let's go down. Well you can't go down tomorrow, right? So what's that like? Thank you. So two questions and one is evangelism one is safety. Evangelism, it's like the Bible Belt. Guatemala is like one of the most Christian countries in the world. One of the most fervently religious countries everybody you talk to almost everybody will say oh yes I'm a Christian and they higher percentage than here they'll know more Bible quotes than people from here and the Catholics will be some of them will actually read their Bibles they will be more involved in their religion if you're evangelical so maybe half the country would be Catholic and half the country would be evangelical and then there's another 5% would be cults, Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, things like that. But so everything's much more religious. People selling things, selling statues of Mary. It's not uncommon to see people evangelizing it's not common to see Pentecostals come and do open air preaching. So everybody you talk with oh yeah they're religious but there's more people who say they don't have assurance of salvation because those types of groups tend to cultivate like Catholicism and a lot of the Pentecostals and Neopentecostals they tend to cultivate a sense of that you're not sure about your salvation and that'll keep people fervent. That's the idea. So there's talking with everybody they Guatemalans are the most polite people in the world like they're very friendly, kind but like the south like a Bible Belt that covers up a lot of hypocrisy. There's more lying. There's more telling you something that they would think they would want to hear in order to cover up what they're really thinking. And so it's funny we joke about in traffic and some of that dynamic of the culture because in traffic, for safety a lot of people almost everyone has tinted windows or you can't see inside the car because of car jacking and stuff like that. If you roll down your window and you put out your hand and make eye contact with the driver if you're able to or even just wave the tinted window and smile then immediately things change in traffic. It's part of that everyone's very friendly to each other in their face to face but if you don't see your face then it's not that way. So what I'm trying to communicate by those examples is how friendly people are how easy it is to start a conversation and how easy to start a conversation about God. It's woven into the language to say oh thanks, gracias adios, and then say a phrase. It's woven into the fabric of society that to carry a Bible into a restaurant no one looks at you strange to see somebody praying inside a restaurant is not strange. But then when you talk to them about if they've understood the gospel then the majority are thinking that no I don't have assurance of salvation and why? Because they're relating it to a sense of works. They don't say works, they know that's wrong to say works but they say to try harder and you go back to church and you need to do better things like that. So there's a lot of works for righteousness. I don't know if that kind of gives you a brief description of a lot of the evangelism to be able to then talk to people on the street, very easy and some people are more religious than others but almost everybody in one sense or another is religious. It's very rare to meet an atheist, agnostic somebody from a different religion besides Christianity but then it's almost impossible to find somebody who knows the gospel. The people who attend our church they are the same way as you all. They're like oh this is an oasis, this is we almost never find this anywhere, they travel from great distances in order to come to the church. We're in the city from one side of the mountainside it's almost an hour and then another mountainside over an hour and people come from either side to come into the church and our church is only maybe 30-some people attending. So the people understand the difference. So as far as safety then, safety is a constant issue. You learn which areas of town are safer than others and what things to do when not to do. So you try and pick up a lot from the people from church what's good to do and what's not good to do. Typically then the ladies don't go out at night so much unless they're with somebody and it depends on where we're going and so in some areas maybe guys will go to evangelize and ladies will go in the safer areas and more in safer areas. So there's a kind of a general overview with safety. That's Mark. Based on your experience now for 18 months or two years in Guatemala City how would you encourage us or instruct us with respect to Haiti? Maybe some things you've thought about and concerns you have or how would you instruct us or encourage us now with respect to Haiti? I would encourage the basics. You have those in mind that to be working towards missions in the local church to be having that emphasis and focus that whatever work is taking place there is taking place in a church that would have someone who is taking the bull by the horns, the leader of the work in Haiti someone who has that passion and ability to be able to do those things so there's constantly a leader who's organizing and helping those things that the work would be continuing to do work of evangelism and that they'd be focusing on discipleship and how the work will go much farther to disciple a few in Haiti who are faithful and as far as for you all it would be praying and seeking how to consider how to support that work and going if you're able to. So those of you who are able to go then it is a great blessing it's a great encouragement it's a great boost to your spiritual walk to be able to see works in other places to hear people sing holy holy holy in another language is a very impactful situation a very impactful experience to be able to think about how this book didn't start in the US and doesn't end in the US and to be able to see those things firsthand is always impactful to people's spiritual walk to understand how our God rules over the heavens and the earth over every nation, tribe, tongue of people and it gives you a taste of heaven to be able to see those things so if you're able to then those things are a great blessing I grew spiritually when I was 18, 20, 19 going on a trip like that and experiencing some of those things Robert, how are you doing? Good I remember you talked about how Catholicism is very popular in the prosperity gospel now with the reform teaching and the preaching in the open air have there been any former persecution or pushback from the people there from those false churches? Most people don't know we exist we're so small so some people get offended just on a personal basis maybe I try to explain the gospel to a lady who came to church and she was more of a walk-in she walks into church and after the service tried to explain the gospel to her so people have gotten offended things like that but thanks bro but most people don't know we exist so those things will come in time those things will come in time it's more of just probably the most difficult thing is some of the family reactions from some of the people that have gone to the church so they have some charismatic family that are very much into the Pentecostal movement revelations, prophecies and it's a change of worlds to go to a reformed Baptist church from that sort of environment and so then when that takes place then there's this choque or this conflict in the family and so worse people in the church are trying to talk to their family members and say the things that they're doing trying to help them understand they're trying to cast out demons or they're looking for prophecies or just explain the gospel and the differences between the gospel so that most of the difficulty has been come from that way from maybe some families have gotten kicked out of the home but so we have an understanding what the Bible says about persecution but not to the sense in that people are throwing things at us or some sort of official persecution for the church we trust that those things will come in time and the Lord will guide us, protect us and use those things for His glory I remember a story about a guy preaching the gospel in India and somebody went to his house and they were told the story and you guys know all my stories but then somebody goes to his house and on the table he's got these rocks and the guy's like where are these rocks and he's like all these are the rocks that people are throwing at me when I was preaching the gospel and so he kept them like this on his trophy case so I mean to say that that story is just an example of somebody trusting God's sovereignty and that he has a purpose behind every insult, lie, slander or rock that he'll use them all for his glory and so they should be seen that way it should be seen that way not as if you've been lied about somebody says something about us that's not true well that's part of one of those rocks to be able to put and say thank you Lord to be able to he has a purpose behind it other questions? Pastor Michael? I do have a question but I wanted to let you know we stop at 20 till now oh 20 till? okay okay so I guess at this time just short briefly like what has been a real encouragement to the people in your church? real encouragement for people in our church is to see your faces to know you when you're able to come if you want to record a video on your phone and a 10 second video and send it to us then we show it to them we'll translate it to them so that they can see your face if you can't come so them knowing us and knowing how we pray for them for the Rousses and the Mages we talk well of you we say all these good things about you we don't lie but we tell the truth but we tell the good things about you guys and how thankful we are for you how much you pray and your everything that we want to good we want to cultivate in them we'll speak about what the Lord has done here and how we want that same thing to happen so the way that people and people a visitor comes in and they hear the gospel and a loving, patient conversation from somebody and I communicate to them we want that to be the same in our church we want new people to not leave without hearing the gospel we want the same passion that you guys have we want the same zeal so we were trying to communicate those things so what's been most encouraging is the way that you guys are supporting us in all those things and so I just want to encourage you to to pray to be continuing in those things and even grow even more thank you very much I'm very thankful to give this report I want to be able to communicate any more with you guys and see all you guys individually too let's go ahead and pray Dear Lord God we thank you for the mercy that you've had on us and we pray that we would we would look with eyes of faith on you on the work that you're doing in our own lives in this city and in others we pray Lord that we would trust you to bring us home to be with you we would trust you to make your word and your work a factual in your time and so we want to trust you and we want to be used by you help us Lord to be used by you to bring attention to you to bring glory to you to bring more people to praise you so we pray for the work in Haiti that you give wisdom patience diligence fervency to cornerstone in order to know what's best about that work I pray that you would you would plant more churches through cornerstone in your timing I pray that you would raise up more men and that you would use them mightily in that way thank you Lord so much for your kindness and love expressed through your church in Jesus name amen