Latin America Report
Priceless News
By Carlos Fernández
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Carlos presented FaithSearch
Discovery to high school students in Chimaltenango, in
the heart of the Maya country in Guatemala.
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In early April my family and I returned
from a really blessed six-week-trip to Peru and Guatemala. The
trip provided great opportunities for ministry. It also gave
my wife Mali and home-schooled boys, Tommy (9) and Joseph (8),
an immersion experience into the Latin- American culture. Our
two youngest, Christopher (20 months) and Carlotta (9 months)
came along to the delight of family and friends.
We had forty-one FaithSearch
ministry events, including evangelistic campaigns in churches
and schools. The total face-to-face audience was 3,800 people,
from grade school kids to doctors and lawyers. Some 850 people
made faith commitments to follow Christ, whether to begin
following Him, to get right with Him, or to begin serving Him
actively. We also taught FaithSearch Discovery
at four seminaries, equipping future Christian leaders with
the FaithSearch message. One of these, SETECA
in Guatemala, is the largest evangelical seminary in the Spanish-speaking
world, with over 1,000 students from eighteen countries.
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Carlos was interviewed on Alliance
News for a leading Christian TV station in Guatemala City.
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The Lord also provided incredible media
opportunities (three TV shows and four radio interviews). The
estimated reach of these programs was 2.5 million people.
We had up to an hour to present the evidence for the early dating
of the Gospels, the full-deity of Christ and to invite people
to follow Jesus. These interviews were also instrumental in
attracting people to our outreach events. I met an older gentleman
at a church event in Lima, who told me he had listened to the
interview on the city's classical music station and decided
to come. Elated, he told me that he had finally found the
evidence for Christ he had for so long been looking for!
After overcoming some initial technical
hurdles, and thanks to a generous contribution, we got Sorpendido
por la Fe (the Spanish language edition of Surprised
by Faith) printed in Lima, Peru, as the first step of a
strategy of making the Gospel with evidence available throughout
Latin America. Local printing in key countries is necessary
in order to ensure low prices; we want Sorprendido
not to be sitting on the shelves, but in the hands of the people,
being actively read and shared. Of the 2,000 copies printed,
300 were sold during the trip, and 1,200 have been placed with
Christian distributors.
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The Peruvian printing of Sorprendido
por la Fe is already at work in people’s lives in
Latin America.
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I am thrilled to share that our editorial
feat has already borne fruit for God's Kingdom. On May 6, Dr.
Jorge Luis Cruz B., a 54- year-old surgeon from Lima, sent us
a moving E-mail. He wrote in Spanish to Dr. Bierle, author of
the book, "I am really surprised by the reading God has
placed in front of me that bears your name, Dr. Bierle. It has
enabled me to start a good relationship with God. I am overwhelmed
by the evidence for our Savior and I feel shaken for having
been skeptical and lacking interest in the knowledge of Jesus
Christ. You have managed to put my doubts into words, and
I feel like an infant starting to walk in the difficult path
of faith."
As the MasterCard® commercial would
say, "Airfare and hotels, so much; the cost of printing
a book, another amount; but news like this… Priceless!"
Please pray for the Lord to provide the
resources for more of these "preaching plus teaching"
trips scheduled for the upcoming months (three to Mexico, two
to Peru, and one to Texas) and the time to translate much needed
training materials. Please also pray for the June international
printing of Sorpendido por la Fe, this time in Mexico.
