Salvation stories

This past Tuesday the whole family went along with Elena and another new believer, Juanita, to visit a couple that live here in our neighborhood--Juanita and Pascual. Juanita suffers from bone marrow cancer, and has had some real ups and downs of late. Just recently she began chemotherapy. The Juanita that is a new believer (same name as the sick lady) introduced us to Pascual and Juanita. We arrived at their home at 6 p.m. and after getting to know each other a bit, I began explaining the gospel to them from John 14, John 1 and some passages from Romans.

John 14 talks about how Jesus tells his disciples that they know where He is going and they know how to get there. Thomas tells Jesus in no uncertain terms that they in fact don't know where Jesus is going and don't know how to get there...which leads up to Jesus' powerful statement in verse 6. "I am the way, the truth and the life." The path is a person, the message is a Man, Truth lives and breathes, life comes through Christ.

I told Pascual and Juanita that we are like the disciples...we know about Jesus, we know that He came and was crucified...but maybe we don't really KNOW Him, not really. After talking a bit about sacrifice and sin and the reality of death for every one of us, I invited them to trust in Jesus. Fully and not in part. Not with reserve but with full abandon. They did. We hugged them. Juanita may not have very long in this life...at least she can now depart from it with confidence instead of fear.

This morning we kicked off our discipleship studies...two simultaneous studies given, one upstairs and one downstairs. David taught the more advanced study and I taught the basic study. David's class was well attended--12 students maybe, and I had 7 in my more basic discipleship study. The theme for my study was salvation, and at the end of the class, Carlos trusted in Christ. He was the only one there who hasn't done that yet...a young man of maybe 14 or 15.

We repeat both studies tonight at 8 p.m. and expect that evening classes to be similar in size.

Please continue to pray for Sendero de Vida!