I’ll begin this report by telling you about what was for me the most significant event of this month. Halfway through the month, Maqui (my wife) began to have some abnormal physical symptoms. At first, we did not think much of it, since it did not appear to be anything to serious, but one night, as we were talking, we begin to put all the symptoms together, and came to the conclusion that it was very probable that they were symptoms of a pregnancy! Since then, we have confirmed that she is pregnant, which is a big surprise to us. In fact, the doctors had told her that she would likely need to undergo treatment before she would be able to get pregnant.

Nonetheless, our loving Father had other plans, which are always much better than our own! We are very happy about this news, because even though we were not expecting it, providential circumstances showed us with clarity that the plans the Lord has for us are different than the plans we had for ourselves. I ask you to please pray for us, that the pregnancy might be carried out without any problems, and that this time of waiting for our son or daughter might be a time in which we grow in love and wisdom to be faithful with the new responsibility the Lord is giving us.

Moving on to the life of the church, March went by without any great “turbulence,” though it was once again evident that the Lord’s hand is with us. The church is enjoying a time of great peace, fellowship and joy, perseverance in prayer, and is reaching greater depths in the Scriptures. We continue praying every week in a specific way that God might grant us reformation and revival.

This month in particular the Lord allowed me to have many evangelistic encounters with false evangelical converts, some of which are showing what seems to be good fruit! But what impacted me more than anything else as I was speaking with some of them on repeated occasions, was the abundant heresy that surrounds us. I was so impacted by the things that I was hearing from them, that I began writing them down in order not to forget them. I want to keep them on hand in order to always have them as a reminder and a means of reviving in me a greater longing for reformation and revival, and as a means of stirring up compassion for those that are deceived by the religious lies all around us.

These are some of the things that I wrote in my notes:

1. One person told me that they believed some people have been saved because they have kept the Law
2. Another told me that after he began to tithe, God had given him a new car
3. Another told me that the book of Galatians should not be in the New Testament, and that the entire New Testament was errant, because it was written from a Greek philosophical perspective, and not from Hebrew philosophy and language. They said that God has always spoken to people in Hebrew, and not Greek!
4. Another told me that he had never thought of the cross as a work of substitution. His own words were: “I thought that you just had to go, ask God for forgiveness, and you’d be good to go.”
5. Another told me that the Holy Spirit daily leads him, telling him what he should do. He said that He was usually led in that way in the Christian life, and he openly refused the authority of the Scriptures, with which I was attempting to convince him of his spiritual problem.
6. Another mentioned a certain teacher several times. When I suggested that the man he was referring to is a false prophet since he denies the doctrine of the Trinity, he responded with, “Oh, really. I had no idea.” And five minutes later he continued to refer to that same teacher as a reputable authority!

I hope that as you read these things your hearts burn, consumed with zeal for our God and for His Gospel, and consumed with compassion for those that are lost as a result of these blasphemies.

Thanks to the Lord, as I mentioned above, some of these people are seemingly giving fruit of a work of God in their lives. For example, a young woman came to our church meeting. She came because she had been invited by one of her friends, who has been attending our services for some time and seems to be showing evidence of conversion. This young lady has an evangelical background, and she was even a leader in her church in the past. Currently, she is studying psychology. She came to the meeting, and to paraphrase, her words were:

“I am an evangelical Christian, and have been attending a church for years. But I do not think that I know God. In fact, I am doubting His existence. Lately, I have been looking for anything that might enable me to escape my reality, but it is not working. I thought that I was “born again” because I made a decision, but my life never changed. My friend told me what God is doing in her life, and I want to know if it is real, if God exists and if I can know Him. So, I came to see if you could tell me how to know God.”

Blessed be our God! She listened as we spoke to her about Jesus and how God could transform her heart, and she went to her house having heard the great promises of the Gospel.

Dear brothers and sisters, until the next report, if the Lord wills. Do not stop praying for us. Especially, I ask you to pray for our marriage, that the Lord might give us wisdom for the new phase that lies ahead of us. Pray for Nico and Andrea’s marriage as well, as they also prepare for the arrival of their baby. Also, pray that God might send laborers to Family of Grace Church.