Brenda’s Bulletin

Archive for August, 2012


August 25, 2012 Lots Happening

August 25, 2012 - 12:15 am - Posted by Brenda Matthews

I’ve been meaning to write for some time and now the events that I wanted to ask prayer for are here.

It’s just after midnight as I write, so it’s tonight that we begin a new small group series. The Person of Jesus was an excellent study. I thoroughly enjoyed teaching it and learned a lot doing it that I hope has produced lasting results. The main focus of this first unit was to see the compassion of Jesus and how He wants us to be compassionate as well.

Tonight we start the Life’s Healing Choices study. I’ve been working through the study on my own because I’ll be away several weeks of the small groups and won’t be participating in the small groups. I’ve done work in setting them up and tonight will be doing a fun children’s program so the parents can both be in the kick-off. Thirty-three Piura Norte adults have signed up to take the course and a group from the Benavides church will come each weekend to lead it, along with Carola (the pastor’s wife). Please pray that all those signed up will make this a top priority and be faithful to complete their work and to do it with transparent honesty. Piura Norte has a lot of hurting people and I think this course will bring healing and hope if they will be honest in their assessments and invite God to work in their lives.

Two of the hurting people are Irma and Genoveva. Both were very faithful attending PN activities, accepted Christ as Saviour, and then seemed to disappear. But the disappearance was due to traumatic events in their lives. Last year Genoveva went through an ugly separation from her husband who took their son to live with him. When he was hospitalized about a month ago, she provided the care and he decided to live with her but that provided a lot of challenges and now she is really hurting because he just moved back to his father’s place and Genoveva feels that all that she was able to accomplish with him will be lost. (How’s that for a Pauline sentence?!)

Irma’s husband died suddenly decades ago and she raised her three children on her own. One of her son’s has a son that Irma has been raising as her own son for the last eleven years, but now the son says he wants his son to live with him in Ecuador which leaves Irma heart-broken. Please pray for both of these ladies.

Olimpia, the lady I met at the store shortly after she moved her after living in Spain is also torn emotionally. She came back with her 2 yr. old son because she felt her young adult son here needed her. Her husband now wants her to return to Spain, which means leaving that son. (Their relationship is a long and complicated story, but I wrote about changes in his life when he was here on his vacation several months ago.) To complicate things, last week she came down with bronchitis complicated with asthma, then her young son was infected and the same day her other son had terrible pain that turned out to be bladder stones. He was just operated on, so please pray for a complete recovery for all of them and for the Lord to make it clear to Olimpia what decision she should make and when to act. I think she thinks she should return to Spain, but leaving her aging parents is another factor contributing to the difficulty in decision-making.

There are also several marriages that are under stress and others facing health issues, so please continue to pray for the Lord to build His church here in Piura and to develop leadership.

I’m busy trying to leave others doing my jobs… at least temporarily. I’ll be going home for a couple weeks of vacation, primarily to visit Mom, so I’m trying to train different people to take on responsibilities. In some cases, I’m hoping they will continue to serve in those areas and in others I hope we can rotate the responsibilities until there is someone who can take it on completely, but these are all steps in the right direction.

I started writing this after returning from a planning meeting for the next Strengthening Relationships to be held September 22 with Ron Newman speaking on stress management, but I didn’t lead the meeting. The ladies in charge are off to a good start and will run with the ball because I’ll return just a couple days before the event.

Prior to that meeting I started teaching the baptism classes. James and Violeta have been believers for several years, but are growing in their commitment and realize that this is a step of obedience that they need and want to take. Please pray for them to remain firm in their commitment. Irma also wants to be baptized. Please pray for Genoveva as she wants to take the course but feels like she can’t add another commitment to her schedule and all she is dealing with. All of them are committed to the new small group course so please pray that they will be able to adjust their schedules to receive maximum benefit from both activities.

I’ll be in Canada September 4-17. Even though it’s a vacation, I have medical appointments and my weekends are already booked. :) Please pray for safety traveling and for a restful time and good visits with family and friends.

Thanks for your prayer support!

Brenda

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