July 9, 2008
Hello brothers,
The church in Cartagena has already begun, since we have been meeting as a church from the first sunday of June (having our first new member on that same day). But the day of the special "inauguration" event is almost here, and I feel it a blessing to for that day to come soon, and to see some of my brothers from Bowling Green as well. Our situation over here has had a sudden and drastic change (for the better). I have been well, thanks to the Lord. My mom is also doing ok, as she says, in Panama. We comunicate very often through the yahoo messenger. I hope everything is well with all of you. May God always bless and keep your lives.
-- G. J. H. O. (June report attached)
Gary Hall's June Report
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” Eph.3:20-21.
To God be the glory! May the Almighty which is in u and within us bless you all in this day. We hope that you are enjoying the Lord’s blessings the same as we are here. We are encouraged for our work that we do in His name, since He is the one that gives us strength not regarding troubles and difficulties we may face.
Just as how we announced to you before, Sunday June 8 was the beginning of the new Church of Christ in Cartagena, with our first worship service and our first baptism. Our attendance in June has been as follows: the first Sunday we had 12 adults and 5 children; on the second Sunday we had 16 adults with 6 children; on our third Sunday they were 18 adults with 5 children; and our fourth Sunday, 18 adults and 6 children. We have not had less than 2 visitors per Sunday that we have met, of the same people that are studying the Bible with our evangelistic course. However, besides all these blessings, we had to go trough a lot of trouble for not been able to make changes to expand the place we rented in June to meet as a church (we learned we couldn’t take down some rooms to have an ample auditorium, because the roof would then fall on us). Other than that, we were seeing less money in our power to use for different working needs, because the dollar was constantly loosing its value. On top of that, the worry for a place to rent for our inaugural service had us all, since we didn’t know what we could do about that. But as the text that we quoted above makes us think, there is power in the Lord, and he has done “immeasurably more” than what we could think or imagine. First of all: the dollar has been raising its value at a never before seen rate since last week, which hasn’t been seen since we came to Cartagena; secondly: a building that was previously occupied in the exact location where we had dreamed of having the Church’s worship place, was left empty (by work of the Lord) giving us the opportunity of renting this building that is exactly what we needed. And in third place, the Lord added two more people to his church on the day of our last worship service of June through baptism. We hope that you may take part with us in our joy.
We are anxious to see you once more at the end of this month, and we are preparing for the day so it may be of blessing not only for us and you, but also for every person that will assist to this very special event (our inaugural serviced is programmed for Sunday August 3rd, 4:00 p.m.).
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