October 31, 2024
Allow us to give a little family news. Our cup is full and running over with the privilege of serving the Lord. What will it be like when we get to see our Saviour face to face and glorify him in person? We have been blessed to be able to send at least one person (and in some cases several) from each church we have started to Bible college to prepare to serve the Lord. Now we see them faithful in His service. True joy comes from serving the Lord.
August 22, 2044, we celebrated our 60th wedding anniversary with so many precious memories. There have been many trials, but the Lord brought victory and joy in each one. Our children here in Peru, the Bible college, and our church all prepared wonderful times to help remember the greatness of our God through those years. One of the young men from church gave us a little light blue VW bug with flowers on it just like our wedding car. What a precious gift! He is a leader in our youth group and is attending Bible college, too.
Victory Baptist Church always has mission’s month during September. This year Stephen and I had the privilege of attending the three evening services of the mission’s conference. One of our Peruvian national missionaries was the speaker. He encouraged parents to prepare their children to be missionaries and to give their children completely to the Lord for His service. The last night we took several of our people from Marantha Baptist Church to get a little taste of having a mission’s week in Maranatha next year. They all went back home excited and ready to plan a mission’s week for 2025.
In September the Bible college students went out to several churches for their week of ministry. We stayed home this time due to church construction and preaching. Three of our Maranatha Church family went with groups.
Our grandson, Benjamin and his family have arrived in Peru, and are living in our community. I just spent some time in the park with a granddaughter and two of the the three great grandsons. Great grandma is always ready to enjoy them! Mommy has a lot of work to do to get her house set up. We are blessed to have them here with us serving the Lord.
October has been another busy month, and we are so grateful for all your faithful prayers. October 18-20, Maranata celebrated 11 years of growth and in our own church building. Only the first floor was ready to go with the bathroom doors being installed two days before. We invited the mother church (Victory Baptist Church) and the other two daughter churches of Victory Baptist Church. Our special speaker was the son of one of the girls that was saved in the church we stared in Lima. She came to the seminary and met her husband. He is pastoring a church near the seminary. Their son, Daniel, is the youth pastor there. Daniel preached great messages in each service. He and his wife presented special music, too. The church was full the first night with the invited churches. Now we look forward to working and filling our church with new believers. Pray with us.
October 21-26 was the anniversary of our Bible College. The week was full of great music by our Trujillo churches and the students. The speaker was one of our pastors from Cusco. His favorite verses are Philippians 2:12-14. There is no time to stop serving. There is always something else to do for the Lord. He never went to a Bible school, but God used him starting out as a youth pastor. Then he became the senior pastor when his pastor retired. His small church has started nine other churches, and in 2025 they want to start two more.
Today Stephen is out buying ceramic for the second floor of the church building. Beginning tomorrow, November 1-3 is a retreat at camp of Victory Baptist Church and her daughter churches. Evelyn will celebrate her 80th birthday at camp.
Your co-laborers in Christ,
Stephen & Evelyn Stilwell