It’s official: The Fellowship of Evangelical Churches has successfully planted a new church, Iglesia Emanuel, in Turbot, Montero, Santa Cruz, Bolivia. We are thrilled to share this field report filled with enthusiasm from the growing church’s pastor, who offers details of the challenges and sacrifices made to inaugurate the new building. Thank you for your gracious giving and prayerful support.
Construction Progress
- Tempered glass and aluminum frames were installed
- Electrical installation is completed
- Plumbing installation is completed
- The kitchen is fully operational
- The construction of the bathrooms is completed
- The inauguration was held on Dec. 16, 2018
Church Activities
Currently, 50 adults and 80 children attend the church regularly.
We had special evangelistic activities for the parents of the children on Dec. 29 and 30. A guest pastor, Rev. Elias, came from Chile.
Challenges Encountered
Our brothers and sisters in the daughter church were exhausted during the last month of construction before the Inauguration Day. After the inauguration, everyone got a very good rest.
Next Steps
The construction of the church is completed, and with it officially inaugurated, we will make schedules to do the cleaning of the different rooms that were built.
We are going to conduct evangelistic campaigns in the neighborhood of the community. Now our plan is to grow. We organized ourselves for the campaigns we will have in the first two months of the year. We will reach five neighborhoods: Integración, Litoral, Paraiso, Primavera and Rodeo.
Testimony of Impact
“It brought me great joy to know that we had support for the construction. We had been seeking help in many places as we saw the needs in this new church’s neighborhood. We would not have been able to progress at the same pace on our own. We were very happy to inform the church, as soon as we could, that God had answered our requests and pleadings.
Now that we have the new infrastructure, the new challenge we have (actually the challenge we always had and which will remain the same) is to reach the people who need to hear the gospel. It is our prayer that they can really open their hearts to Christ and give their lives to the Lord, as this is the only way in which people can be blessed.
There is great poverty in the area, but the only way to be blessed is through a full surrender of our lives to Christ. God wants to bless the families, and this church is a proof of God’s love toward these families.
During this last phase of construction, the most difficult thing was to support the workers. Four brothers in the faith: brother Francisco (in charge of the construction), brother Juan (church leader) and two other brothers fully invested their time in the construction. Near the end, they felt tired and wanted to stop; they were fainting and wanted to give up but didn’t. At the end, we raised a special collection just for brothers Samuel, Vidal, Franciso and Juan and honored them before the church body (see photo below).
The inauguration was a really blessed day in which we all rejoiced for what our Lord did through His provision to build this church”
– Pastor Roberto Torrez
Praises and Prayer Requests
We believe this was God’s timing for doing what we did, because everything fit perfectly and in the right time: the help we received, the people that committed to doing the work, the acquisition of the land. This church is a miracle from the beginning to the end – everything was a miracle. It was only God at work, right from the first brick we placed. It was our desire to fully finish the whole work. Every cent provided was given to the Lord, and the Lord multiplied it.
If in some way this reaches those that provided the finances for this project, we are very grateful that you started to act and did all that you did to provide us with the finances.
Our prayer request is that God works in the hearts of people. This is the best way for people to receive the care of the Lord, be part of a church and help, as they should, with the ministry of the church. Our prayer request is also that the children can become part of the church and get actively involved.