Thank you to all of you who are praying for Mario and for all of your words of encouragement to us. We are eternally grateful to have you working with us for God to be glorified in this situation.
We want to ask you to please continue fervently praying. We believe that God is going to have the victory in this situation and bring many people to salvation through it. But we haven’t won the battle yet – we still need to be faithful in prayer, and cry out for God to set Mario free and do everything else He wants to do.
- Praise God that we have word of Mario – He has been forced to sell narcotics in our city through a network and has already been seen by several people at a number of obvious points… This is actually good news, since many of the youth who are kidnapped are either killed or exported to work in other areas, and are never heard from again.
- Praise God for the strength that Mario’s mother, family, and wife have shown in the face of this trial… They are choosing to trust God daily and even finding words of comfort to say to us. Pray that in the city which they have fled to they would find a church congregation and continue to seek His presence.
- Praise God for this trial (James ch 1) and for the way we can see His hand in it, working at any cost to refine and mold Mario.
- Please pray that if it’s God’s will we would have wisdom to be able to get some sort of communication to Mario… This would be extremely dangerous, but we do feel we need to somehow let him know that his family has fled from the city and are safe.
- Pray that Mario would somehow be able to have access to a Bible and read it. This would be a miracle, and we are asking for a miracle.
- Please pray for God to provide safe places for us to meet with the other youth, and for Him to raise up native people who have the courage to take the risk of working with them.
- Please pray for the family of “Alejandro” and his brother “Cha-cha,” two other young men who were kidnapped from our neighborhood just days after Mario… As of this moment we have received no word of them.
- Please pray for Mario’s protection at the selling points… Since he is forced to do business out in the open it is extremely dangerous, as it makes him an obvious target for the bullets of the opposing cartel’s gunmen… This is probably the main reason why the drug cartels often force third parties to sell for them.
- Please pray for us to be able to pick up the pieces of our youth ministry after all that has happened. As we wrote to you in our last newsletter, they are dazed and confused. … And so are we.
Mario’s Precious Family
Mario’s little brother Ismael, his daughter America, and his son Chuy
Mario’s little brother Ismael, his daughter America, and his son Chuy