- Please continue to pray for our friend Mario, and for all the youth who have been kidnapped from the church neighborhood. More have disappeared. You can pray specifically for a young girl named “Brady” — not more than sixteen years old. As far as we know there have been very few sightings of her. We do praise the Lord, however, since some of the others that we asked you to specifically pray for have been sighted… We know that this is due to your prayers, so please keep praying… Mario himself has been sighted some since our last newsletter, but as of right now it has been about two months since the last sighting of him.
- Again, please continue to be praying for the church neighborhood of Tierra Blanca, and for the other surrounding neighborhoods. We want you to know that we have seen a real difference in this neighborhood since some of you have been praying — It has been a relative oasis in the midst of the violence, so to those of you who are praying: Good work. …And keep it up!
- Pray for Rolando — He is still at a point where he’s afraid to open up to us… Like many of the youth we work with, he is afraid to dare to believe that God might actually be doing something good in his life. Pray that we would find the right moments — and the right words — to help him understand the depth of God’s love for him. Please pray that he would not drink — since he seems to have back-slidden some while we were visiting our families in the states… So again: Pray that Rolando would not go back to drinking, or do any drugs… at all. Period.
- Please pray for Mario’s family and for us as we continue to work with them. His mother has had a series of health problems — probably related to the stress of everything that has happened this year (having her son Jorge killed in an act of gang vengeance, and having Mario kidnapped by the drug cartel)… Her health has made it a real challenge for their family to attend church services, but she is trying.
- Pray for Mario’s younger brother – also in the gang… We feel lead to begin to work with him, but quite frankly we are terrified. We know that working with him would be an impossible task… and so we thought we’d better get you praying for the “impossible.”
Thanks.