Jason and Charity Rishel – Burkina Fasa
We are excited to introduce to you your newest missionary to Burkina Faso: Julianna Kate Rishel! She was born on October 20th and weighted 9 lbs 12 oz and measured 21.5 inches. Both Charity and the new baby are doing great and Charity has been recovering well from the c-section. She has been amazing throughout the pregnancy, handling with grace some complications at the beginning of the pregnancy, and making the effort to travel with me to churches while we have been back in the states. God has given me an amazing wife and a wonderful family. We thank Him for His mercies and His grace in our lives!
We praise God for the advancement of the churches in Burkina over these past few months! Victory Baptist Church celebrated their second anniversary in September and Grace and Truth Baptist Church celebrated their fourth anniversary in October. Both of these churches in the city of Bobo are growing as the pastors have been faithfully working to lead the churches. The new work in sector 21 of Bobo, led by Pastor Augustin, has also been advancing. We have begun renting a building for them to use for their meetings. At the end of this month, he will be holding a large evangelistic event in that part of the city assisted by the other pastors. Please pray for Pastor Augustin as he works in this new area of the city and that, one day, this new work will grow into a church!
Lord willing, I will be heading back to Burkina after Thanksgiving for a short visit to encourage the churches and check in on the work being done. I will also be taking part in our annual World Evangelism conference among the churches there. Would you join with us in praying that God will greatly use this time to ignite the churches with a greater zeal for evangelism and for reaching their country, and the world, with the Gospel?
We thank God that so far, He has put it on the hearts of His people to give $23,093 towards the Christian School in Bobo! We have once again included information about this project and the need with this letter. Would you prayerfully consider giving a special end-of-year Christmas offering towards the Bobo School?
Thank you so much for all of your prayers and support for God’s work here in Burkina Faso! We greatly appreciate your faithfulness and are praying for you all. God bless!
Garcias- Honduras
October was a great month for us. We finally got Rosie’s passport and other documents for her US citizenship, so she now has dual-citizenship. We are still waiting on our paperwork to go through for all of us to get residency, and while we wait on that we will be going to the immigration office every 60 days to renew our visas. Please pray that those renewals go smoothly.
Amber is still continuing strong in her Spanish lessons and Sofia often blends the two languages. She recently learned how to tell people that she is two years old, and can be found running around the house shouting, “Dos años tengo!” We are continuing to have families in our home as often as we can, and that is not only great Spanish practice, but also has given us some wonderful fellowship. Amber also met a young mom at our neighborhood park this month. They talked for awhile and Amber invited her to church. She expressed an interest, but has not come to church yet. Please pray that Amber has more opportunities to talk with Rachel.
Some missionaries nearby, the Rolstons, had a medical team from the States come to their church this month. The outreach was a great success as they had over 1,700 patients and they all heard the gospel! Every patient had the gospel presented to them personally that week. I was there translating for the doctors for all but the last day when I caught a bit of a stomach bug. One of the mornings they had more than enough translators so I spent the time with the evangelism team and I was blessed to see José receive Christ as his Savior. Please pray for the Rolstons and for the Goins and for the future Medical Mission Outreaches that they have. Pray that many receive the medical attention they need, but also that they would be healed by the Great Physician.
Thank you for your prayers as we are getting everyday closer to the next step in God’s plan for our life and future ministry. We are very grateful for you.
Serving Christ,
Andrew and Amber Garcia
Benjamin Bounds – 2 Weeks in Cambodia
Dear FIPartners, Family, Friends and Prayer Warriors,
The past two full weeks I have been teaching 2 more 2-Day Bible Conferences to about 45 in Battambang to the Northwest and Ban Luong in the Northeast, then going out into their extreme rural churches and house churches (up to 100 Klms out of town on narrow, ROUGH, dirt roads about like what I grew up on in rural So. MS….Carnes Community in the S.W. corner of Forrest County. For instance, from the first Sunday – Friday I preached in two churches, taught the 2-Day Bible Conferences during daylight hours and preached in 7 recently planted House-Churches to crowds ranging from about 65 to over 165 with MANY NEW CONVERTS, thanks to God for blessing His preached Word with MUCH FRUIT just as He has PROMISED (i.e. John 15:16) …at least hundred + people calling on the Lord for Salvation! the next Sunday we traveled 5 hours to Siem Reap, preached the evening service for American Missionary Eli Schrock in Victory Baptist Church, on Monday traveled 9 more hours to Battambang where I preached the second 2-Day Bible conference on Tues and Wednesday, preached a different newly planted House Church each evening traveling MANY more Klms deeper into the bush, preaching in a third House Church Thursday morning. These were much smaller House Churches with about two dozen attendee each. Afterwards I caught a bus at noon for another 9-hour trip to Phenom Phen.
Wanna know sump’n? There is not one word of complaint here because there is SO MUCH JOY IN SERVING JESUS! I LOVED every minute of it… and God ALWAYS lets me “smell the flowers” along the way!
