Bolivia Praises

Heavenly Father, Lord of the Harvest, Patient God—

When Your glory is displayed, we are most blessed. You manifested Your glory in so many ways in Bolivia, Father. We worshipped You then, in prayer, in song, even in dance. We worship You now.

As Lord of the Harvest, You raised up a blessed US team. From 7 and 9 year olds to grandparents, with teenagers, college students, dads and sons, and many other godly people in between. Including a family and several couples. You even gave us several having birthdays and anniversaries during the trip. Even enduring their “different” traditions. You led us through Pastor Enzo. You raised up 30 talented and enthusiastic ministry partners (translators). You partnered us with host churches eager to reach their barrios for Christ. We fellowshipped together, then together saw Your fingerprints all over Santa Cruz. Blessed be Your name.

You opened doors and hearts all over the city. Down dusty roads. At barbed wire gates. In homes. The prison. Soccer teams. Executive suites. A restaurant chain, like the McDonald’s of Bolivia, where our team was able to go to about 10 locations to share the gospel with the employees. This was all You, Lord, all You.

But not any schools, which was a blessing. As the schools remained closed due to the swine flu scare, many kids and teenagers trusted Christ. Then started evangelizing and discipling their friends. Such as Katerine, who trusted Christ, then led several of her friends to Christ. As she began the discipleship process, she turned around and immediately taught her friends what she had learned. Just as ducklings walking in single file, following their brother or sister only one step ahead of them.

Father, You gave our team the privilege of seeing 612 pray to receive Christ as You drew people to Yourself by giving them faith to trust in Jesus as Savior. Thank You.

In the midst of all this, You gave us safety and good health over thousands of miles of travel.

Lord, we surrender the follow-up to You, for we are confident that You are able to complete the good works You have started in many lives. We were able to have 91% follow-up, but we know that discipleship is a long term process. As we turned over the names and addresses of these precious new spiritual babies, we trust You to raise up disciple makers to stick with them to help them follow You.

Jesus, You are the Head of the Church. You are Head over the 4 new church plants and the 5 churches that were strengthened. Enable all our Bolivian partners to obey your command to make disciples. As they build people, we claim Your promise on behalf of them that You will build Your church.

We pray this also for the restaurant chain, one of whose HR leaders is a Dallas Seminary grad. Enable them to disciple their employees who now are following Christ. Whether You point them to a church, or start small “restaurant churches,” give them spiritual communities in which to grow and obey.

Without You, we can do nothing. Everything that happened this week of eternal value was 100% You. Thanks for letting us in on the fun.

All this we pray so that You might be more famous in Santa Cruz and around the world.

Amen.