METROAMERICA 020 - GUATEMALA CITY
We sure are excited about what God is doing through MetroAmérica 020 in Guatemala ! The latest statistics show that the greater Guatemala City area now has over 5 million people and we discovered that many of them are very receptive to the Gospel.

When Nelson Rivas , one of the pastors at Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva in San Salvador , told Julio and I that God was calling him and his family to Guatemala , there was a mixture of emotions. On the one hand, we were excited that we would be sending a great family to start a new work that would reach many people with the Gospel and disciple the new believers. On the other hand, we were sad as the Rivas family has been with us since we started Vida Nueva and we knew that losing Nelson would greatly affect the ministry at our church. We knew that Nelson would be irreplaceable as he has done such an outstanding job leading corporate worship, discipleship, and the Judgment House. But, although we felt sadness, we saw how God had been confirming his call to Guatemala .

We saw how God had been preparing Nelson during the last 16 years to be a senior pastor. Not only was he doing a great job with his regular duties but was also preaching more and more in the pulpit and doing a great job. We saw how Rosemarie and he had grown much closer to the Lord during her bout with breast cancer in 2005 and 2006. And we also saw how their burden to reach Guatemala for Christ had grown in them and their whole family.

On July 28 to August 4, we made our first evangelistic trip to start
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began to bring all of the other workers to me so that I would share the Gospel with them. Imagine a city supervisor bringing other city workers to you so that you would tell them how to be saved!

She even made sure that we were allowed to preach there everyday during the week by contacting her boss. It was like revival as we saw many people give their hearts to Christ

Although many people are evangelicals, bad doctrine has led many of them to believe that salvation is by works. We were amazed as we talked to many who had grown up in evangelical churches yet had never been saved. The task is overwhelming as there is a great need to start many churches that will not only win people to Christ but also ground them in the Word of God. That is why we are so excited about sending the Rivas family.

During the month of August, the Rivases started the follow-up process while still living in El Salvador and were able to contact over 40 people to share the vision of the church and challenge them to start the discipleship process.

On September 11, we moved the Rivas family to Guatemala . We thought we would never get there as we encountered typical problems at the border crossing (as many times as we had crossed the border, I never thought that I would someday sleep on the curb in front of the Guatemalan border!) but we finally arrived and left them behind after shedding many tears. Please pray for our new missionaries in Guatemala City and pray about coming down to help us reach out with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Nelson Rivas , the pastor of the new work in Guatemala City, is shown in the foreground translating for John Ulrich as hundreds came to know Christ in the downtown plaza in Guatemala City
the new work. We had evangelizedin Guatemala before but never with the goal of starting a new work. Randy Ray brought ateam from Woodland Park Baptist Church in Hammond, La., Dr. Bob Griffin brought a team from FBC Gulf Shores, Ala., and a few members of FBBC of Blue Springs, Mo. joined our team from Vida Nueva in San Salvador and John Ulrich and his family. Before we made the trip, we didn't expect the people to be as receptive as El Salvador and Nicaragua since Guatemala has a higher percentage of evangelicals. Boy, were we pleasantly surprised!
 

Over 700 people made professions of faith as we reached out in the downtown plaza, shop shopping malls, neighborhoods, and a school! When we went to the central park in the downtown plaza, they told us that we could only preach one day and without any loudspeakers. We took the sound equipment anyway hoping that they would change their mind. When the authorities heard the message we were preaching and that we weren't just yelling at lost people, like so many street preachers in Central America , they allowed us to preach with sound equipment. On the first day, I shared the Gospel with the lady who was in charge. She told me that she was already a Christian but she was so impacted by the message that she

Boy, were we pleasantly surprised! Over 700 people made professions of faith in the downtown plaza, a school, shopping malls, and different neighborhoods!
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