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ESPAÑOL
The Past.
When I was young I thought that I had my ticket to heaven secured. I told myself that I was not so bad, I had never killed anyone, I had never stolen from anyone, and I had always gotten along with people. I believed that I was so good...but I was only fooling myself. I was living an artificial life. I thought that my college degree was going to open doors of success in my life even in my spiritual life.
I graduated as a Dental Surgeon and I opened my first office just a few months later. I was in contact with many people and got along with all of them well, but no one ever told me about salvation in Jesus Christ and a personal relationship with Him.
One day during the civil war in El Salvador in the middle of a guerilla attack against the armed forces we were trapped in our house under the cross fire. It was this day that I thought my family and I would all be killed and I also thought about what would happen to me if I died at that moment. Thanks to God, the Red Cross was able to get to us and evacuate us from that area, but if I had died at that moment I would have gone to hell because I did not have Christ in my heart, I had religion and tradition but not salvation.
It wasn't until the school's director told me and my girlfriend at that time (now my wife, Ena Sofia) about Christ that we received Him and from that moment forward we began to have a more direct contact with the Word of God. A good friend of ours, who was also a dentist, invited us to attend New Life Baptist Church . It was incredible, we understood the Word of God, we grew in our knowledge of His will and little by little we got involved in the life of the church.
I remember the first time I went to Guatemala with my wife and son on a church retreat about 13 years ago (1994). We went to a park to hand out gospel tracts, "The Big Question". I was so excited to be able to hand out these gospel tracts because I felt useful to God. I wanted to give one to every person I saw so that they could experience what I had experienced when I received Christ.
Time flew by and one day my wife said to me, "it would be good if you taught bible classes to children." At first I did not want to because I was apathetic about teaching, but I talked to Pam Kern, the wife of our Pastor-Missionary Steve Kern who was running the Sunday school, and she gave me some Children's Teaching materials that dealt with the Jesus' Miracles. This impacted my life because I was able to get to know the God made in the image of man who acted in favor of all sinners.
Jorge “Koky” López
Pastoral Support Team
This made a mark upon my life; my desire was to know more, so I could teach more and this is the direction my life took for several years until one day our senior pastor, Julio Contreras, offered me a ministry position, not with children, but with youth. This was a huge challenge, I was asked to be a youth pastor. For four years my wife and I worked with the youth and learned so much about ministry to the degree that God allowed us to see His glory. I was able to see myself when I was young in every young lady and man and was able to understand everything that affected them, their discouragements, frustrations, weaknesses, and areas of immaturity, everything that affected youth. But I was also able to see their lives transformed and the challenges they faced to live al life according to God's will. One example of this is regarding a young man who is now serving as a missionary in Nicaragua for one year, his name is Rodrigo Diaz. He is a clear example of how one person can influence the life of another by the grace and power of God. These years served to build a foundation of commitment and love for ministry in my life.
The Present.
At the present time I am the Director of Outreach in our church. This ministry is related to everything that has to do with evangelism.
º Proclamation Evangelism
º Persuasion Evangelism
º Presence Evangelism
Many members of our church desire to share Christ but there are obstacles that make that difficult at times. In "Outreach" we challenge the members of our church to be constantly equipped so that they might be a blessing to those who do not know Christ. Various groups of people have been a blessing in different cities and towns in El Salvador like Lourdes , Aguilares, Apopa, Zacatecoluca, and San Miguel. And even in countries like Guatemala , Honduras and Nicaragua . We work in diversity and intensity all year long programming evangelistic activities through our church in union with other churches from all over the United States like from California , Kansas , New Orleans , North Carolina , Alabama , and Texas etc. We also program evangelistic activities within our church to reach schools, universities, neighborhoods, orphanages and with other churches in the country.
The Future.
The greatest challenge we face for the future is to become a church strong in evangelism, in which not only every member is challenged to share the gospel occasionally but rather that they develop a personal spiritual lifestyle of evangelism that they can transmit to all those they touch. Our mission as a church is to be channels of blessing for the expansion of God's Kingdom to such a degree that we must understand that evangelism is the vertical column of the church structuring everything else in such a way that we are able to reach thousands of people, just like I was, religious, but without knowing about the Man who gave His life on the cross out of love for us.
Prayer Requests:
Please pray that God will:
• Continue to prepare me for His work with all excellence
• Protect us where ever we take His Word
• Use us to reveal His love to those who do not know Him
• Reproduce this ministry among His faithful
• Watch over my wife's spiritual as well as physical health
• Watch over the spiritual life of my son and prepare him to serve Him in the future
• Allow us to have another child to dedicate to Him
• Use the "Outreach" ministry to reach those who do not know Christ
• Touch other Christians so they develop a burden for the lost and join us in "Outreach"
