As we approach the end of the year, it’s exciting to see God make our goals a reality! Our year-end support goal is 75% and we are currently at 69%. This puts us firmly on track for our initial goal of full support Spring 2022. It’s evident that our supporters, friends, and family are praying as God continually opens doors for future projects as well as our current schedule.
In September, our schedule only included six meetings, and one of those meetings was already a supporter. Although this is a low meeting amount, especially for a “missions month,” four out of the five new churches have already partnered with us. This schedule was relaxed compared to the fourteen meetings upcoming in October!
While visiting a supporting church this month, I had the opportunity to witness to an elderly, dedicated Catholic lady. Usually this wouldn’t be a noteworthy experience, however, she was unexpectedly interested in the gospel. She had a legitimate laundry list of good works that would put most Christians to shame, so it required more tact than usual to give her the truth in a receivable way. This was the first time she had seen the truth of the gospel from the Scripture and you could see a light bulb go off in her mind after getting to Ephesians 2:8-10.
Several noteworthy meetings this month: a missions conference with Pastor Terry Anglea, a mentor of ours since our early teen years; a missions conference with Pastor Tim Young, who came through my dad’s church as a missionary in the 90’s (full-circle moment!); and the Old Paths Conference at our home church in Elgin. It was well worth it to keep that week clear on our schedule to attend the pastoral retirement of Pastor Gomez.
We believe we’re indebted to our prayer supporters and financial supporters. Thank you for your prayers regarding the visa applications and also the John & Romans Project as we are making progress with the details.
God Bless,
Josh, Alyse, and Bentlee Szwarga