Special prayer request for Peru

The prayer recorded in Acts 4:24-30 is an amazing prayer. I encourage you to read through that prayer right now. How they prayed informs us how we ought to pray when opposition to the gospel comes. They immediately praised God for Who He is: He is Creator and He is Sovereign. In other words, He made everything and He rules over everything. He is in no way ignorant of the opposition to His work. They understood that God was in control of the greatest opposition to His work: the death of Jesus. All that the Roman authorities and Jewish religious leaders managed to do was to further God’s plan.

Regarding their present condition, notice how they prayed. They did not ask for vengeance upon their opponents. They did not ask to be delivered from all suffering and adversity. They did not ask for the Jewish leaders to be removed from office. They did not ask for a change of circumstances. They asked instead for God to give them greater boldness, greater confidence, in speaking His Word. They asked for more signs and wonders which would show the presence and power of Jesus. (Remember, they just got arrested for this…now they are asking for more?!)

We sent out an update 2 weeks ago regarding some political turmoil in Peru. While we have seen little indication that President Humala will choose to change the law anytime soon, we still know that God is in control and that He will continue to further His work.

Yesterday one of our coworkers submitted an application with Peru’s government to maintain Baptist Mid-Mission’s legal standing. Our lawyer has received the paperwork and will be submitting it to the Justice Department tomorrow. The deadline for the law to take effect is this Friday, January 18.

The current law states that a religious organization must have 10,000 adult members in order to remain a government-recognized entity. With regard to that stipulation, our coworker submitted the following claims: in churches where Baptist Mid-Missions currently works, there are 830 adult members; including churches where Baptist Mid-Missions has had a presence in the past, there are more than 4,000 adult members; including the number of churches that have descended from Baptist Mid-Mission church plants (over the past 75 years), there are more than 20,000 adult members.

We do not know what the outcome of this situation will bring, but we ask that you continue to pray for God’s will to be done. Pray for wisdom, patience, and grace to be evident in the lives of our teammates. Pray for God to change the hearts of those in power, if He so wills.

Thank you for your faithful prayers for us and for Peru. Your response has been tremendous and very encouraging.
Until all have heard,
Caleb, Ecko, Joe, Jack, Isabel, and Isaac Stein