We are all home safe, sound, tired, dirty but happy! We all came home with a newfound thanks to God for allowing us to be born in the USA. Most of the people that we ministered to this week were extremely poor. Those who could find work earned about $10.00 a day which was enough in their country to only exist and put a little food on their tables for their families. Some of these people were desperately seeking for something that was better and it was a challenge to get them to understand that what we were talking about was spiritual matters and not physical. All in all, because of their desperate condition, many of these people were open for Bible studies of which we had 242 studies this past week. Their were twelve evangelism teams going out each day into the community and we studied with more than 574 people. As a result of these studies, nightly classes and preaching, ninety people were baptized. This congregation went from a very small congregation of only six people to now having ninety-six. Plus, many of these people were married and had children which will attend services with them. This congregation will now meet in the local school where we had our clinic. Brethren, truly the fields are white with harvest in South America but we must act quickly before Satan can change their hearts.
This past week alone at Ica, the three doctors saw 1954 patients. The pharmacy saw 2027 patients, which included those written by our two dentists which saw 214 people and pulled 216 teeth. Altogether the pharmacy dispensed 6054 packets of medicine. 368 people had their heads scrubbed for head lice which was done by our teens. 637 people were fitted with eye glasses and were grateful to now be able to see better.
Spiritually, there were also nightly preaching services which were attended by many local people as well as by all of us. In the teen class this week there were 286 people; in our children's classes at night there were 342 and in our day children's class their were 630 children for the week. Plus, there were numerous private studies that went on in the streets and anywhere any of our people went. Our teen group was able to go into two high schools and teach the gospel, one of which wanted a group study set up for their teachers so they could in turn teach the Bible to their students. Brethren, there are many more stories of what went on these past two weeks that are encouraging and should be shared with you and over the coming weeks I am sure they will he. Thanks to everyone who helped to send our group!