Bolivia Missions Update: Impromptu Update
9-12-2012
Hello all. Sorry I haven’t written much lately. We have been and are very busy and my internet has been down for awhile. Bad excuse I know. This started out as a reply to an email my Grandma sent me, and I realized afterward it had turned into a newsletter. So I thought I’d share it with the rest of you. (Hope you don’t mind grandma 🙂 May you be blessed.
We are doing week of prayer this week. It has been tremendous. Three of us are giving the talks. We met together and picked 6 topics to present out of those prefabricated evangelistic seminars… one of them is called Truth for Today if I’m not mistaken. Anyway, we each picked two topics we were interested in presenting and then put them in order. God totally orchestrated our choices as it turned out to be a perfect following of Rev 14 and the three angels’ messages. I didn’t realize it until I sat down to write out my sermon. The first message Warren gave on judgment and the 2300 day prophecy. I followed with a message on the Sabbath as the seal of God and His sign that He has the power and the authority to sanctify us, to seal us and preserve us free from any earthly contaminates that would spoil us for eternity. God gave me special inspiration as I spoke, and I shared a story I had not even thought of ahead of time and had no intention of sharing and it just fit so perfectly. The Holy Spirit is moving. Warren followed again with the message of Revelation 17, and Jerry tonight and tomorrow will speak on Rev 12 and 13 and I follow Friday speaking of the Holy Spirit. I picked that topic because Lyli and I are almost two weeks into a forty day study on the Holy Spirit that has been excellent so far. We get up at 4:30 every morning and we have a group of about 15 students coming regularly to the study in our house and then we pray together in pairs usually. Sometimes it is hard to get up so early, but it has been a blessing. Also in my personal study I just finished reading Ezekiel and what powerful stuff! I love it. And it is right there with the Sabbath and the Holy Spirit and last day events.
We are also planning a health fair in the plaza in front of the mayor’s office for the 24th of September. Please pray for that… it is a lot of work to get ready for it, but I already see how God has been at work both to inspire the idea in one of my colportuer students and to soften the heart of the town official in charge of giving permissions for such events. He is planning to attend. I just wrote a letter for the local churches in Guayaramerin inviting them to get involved. Colportuering has been a blessing. Many people do not want to buy books, but I have been surprised on two occasions when I was not even colportuering but carried the Great Controversy with me (We are reading it in my senior social studies class). One day Lyli and I entered a book store to look at books. We were about to leave and the lady begged us to sit down and talk for awhile. She talked about her children and wants to put them in our school when they are old enough. Lyli told her about some books by EG White like Advent Home and Child Guidance and she eagerly wrote down the titles. Her boss is Adventist, so he can help her get them. That’s when I remembered I had the GC with me. I pulled it out and gave her a quick canvass. She bought it on the spot! A week later I was buying groceries and I had the GC with me again. I pulled it out of my backpack at the counter so I could put the groceries inside. The cashier saw it and nearly grabbed it out of my hand! “What book is that?” I told him, and he bought it on the spot! I was so excited when I remembered I had asked God that morning to help me share Him with somebody that day. I didn’t expect it to happen quite like that!
We only have about six more weeks left in the school year and there is so much to be done. The government no longer allows us to make students repeat a year (we can’t fail them). If their grades are low we must give them special work to make up their grades and pass the year. What is this world coming to?
On top of everything else, Lyli and I are in the middle of getting our documents together to get the permanent residency. When we went to ask what the requirements are, they showed us two lists. One very short and easy, the other much longer and almost identical to what we had to get last time. Well, they told us if are job and living place and social status are the same we could do the short list. All the officials at immigration know that Lyli and are married now. But they told us we could do the short list and it would be no problem. At first, we almost went for it… it was so tempting to avoid all that extra hassle. But then we realized we would be lying if we said that we had had no change in our social status. If we can’t be faithful now because of a little inconvenience and having to pay a couple hundred dollars extra, what will we do in the final crisis when much bigger things are at stake? There is no way we will be able to be faithful! Like Jeremiah 12:5 says: “If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, how cans’t thou contend with horses? And if , in the land of peace, wherein thou trustest, they have wearied thee, how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?” We must be sealed. God is holding back the winds to give us a chance. What a merciful God! Let’s not slight such great mercy!
Blessing to you all!
Kody Kostenko
“There is no limit to the usefulness of the one who, putting self aside,
makes room for the working of the Holy Spirit upon his heart and lives a
life wholly consecrated to God.” {8T 19.3}
Web pages:
Mission stories: http://www.boliviamission.blogspot.com/
U.E.T.I.R.G. website: http://boliviamissions.org/site/bolivia_industrial_school/
Gospel Ministries Int. www.gospelministry.org
