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Today is the last Sunday in August. So what? Well, right now we’ve got a number of small groups that meet regularly for Bible study and worship times on Sundays. We have several different groups that get together in people’s homes in different parts of the city. These small groups, house churches of sorts have been really great for a lot of reasons. But, in addition to getting together in these smaller groups, we have been combining these three groups and inviting our friends that aren’t in a group yet to come and get together for what we call our Celebration Sundays. And, today was one of those Sundays.

We had a really great turn out this time around… which was encouraging. I don’t know how many people came but the room we rented out for the occasion was pretty packed and we completely ran out of the snacks that we brought. During these times of “celebration” we generally have some times of prayer, worship in song, read scripture and maybe have someone share a short thought… the idea is to have a time in which we celebrate our shared faith in Jesus and enjoy the chance to realize that we are in fact a part of something that is bigger than us and to enjoy the community of worshipping together as a group.

Today we did all of that… but it was also a special day because two of our Peruvian friends decided that they wanted to be baptized. Do you remember Edgar? I wrote about Edgar a long time ago… a story about how I was just trying to go play soccer and he completely got in my way by asking me about my faith. Well, Edgar has just kept “getting in my way” in a good way, dropping by and wanting to study the Bible or just talk about life and faith whenever he gets the chance. We’ve become good friends over the last few months and even though I didn’t know Edgar before, I’ve seen that God has made big changes in his life. He works in a small bus, called a combi, as a “cobrador”, the guy who collects the fare from the passengers. While riding all across town he is constantly telling people about his newfound faith and what God has been doing in his life… a natural evangelist. Along with Edgar, his wife Graciela and her mom, Victoria have been learning about God’s love and we are excited to see how God is working in them as well. Anyways, today we got to celebrate with Edgar as he clothed himself with Christ through baptism, as the scripture says in Galations 3.

Of course, Edgar is one of many of our new friends here. Also, we have a friend, Luis, who has been studying mostly with Justin, who was baptized tonight. Luis is a young single man who works as a guard on the Thompsons street and has become a good friend to us all.

Ok, well, I just wanted to share a little bit about our Celebration Sunday today and some of the stuff that God is doing in the lives of our new friends. Please keep us in your prayers, and especially Edgar and Luis as they continue along the path that God has for them.