Category: Venezuela

Efraín and Plans

EFRAÍN
I got a phone call yesterday from Efraín. He was again so grateful and filled with joy because they had taken the feeding tube out of his throat. He could now talk effortlessly and I noticed instantly his normal speech. On top of that, he’s now able eat food normally! Wow, the simple things of life, to be able to taste your food!

I don’t see a lot of improvement with his bodily movements, like his arms and legs, but he’s still hopeful. Just wanted to pass on his thanks to you and ask you might say a prayer for him today, as you also take time to give thanks to God for the blessings in your own life. I think of that a lot… To be able to walk, work with your hands, even play sports. How blessed we are. Remember Efraín.

TIM & ROBIN
Robin and I have been waiting on the Lord’s leading regarding our typical missions trip to Mexico and Colombia this year. In light of insufficient funding, we considered not going this year as costs continue to rise. Having prayed and given it to the Lord, we sense the Lord is leading us to go anyway. So we will trust him and go as far as we can. Whether I make it to Colombia remains to be seen. I appreciate your prayers for us in these things. We plan to depart mid November and drive to Mexico.

MUSIC
I have been given the opportunity to professionally record all my P songs which I wrote and composed over the past year. There are 6 of them. I’m scheduled to record on October 28th. Also the Lord blessed Elendie with a new guitar and amp. Last year we had some funding designated specifically for this project and so Russel used it to purchase him new guitar and amp in Bogota. He’s so pumped and he continues to create music in P. It’s beautiful. I am putting it into my radio programs which air 30 minutes per day. The P’s are loving the radio program.

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RADIOS
The Lord provided for 1,000 more radios which are being produced right now! These radio devices are solar powered and also have a huge memory chip inside them. We have included the entire P audio NT so they will be able to listen even when there is nothing on the air. Pray they make it to Colombia in time for the next conference in January. We may be able to produce more than 1,000 as Galcom just let me know that they may have some extra funding for more.

BOOK
I have been co-authoring a small book together with my brother Brent. The book consolidates the imperative sayings of Jesus in his sermon on the mount. It is meant to provide a brief commentary on each saying and promote a time to meditate and pray each day about how to apply these sayings to your own life. The book is nearing completion. When it’s done, it will be available to purchase on Amazon.

BIBLE STUDY
My son Jared and his wife Natalie started a Bible study with another young couple and asked me to teach it while here in Canada. We are going through an overview of the Bible. It’s refreshing to see the hunger they have. If you would like to pray for us that the Lord would open our eyes together as we learn from him, it is appreciated much.

Much love to you, grace and peace from our heavenly Father,

t.

Radio Update

Praise the Lord! I received news today that we have at this time collected $20,000 USD in the P radio fund. This is enough to order the first batch of 1,000 radios! I sent an email to Galcom International today to start the process.

Thank you for praying and giving. We want to continue to trust the Lord to raise the full amount to produce another 9,000 radios but logistically 1,000 radios at a time works well, so this is exciting. I don’t know when these radios will be completed and shipped, but if it were at all possible to get them to Colombia in time for our next P conference in January 2025, that would be the icing on the cake.

Thank you for your prayers for all this. May God do what He want’s and in His timing.

I have some more things to share regarding potential upcoming projects for our next trip to Mexico but I will save that for another email.

All for now,

t.

P Radios

The P radio ministry is far more effective and impacting than I had suspected. When I was with the P’s in January, I was blown away at the feedback I was getting from people who were listening. When you are all by yourself in your studio recording programs, you have no idea who’s actually listening on the other end. I got a taste of that in January and I realized, “we need more radios!”

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We estimate there could be up to 100,000 P’s. There are at least 11,000 believers and over 200 churches that we know of. It’s very difficult to quantify accurately all that the Lord is doing behind closed doors of borders and jungle territory, but we know the Lord is working powerfully and in high volume of numbers as the P people have an incredible hunger to know God. The church is growing rapidly, both numerically and in spiritual maturity. The radios are having a huge impact on this! Imagine that… I am able to teach over the airwaves to thousands of people daily, way out in the jungle where we just can’t go.

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2 years ago, we distributed 2,800 radios. The impact is immeasurable but we know it is good. I was so impressed by the people that commented to me personally in January. The theology and understanding reflected in the feedback that I heard personally revealed a deep understanding of the gospel as we as our union and life with Christ. The radio ministry is powerfully affecting the nation, but the amount of radios is small among so many. As I stood in the crowd and reflected, my heart said, “we need another 10,000 radios“. We want to see radios in the hands of the unbelievers too as the teaching specifically speaks to believers as well as unbelievers.

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There is a strong appeal and invitation in every program and to all people, small and great, boy or girl, good and bad, saved and lost. It is an appeal to believe the gospel and receive the infinite love of God and to walk with Him in life. It is an appeal to believe the word revealed to mankind in the scriptures. As people hear the power of God’s truth, love and grace in their native language their lives are changed by the power of the truth to the measure they believe it. This is what impacted me. These radio programs are 100% in the native language of the P’s. There are virtually no other people outside the P nation who have learned their language. Our missionaries are the only ones. But since the government has evicted us from the indigenous territory, we cannot be bodily present there as foreigners. But God has blessed me with a continuing ministry in the P language through radio!

I enjoy teaching verse by verse through the NT and also composing music in P. Ha! who would of thought I’d be composing music! Below is a song I recently composed and recorded it two days ago. Yesterday, I recorded another.

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Here is a translation of the above song lyrics:
When the Lord’s anointed one
Comes from the heavens
And when his splendor is made manifest
We shall see his faceWe will hear his voice
The voice of love
He will speak goodness to us
And our hearts will be healed.

CHORUS

He will come as the rising sun
Putting an end to darkness
In absolute light
He will come, He will come
Our Lord will come.

He will put an end to
Bodies that die,
And to our suffering
And we shall be changed

BRIDGE

Coming in the clouds
The righteous ruler of all
He will restore
All that which was created

He, the highest ruler of all
Will come to join with us
And he will judge
The wicked rulers of this world

The P’s themselves will be joining the air waves soon as they are building their recording studio. But all this is for not, if we cannot furnish them with more radios. The radios are a dedicated short wave frequency with solar chargers on them. They also have the entire P audio NT installed on an inner chip so they can listen to the word even when we are not transmitting the programs.

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Many false groups and cults are targeting the hungry hearts of the P’s. These cults are Venezuelan Nationals who speak in Spanish, but since many P’s are bilingual, they are infiltrating the nation through the bilinguals. This, of course, has no power like the power of the Holy Spirit to convince and free the heart, but it causes blindness and confusion. We want to see them fed with the truth!

To build and ship one radio it costs about $20 USD. We are trusting the Lord for 10,000. Many thanks for your prayers for this project. If you would like to donate towards it, or if you know of others who may you can access our donation page here: https://spiritofmartyrdom.com/piaroaprojects/

I plan to leave Mexico on Saturday. I am missing Robin and family. I appreciate your prayers for a safe drive home.

All for now,

t.

Jungle Bible Conference

VIRTUAL TEACHING
With the rapid advancement of technology, many P villages are installing Starlink satellite internet in their remote jungle villages. On Friday, I got a message from E asking if I would teach on the qualifications of elders/overseers/pastors from 1 Timothy and Titus. On Saturday and today, for 2 hours each day, I was their guest speaker where they connected their device to a large screen TV and set it in front of the crowd. Here I am (see photo below) in my studio in Mexico teaching live out in the jungles of Venezuela! It’s unheard of, but now becoming normal!

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On both days, I was live and had liberty to teach in P, verse by verse from the P scriptures on this topic. At the end of each session, I opened it up to questions. It was pretty cool.

I’ve been to Guanay a couple times. It was I think about an hour flight farther into the rain forest from the village we used to live in. At this conference today, there were representatives from 25 villages numbering about 500 people. May the Lord give them the desires of their hearts to know Him and to understand His ways in the church. How horrible things go in church when leaders have selfish motives or when they are simply selfish people. Paul’s instructions to both Timothy and Titus are so pertinent, but they are good for everybody to learn and grow in, not just pastors. Pray for these churches to grow in grace and love and that the leaders may lead in true humility. It is truly a good work to do the work of a pastor!

G n M
I have not received any more news on G and M. The last I heard they had been released from hospital and are in a P village called Agua Mena recovering. There is no internet in that village and so we have not heard any more from them. I trust that no news is good news.

ELENDIE
Our dear Elendie who has been creating such beautiful music in P and is so talented doesn’t even have his own guitar! Some money was donated recently for the P’s so I asked Russell and Fernando if they would be so kind as to go downtown Bogotá and pick him out a brand new guitar, which they did just a couple days ago! Russ will take it to the border the next time he goes. This will be a special blessing for Elendie to get his very own guitar. We were able to get him a fairly decent one with a case and an Amp! I look forward to more music!

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Thanks for your prayers and love,

t.

Chapter 5 An Amazing Team

I woke up the next morning to blue sky, the smell of fresh air and the sound of commotion as other campers were up and about before me. It was nice to just lay there for a while and listen to the sounds of the birds and life. I finally got up and showered. I looked down from my balcony location and saw Russell working on the battery to the grey pickup. It had been failing the day before. Russell had a spare battery which he was installing in the grey pickup as we had about a 4 hour drive through the hot, dusty outback of that area. We were headed to Russell’s farm which is in a more secure location than where we had been.

The reason we were heading to the farm was so that we could hold a 5 day workshop for the P’s to learn how to operate recording equipment as they are building a recording studio in one of their villages. Their recordings will join mine on the P airwaves. Fernando, Russell’s spectacular audio engineer, had selected all the equipment and we had purchased it prior to the conference. We were now bringing it in the back of the truck with us along those dusty roads.

As much as I totally wanted to attend the workshop classes, I knew that there were other things that I should be doing to make the best use of my time with the P’s. The Lord had prompted me to invite several P church leaders along to the workshop so that we could discuss church matters face to face. Russell contracted a “Chiva” bus to come to the P village along the Orinoco and transport them all to the farm. There was a group of P musicians and studio trainees and a group of church leaders all heading to the farm.

The grey truck lost it’s battery power again on the road. It was hot with no A/C or windows to open but we caught up to the bus and switched the battery again. We all made it to the farm and settled into phase two of the trip.

Fernando had three parts to his workshop: 1) music recording, 2) podcast recording and 3) field recording.

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Everyone, especially Fernando, was so impressed at how apt and studious the P’s were. They learned quickly. They diligently took notes and videos. One guy even drew sketches of the equipment to make his notes.

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While Fernando was teaching the recording workshop, I gathered in a separate area to talk with the church leaders. We discussed several exciting and important topics. We talked about 1) how elders are appointed, 2) how the P’s can be taking more of the work load (like writing books, creating Sunday School curriculum, creating a P dictionary to establish official spelling), and 3) children’s ministries.

While I was speaking with the church leaders, Fernando took advantage of the opportunity to train them how to use a digital recorder in the field. In other words, they will be able to record a high quality digital recording at Bible conferences or at church and they will then be able to edit that recording and create radio material from it.

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To train them on how to create and record Podcasts, Fernando had them invite me as their guest on the show. There were about 8 of them who each had to create a short recording together with me. I thought that was fun and I was honored to be the guest on their shows. Each one had a question to ask me. I loved it! They had awesome questions.

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Venancio asked me, “Timoteo, there’s a question that my students ask me and I have not been able to answer it. Why did God allow sin to enter the world? He knew what was going to happen from the beginning, so why would a good God allow that?” I said, “You know, I have thought about that same question too. We certainly do know that God knew what He was doing and He knew that the Lamb was slain even before He made the world. Colors and shades are a combination of light and darkness. If it were all absolute light, all we could see would be white light I suppose, so the shadow areas actually help accentuate and define the beauty of the colors. I think it might kind of be like that. If we had never been sinners, I don’t know if we could appreciate God’s grace in the same way. God’s goodness and light is all the more meaningful in comparison to darkness. Paul says that all things work together for good.” All the the questions were awesome. I had wished we could have done that all day long, but I had to get back to my leaders meeting and they to the other stages of their workshop.

They recorded 5 songs during the workshop. It was so good to hear these good quality recordings. I am really looking forward to hearing more and more. Out of the 5 songs, Elendie’s was a highlight. Rick and I created a video version with the English translation of the lyrics.

The workshop and the conference were a tremendous success. It was such a team effort.

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Thank you all for praying and sponsoring. We all together are making great and eternal strides for the kingdom of God. My return flight back to Mexico was again cancelled and I had to endure another 22 hour day. Jorge, Sole and Robin awaited me at the other end in the Hermosillo airport. It was so good to be home again.

t.