September was a good and interesting month! We praise the Lord that the Panamanian government is slowly allowing various businesses and economic activities to open. Men and women are now allowed to go out Monday – Saturday, from 5:00 AM to 11:00 PM. There is still a full quarantine each Sunday, but that is scheduled to end on Monday, October 12.
Meeting as a church for a worship service is still a little complicated, but our hope and prayer is that we will be able to have Sunday services again by October 18 or November 1. In the meantime, we continue to provide the messages on YouTube. In fact, on September 20, we finished a series through 1 Corinthians that we began on February 2. We also continue to have weekly Bible studies using Zoom. We will probably finish a study of Mark by the end of October.
It was, and is, good to be able to do some face-to-face ministry once again! In September, Clip visited with one of the families from the church, met with a man in the church who is having some family problems, met with Nelson (the other pastor of the church) to discuss plans for the church and pray together, and met with the pastor of another church to discuss some problems he is having in his church.
We were also able to share the gospel with some workers that came into our home. Two were men who came to repair our refrigerator, and two were men who came to repair some broken tiles in our bathroom. Only the Lord knows what the final results will be in the lives of each of these men, but we are learning, by God’s grace, not to be ashamed of the gospel and to look for every opportunity we have to share it with others.
This past month we also said goodbye to a sweet Christian lady from Peru named Cinthya. She stayed in our apartment with us for 7 weeks while waiting for the Peruvian government to open their borders for nationals to return. She was so good with Isaac, and we thank the Lord for the time we had with her.
Prayer Requests and Praises
- We want to thank the many of you who reached out to us after we sent out our September update. Your words of encouragement and prayers were a tremendous blessing to us!
- Please continue to pray with us that IBCV, along with other churches in Panamá, will be able to have worship services soon.
- We also want to thank those of you who prayed with us concerning our refrigerator. We praise the Lord that it was repaired on Saturday, September 19.
- Please continue to pray with us for a great spiritual revival in the community of Costa Verde and throughout Panamá. We greatly desire for many people in Costa Verde to be saved, discipled, and have a growing relationship with the Lord.
- The number of new cases of COVID-19 continues to decrease in Panamá. However, there are still between 450-700 new cases each day. Please pray for God’s will concerning the virus in Panamá and, above all, that He will be glorified.
The Suddeth Family 