Saliba Update August 2025

Jonathan & Anna Saliba
Aug 3
2 min read

Updated: Sep 2

Back in Colombia

We returned to Colombia from the United States in March, and immediately jumped back into ministry. God has also granted us a 2-year visa to stay in Colombia. That hasn’t happened for over 5 years, so we are so thankful to God and to everyone who has been faithfully praying for that.

Bible Studies Continue

We were worried that having to leave Colombia for a couple months would mean our Bible studies might not go back to normal after we returned, but God is very good. Both of the Bible studies we had going before our trip have gone back to normal. In fact, one of the ladies who attends the Wednesday night study suggested we start up a kids program in her apartment. We were so happy about that idea!

So, now we have the adult Bible study in one apartment, and in the apartment right next door we have the kids Bible study happening at the same time. While we were worried about losing people in our absence, God was expanding the ministry!

Additionally, we’ve started up a new group on Thursday nights. That group, while very similar to what we’ve been doing, is actually a ministry of our previous church plant. We’ve mentioned some “leadership problems” in that church, and this Thursday night group was not only an important step that the church needed to take in order to grow, but it has also allowed the church members to continue reaching new people with the gospel without exposing them to the church’s problems.

Trouble at Church

We’ve been trying to deal patiently with the issues at our previous church plant for 9 months now, and it seems like we might be at the end of this process.

We’ve lost people because of the problems, we’ve lost people because we attended to the problems, and we've lost people who recognize the problems, but think we’ve handled the problems in the wrong way.

The pastor is now no longer with the church, but we can’t abandon the church. That means that right now, in addition to starting a new church, we are also basically restarting our previous church plant. After all the conflict we’ve seen lately, we’re tired, we need help, and we need your prayers. Please pray for the church and for our family.

2026 Furlough

We need to raise some new support, so we plan to be back in the United States in the fall of 2026. Let us know if you need a visit from us at that time. We need to visit new churches to increase our support, but we also know our current supporters want to hear from us as well.