Jonathan & Anna Saliba
- Dec 31, 2023

Saliba Update December 2023

We have visas!!!

So many of you have been praying for our visa problems, and we finally all have visas! We’re so thankful for your prayers and God’s working in this situation. Now, for some reason, we only have them until June, which means it’s almost time to apply again.

Bible study

At the beginning of November, the leaders from Manna’s Discipleship School helped our church host an evangelistic event. They did a great job preaching the gospel to around 150 guests, and we invited everyone to a new Bible study about the Gospel of Mark.

We were a little disappointed when only a couple people showed up. After inviting so many people from the event and on the street, we really expected more, but we continued with the Bible study anyway in the hope that someone would be saved or feel led to host a study in their home with their friends and neighbors.

Now, a family who went through the study is wanting to host another round in their apartment in 2024, and we expect several people from our previous church plant to host or lead a study in their homes in the new year.

Gospel outreach

Thanks to gifts from two donors, we purchased hundreds of copies of the Gospel of Mark. We’re using them for street evangelism and as invitations to another round of Bible studies in the first quarter of 2024.

Baptisms

We baptized three people in December, one of which (Felix), I wrote about in our last letter. The other two were Juliana and Noelia: young ladies from our youth group.

Christmas banquet

While the church is really struggling financially, we were able to put on an amazing Christmas banquet complete with Colombian, Venezuelan, and American dishes.

This was thanks to a very generous church in the United States that decided it wanted to make Christmas special for the church in Colombia. They gave so much that we were able to put on the banquet, put together little thank-you baskets for all of our volunteers, and pay a month of rent for the church. We were so thankful for the opportunity to bless the church in this way.

This is also a good time to remind you about the Colombia Building Fund. This is a fund we started a few years ago to build a church building here in Colombia. So far, the fund has accumulated over $120,000, but this is only a small part of what we need to buy a good building in a city like Bogotá. We could really use your help! You can learn more by visiting www.BuildingFund.co.