Greetings in Jesus Christ,
Below you will find the newsletter for the month of November.
The pictures are included in the newsletter in the .pdf form which is attached.
Please let me know if you have any trouble viewing it.
In our precious Saviour Jesus Christ,
Jonathan
. . . To Live is Christ . . .
The ten students in the Bible Institute, along with Pastor Delwin.
Greetings in the precious name of Jesus Christ,
A new month is upon us. Thank you so much for your prayers and support for ministry through the month of September. On Thursday, as I was talking with Pastor Samuel during the Bible Institute, I had the opportunity to explain about being here. He asked if people were supporting me, and I explained that I was the “hand and feet” and you all (supporters) are the “body.” Thank you for being behind the ministry here. It is because of you all that ministry is possible physically and spiritually. Those who are praying before God are the powerhouse behind the ministry. I need this and the ministry needs your prayers and support. Thank you so much.
There are four areas I'd love to share with you: Spanish Classes, Bible Institute, the Future and Prayer Requests.
Spanish Classes:
I had asked during the month of September to be in prayer for the evangelism lessons that my Spanish teacher, Frank, was helping me translate. Your prayers before God were answered wonderfully! He helped me translate them which provided an opportunity for him to hear them and hopefully think about them. We had 5 lessons to go through. Frank basically translated the first lesson while I sat there and watched. With the second lesson, I tried translating it a bit on my own. Then I brought it to class and he corrected it, which taught me more about Spanish than only having him translate it. So for the next few weeks while going through Spanish classes, we worked on translating the rest of the lessons. This time has also included some reading from the Bible in Spanish. We are reading through the book of John. However something caused the translation and study of the evangelism lessons to speed up. We had thought the Bible Institute was the 2nd week in October but no! It was the end of September and the first few days of October. This sped up the translation process and in the week before the Bible Institute began, God brought about another wonderful answer to prayer. Not only did Frank help me translate the remaining lessons, but I also got to practice-teach the lessons to him.
At the end of each lesson there is a point to ask the students, “Do you have any questions about the lesson?” Frank had a few very good questions. At the end of the 2nd lesson he asked, “how can one received the grace of God?” A great question, because this is the only way we can enter heaven. We have to be perfect like God – righteous like God. I told him we would soon be talking about this in the next lesson, which we got into on that same day! We talked about God's provision, Jesus Christ. Only because Jesus Christ died on the cross, only through His blood can we be seen as righteous in the eyes of God – not because of our own righteousness but only because of Jesus' blood. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says: “ For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” However, we must receive that righteousness. There is only one way to receive the righteousness of God, and we covered that in the 4th lesson, which I also got to practice-teach to Frank. We receive the righteousness of God only by belief in Jesus Christ. Please read John 1:12: “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name” this is a wonderful verse for explaining this concept. It says we need to receive Jesus. Next, a promise is given to those who receive Jesus. Then it describes how we receive Jesus Christ – only by belief in His name. Often, unfortunately, this verse is read with the word “and” inserted such as receive and believe, but it does not have the word “and”! We must not add to the Word of God. After the 4th lesson Frank asked, “How is a sinner changed to have the righteousness of God, or to be righteous like God?” The change is because of the blood of Jesus Christ! Philippians 3:9 says: “and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith” The word “faith” here has the same idea as the word “believe.” Praise God for Jesus dying in our place! We receive this righteousness of Jesus by believing He is 100% God and 100% Man and that He died for our sins. We believe in Him alone. Another word similar to faith, and belief is trust we trust in Him alone for salvation – nothing more, nothing less, nothing else! Thank you so much for your prayers. The next week was the Bible Institute which we turn to next.
Bible Institute:
The topics Pastor Delwin taught on were Evangelism and Discipleship. I had the opportunity to teach those 5 lessons on Evangelism, that Frank helped translate, as well, praise to God! The first day we had 9 students in class. On Wednesday the 10th student was also there. If you look in the title picture of this newsletter you will see the 10 students. Here are their names from left to right in order:
1. Arquimedes Pau Cachique (older gentleman)
2. Joel Sandro Pau Gonzales
(younger gentleman, with his dad Arquimedes)
3. Omár Rodrigez Gomez (older gentleman)
4. Belarde Rios Allegria (younger, mid-aged gentleman)
5. Leopoldo Gonzales Chaquizuta (young gentleman)
6. Chemo Amasefuen Tuanama (young gentleman)
7. Maria Juana Mar Tinez Salas (lady)
8. Percy Soria Tuesta (mid-aged gentleman)
9. Noe Sangama Cachique (older Pastor)
10. Samuel Tello Zanbramo (older Pastor)
To the right you can see Pastor Delwin teaching. He is a great encouragement to me in ministry here. We often enjoy times talking together about ministry and various things. A point that Pastor Delwin taught from his discipleship lessons, that stuck in my mind through this week was: We as believers can always be teaching someone else younger in the faith. We can be passing down what we know. Let me show you this through two pictures.
Here Pastor Delwin is explaining to Pastor Samuel how to use a specific Study Bible that Delwin had brought for him. This is a form of Discipleship. Pastor Delwin is teaching Pastor Samuel.
Samuel above is the Pastor of Arquimedes and Joel. Pastor Samuel was probably involved in these two men coming to the Bible Institute. Arquimedes (on the left) has 1 year in the faith. His son Joel (on the right) has 4 months in the faith. Perhaps Arquimedes plays a significant role in his son's life. We all can play a significant role in someone's life by discipling them in the Christian walk. (“Christian” meaning one who trusts only in Jesus Christ for salvation. “Walk” being the life lived after belief in Jesus Christ.)
I enjoyed my time of teaching. I taught roughly one hour each day which varied from day to day. It was energizing for me as can be attested. I have a long ways to go in Spanish, and need to study more about pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. However, the students were kind to me, many listened quite well, and many helped here and there with pronunciation, and reading the Bible verses. We started the week off with a quiz that I had been given in my personal evangelism class when I was in Frontier School of the Bible. (I and another missionary, John Cook, used this quiz in Guyana, and added a bit to it.) The questions then got translated into Spanish and used here in Peru. I challenge you to think about these questions: 1. What are the things I must do to make sure I will one day end up in heaven? 2. Why does man die? 3. What happens to man after death? 4. Who is Jesus Christ? 5. What did Jesus Christ do for you? After the quiz it was evident that much work was needed to clear up confusion in sharing the gospel. It was encouraging at the end of the week to hand out the quiz again and get much clearer answers from many of the students.
Class was interesting as we looked at various verses about salvation in the Bible that can be confusing. But the wonderful thing about the Word of God is that over and over, it points back to this simple concept: Believe in Jesus Christ alone for salvation! There are 160 such verses. If you would like to have a list of these verses please let me know. This information is from a wonderful book on evangelism called Fishing for Men by Dr. Richard Seymour. Please know that we as men can be confused by what we think are contradictions in the Bible. We should write down our questions and continue to seek out the answers in the Bible. Know there are no contradictions in the Bible – it is simply that we don't understand the Bible completely.
Thank you again so much for praying for this week. It was a great encouragement, and I look forward to future opportunities. Please pray for those future opportunities.
Future:
In the future, I may get to teach these lessons in the church. Please pray for my Spanish pronunciation, vocabulary and understanding to increase. I look forward to going with Pastor Delwin on November 19-21st to a pastor's conference in an area about 2 hours from here. It will be enjoyable to get to know more of the men in this area of Peru.
I'm praying about coming back to the states in February for more deputation, and, Lord willing, for something else that I hope to share about later on. Please pray for wisdom in this decision and for God's direction. If you would even now start praying for opportunities to share in churches, Bible studies, youth groups, Sunday school classes, barbecues etc. If God would have me come, I would appreciate your prayers in this area so much!
Continued on next page . . .
Prayer Requests:
God's guidance for the future
Church ministry to grow spiritually and physically.
For me to understand more and more the role of serving as a missionary/pastor. I have so much to learn and I am so inadequate in myself. This ministry is only possible through the strength of Jesus Christ which Pastor Delwin reminded me of and also a very important person in my life reminded me of as well, specifically through these verses: 2 Corinthians 3:5,6: “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” Believers, we were saved by grace through faith – not of ourselves. Why do we often think we can go it alone in the Christian walk? We need God! Our sufficiency is from God!
Thank you for your ministry before God in prayer and support for the ministry here,
Your little brother in Jesus Christ,
Jonathan G. Koehn
-- Jonathan G. Koehn serving in the San Martín Project in Peru. Serving God with http://www.tentmakersbiblemission.org If God has directed you to support please go to https://tentmakers.webconnex.com/giving/southamerica Skype: jonathan.g.koehn Facebook: Jonathan G. Koehn Email: Jonathan@customgraphicwork.com Website: http://jonathankoehn.customgraphicwork.com ----If you would like to be removed ----from my emailing please let me know, ----thank-you.
