Hello everyone!
We practically made it through half the year of 2022! We can sense a lot of worry over the future, but we know who holds it all in His hands! We pray for peace, hunger, and a seeking of eternal things like never before. Our church here in San Pedro has been going very well. We are finally at around a year of consistent weekly meetings, and it seems like we have a pretty solid group coming to our Friday Bible studies and Sunday services! What’s more exciting, in my opinion, than people regularly coming, is that we are really seeing growth in those individuals. In our Friday studies during discussion several folks are finally showing an understanding of the implications of idolatry and the importance of following Jesus even when culture clashes with it. They’re also finally opening up enough to speak about it in front of each other without fear of rejection or judgment, which is monumental from our perspective. For those of you new to reading this letter, our community is solely dedicated to a local apparition of the virgin Mary, known as the “Virgen del Cisne.” People are terrified that if they don’t serve this apparition of the virgin, she will curse them and their families, and that their neighbors and families will reject them completely. It is a HUGE deal for them to recognize that this constitutes as idolatry, and to give it up. Please keep praying with us that we will continue to see growth in them, but also that we would all grow together as a church!
The ministry in Catacocha is going well. We’ve been giving guitar/ukulele lessons for several weeks now (5 people have been participating), and we definitely see potential in our students! Please pray that they will continue to be motivated to practice, and that they wouldn’t get frustrated by the early difficulties of learning an instrument. We are very hopeful that in a year we will have local involvement in leading worship in Catacocha! The church there has been involved for the last few years with a ministry in the USA called AIM. AIM has been able to provide the church with some outreach tools over the years, and just got done with a campaign to provide uniforms and school supplies to children in need in the Catacocha area. The foundation has a couple of mission trips planned for July, so pray for us as we will be involved in those events. We will be holding some youth meetings, discipleship and Christian Leadership trainings, and holding some medical/evangelism outreaches. Please pray for God’s will to be done and for many souls to be saved and encouraged to go deeper with Jesus!
As most of you may remember, when we first moved to this part of the country, Andy worked almost exclusively in the city of Catamayo doing home visits and street ministry. Once we moved up to San Pedro and started doing work here, we felt like we needed to focus on San Pedro one hundred percent of the time. We’ve been feeling lately, that now that stuff here is established, we can work a bit in Catamayo again and that’s what we’ve been doing. Every Friday after we finish with bible study in San Pedro, we head down to Catamayo for outdoor evangelism in the park. I know it is countercultural in the USA, but it’s a really effective and acceptable way to reach people in Ecuador, and it’s something Andy really thrives in. Please pray that this would be fruitful and that people would come to hear the gospel!
Finally, like we say in what seems like every letter, please pray for workers! Either foreign missionaries or local leaders; we really need help. Like the Word says, the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. On this topic; the Lord put Andy together with a young man in North Carolina that is working in a church that has a discipleship/leadership/missionary training program, and several of the young people in the program are scheduled to come on a short term trip here in July. It seems the Lord is working in this relationship and we ask you to pray over it with us! There’s just too much work for the two of us and there are thousands of souls in our province that have never heard the gospel and have NOT ONE gospel preaching church in their towns! We would love to see pastors, children’s workers, youth pastors, worship leaders come and be a part of what God is doing. Pray that God would raise up just the right people to take this work to the next level!
With love in Christ,
Priscilla, Andy, and children
Please send all monetary contributions to:
Acts 1:8 Mission Society
PO Box 212
Harrison, OH 45030.
You can continue to make all checks payable to: “Acts 1:8 Mission Society” with “DVarga” in the memo section (All funds donated in this way will continue to go entirely to the DVarga family AND our mission work in Ecuador and are tax-deductible).
You can also write checks to Priscilla or Andy DVarga with "gift" in the memo section, but you will NOT receive a tax-deductible receipt at the end of the year for funds given this way.
If you need a quarterly tax statement or just want to contact us, please just write to the address above or call our phone #:(513) 334-8281
To donate through PayPal electronically please scroll to the top of the homepage at www.dvargamission.org and click the "Donate" tab.
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