Hi partners,
I am writing this newsletter with my heart full of gratitude. “God is good.”
We are enjoying our home and we’re using it for ministry. I started a small group for men with the movie “Courageous”. This group of guys will lead other groups after we finish in three weeks. Since we moved in the first week of March, we continue working out the details. Also we have a garden, and have begun growing squash. I am sending more actual pictures.
We are very happy because this May we are starting the “School of Mission” in Yaracuy. The semester will start on May 19 and finish August 04, 2012. We have a great curriculum and we are starting with three subjects: Foundations of Faith 101, Bible Study Methods (Rick Warren Book) and Childrens’ Ministry 101. I will teach two and Keila will teach Childrens’ Ministry, of course. We will have more professors in the future. They have started to develop their subjects; we are ready to teach. We have a great group of church planters, leaders and pastors that will attend. We are expecting more than 30 people. We worked very hard to start this May… we have to finish some things before May 19, but almost everything is ready. We will use a sanctuary and another church building to teach every Saturday morning from 9:00 am. We are excited!
Praise the Lord… “Today we bought a property (14x30: 420 square meters) to start a building for our New Church in Obonte”. This is wonderful because we did an alliance between three churches, which we are coaching, to work together to raise the money to pay for that property. This is rare here. This is the first time that churches work together to pay for a property for another church. Also GRACE Gave $750 in that alliance, thanks GRACE!. We paid $3000 for that property.
We start today an agreement to raise the next $8000 to buy another property but in San Felipe for other New Church. God is good.
I want remind you that we started a process last year. We mobilized volunteers to preach the gospel and we started 6 new churches, now we are consolidating that work.
We are raising money through the old churches to support missionaries. We are now helping 8 couples with $100 per month. Is not enough, but is a good start. This is rare here too. This people was rare, they are changing. We are working to create a new culture: “Building the Kingdom Together”.
Soon we will publish a Missionary Bulletin that will be delivered in all the churches to encourage the people to be part of the process. We will publish pictures and stories of our missionaries and the places where they are working. Also great news as it will include the new properties and buildings. We will do this in English too for all of you!
We are working with a Team of Church Planters that we are helping, encouraging, raising support, and training. Now we will have our Missionary School. They are wonderful people; some of them are bi-vocational (part time), others are full time. Actually we are helping to establish 10 New Churches, some were started before but the majority are from this last year. We will introduce our church planters in our Monthly Missionary Bulletin, for now we want that you start to pray for this warrior team. We have some working in very rural areas, places with a high level of poverty as well as other towns. These are people who decide to go down and we are looking for helper who can help us to hold the rope.
This is a great and wonderful challenge that we assume, sometime I felt like it is too big for us, but we know that God is guiding us in this process, we are not alone. He promised, in the Great Commission: “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age”. Now, I need to confess something: This great project gave me a new life, I felt like this brought me again to life. In the last two years in Panama, I felt I was dying and God called us not to give us a new challenge but a new life. This is His call for us, is His purpose for our lives. And it gives us Happiness, we feel good, doing His will for our lives. Fulfill His purpose: “Building His Kingdom”. We feel these New Churches are our babies that we need to care for, to bring to life.
It is amazing visiting those places and people, seeing their faces, children, youth and old women, new believers that are starting their Christian life. Sometimes we come back with tears in our eyes, sometimes with a smile in our face; but always with more fire in our hearts. Walking with them, God speaks to my heart, He gives me new ideas and ways to help. It is amazing, and I pray for you that when you come you can feel the same.
Small Group Series:
I am working on a Foundations of Faith Series. This is the resource that we almost have finished for my class. We are planning to tape it for small groups too. We are praying for the resources that John Drusedum is preparing based on Pastor Rick Hale Sermons. We want to produce those in Spanish too. We will tape some of the classes that we will teach in our Missionary School to create a curriculum for small groups too.

Mission Trip, July 13-22, 2012
We can´t wait to have you here, we are working on details. Everything is almost ready. Let me to advance the Mission Project for this next July, this include: 
- VBS´s at Public Schools (three days) 
- Recover a Play Ground at Public Pre-school (for men) 
- Paint, Install and concrete. 
- Evangelism door-to-door and contact. 
- Skateboard Special 
- Construction Project – for men (one day) 
- Launch the Project “Read the Bible” (we are excited about this).

Read the Bible Project
We are convicted about John 8:32: “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”. We really believe that if the people at the communities start to read the Bible, God will speak to their heart very clear and many people will obey for salvation.
These are the project steps: 
- 1-3 weeks: Church starts reading Gospel of John 3-times, one time per week. 
- 4 Sermons Series about John “God Loves you” 
- 1-3 week: Church starts praying for their community and that God would create hungry hearts.
- 4 week: Walking Prayer around the Community 
- 5 week: Distribution of New Testament and encouraging people to “Read the Bible” 
- Paint logo (graffiti design) at walls around the community.

National Mobilizations Projects:
This year we have other mobilizations around the country for evangelism. We are trying to help everyone to encourage them and providing coaching. It’s a big challenge to visit every city. We decided to go just to two cities this next August.
International Mobilizations Projects:
I received the invitation to help in Toronto, Canada. Pastor Francisco Aular, who born in Yaracuy, has lived in Canada for almost 20 years. He is Hispanic pastor there and now has the opportunity that his Baptist Convention has enabled him to do an Evangelism Mobilization. So he is inviting me to help him during the process. The plan is invite volunteers around Toronto; they will come a week before to be trained in a Baptist Camp (I will teach there), the next week they will be delivered to different churches to preach the gospel around the streets for a week. The third week they will work in discipleship. It´s a big challenge for them. They called this project: “Toronto Invasion 2012”; like we did in “Yaracuy Invassion 2012”. August 15-31, 2012.
Invassion 2012”. August 15-31, 2012.
The people who came from Fort Worth with Pastor Hector Mendez are planning to do the same in Fort Worth, TX August, 2013.
We want to go to Roswell, NM and do something in late July or August, 2013; maybe not the same but we can develop an outreach project that will work there. Please pray for this.
Big Challenges:
Video Tape and Editing – Web Designer:
This is one of our big challenges. We had one who helped us to finish Walking in Truth Series, but now he is very busy producing videos for rap singers and others. We have new contacts and we are talking with them and praying to decide what God wants us to do. The same is with the web site. This make me frustrated, but we keep going on slowly.
Communication and Internet:
We are having trouble with it since we moved to our new home. In our neighborhood we don’t have Internet access (is a new housing project). Supposedly in June the company who provide Internet by cable will start to install everything. We have a USB modem but it was working poorly; we fixed it, but even getting a signal is difficult here. We are having trouble with our desktop (PC), we lose a lot materials. We fixed it and it’s working better; but it is old and was refurbished. We brought it from Panama, I don’t remember exactly but it was more than 5 years. We are buying a new one and we will donate that one to a public school where they gave us the mattresses for Yaracuy´s Invasion last August.
Change the car:
Thanks to God we bought a car in February 2010, a Ford EcoSport 2007; it has been a great car. But at this point is very used, and is now giving us troubles. It´s been to car shop to fix different things. This week we replaced the fuel pump, cleaned the injection system and changed the cables and plugs. You know “racing everyday an old car going everyday to a shop car”. (I don’t know if it make sense for you, but we said that). So we are praying to buy a new car, we think that a double cabin pick up will help us. But the big challenge is to find a new one for a good price. Here is not the same there, the dealer don’t have cars. Well it is a big deal -- they have coupons so you put your name on a list and they supposedly will call you to offer a car. We went this week and they said that our turn is coming. The price for a new car is around 345.000 Bs. We will ask for our old one 145.000 Bs. Please pray for the other 200.000 Bs.
Children Ministry
As we have been saying, last years event was just the beginning, for what God has for our kids in Yaracuy and around the country!
We are very excited for the opportunity that God is giving us to continue helping children’s leaders of our churches here. Sometimes as leader you get to the moment that you don’t know what else to teach or do with your kids. I have had the opportunity to coach and provide with resources some of those leaders that have come to me asking for help. Praise the Lord! I don’t think that I know everything, I’m still learning, but with the little experiences that God let me have and see, He is using these to help and be a blessing to other children’s leaders.
I’m very excited with the Children Ministry course that we are going to start on May 19th. It is my prayer that these classes definitely open the heart and minds of our leaders to understand and commit their lives to a healthy Childrens’ Ministry. I’m praying a lot that God will use my life to speak to them; I’m going to be teaching: What is a Children Ministry, See the kids as God sees them and How to start a Children Ministry in your church or community. For the first part of the semester, then we will move on learning how to organize a VBS and for that we are going to be using the materials of Lifeway in Spanish “Maravillas Increíbles de la Aviación” (Amazing Wonders Aviation) http://www.lifeway.com/Product/vbs-2012-spanish-sampler-P005404239
We are praying that God provide us with at least 1 VBS kit per church! So, we hope to have many VBS for late July and August this year! And bless many more children in different areas of our state! Especially those churches that are working with poor kids in areas of need and danger! God is moving us to be a blessing for these kids, and help their leaders.
Please continue praying for us in this new step of the Ministry that God will provide us with the resources to keep helping more and more churches in the commitment to reach the new generation for the Lord!

Jerry and Keila Acosta
jerrykeila@yahoo.es