Thank you for your prayers and encouragement to us as we prepare for work in Uruguay. This month (May) we left our Greenville jobs and began to devote ourselves to full-time preparation and ministry in local churches.
Two years ago this month we visited the city of San Ramón on the northern edge of the department of Canelones. Here the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints had predictably built one of its meetinghouses, while we looked in vain for an entirely sound church in this town of approximately 10,000. Though this 1 to 10,000 ratio of Mormon buildings to people may not hold true throughout the country, the LDS Church claims over 92,000 members in Uruguay. If this is accurate, then one out of every 38 Uruguayans is a Mormon proselyte.
The Lord has not led us to San Ramón at this point. But someone should go. Someone who is convinced that every person in that town is responsible before their holy and glorious Creator. Someone who believes words like “Trinity” and “incarnation”—the Bible’s teaching that the Creator Himself, the Son of God, while remaining fully God became man to suffer righteous punishment for sinners. Someone who is prepared to preach the message of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Someone who can oversee a biblical, balanced ministry.
Someone should reach San Ramón and other needy towns. The Uruguayan churches are reaching out beyond their own immediate locales, opening new gospel-preaching works; but there remains much work to do. Our task is to assist them in doing this, specifically by helping to provide further Bible training. The importance of Bible and ministry training is represented by a conversation John Mark had in February with Ruben Rodriguez, the pastor of an EMU church in Treinta y Tres, Uruguay. Ruben shared his experience of testifying to false teachers and of grappling with the subject of the Trinity. In his city of approximately 35,000 are three LDS meetinghouses.
We write from Wasatch County in Utah, not far from Provo, where John Mark lived during his last year of high school. Shortly following graduation, many of the students of Provo High went through the LDS Missionary Training Center (just blocks away) in preparation for missions around the world. We hope to see the Lord open doors for ministry to the LDS in Uruguay. Whatever the case, their presence is part of the context in which Uruguayan pastors are serving. This past week in Utah Valley we met a former Mormon missionary (to Paraguay), now attending a gospel-preaching church, an example of God’s power to save from false teaching.
Thank you for your prayers for us and for Uruguay (and for Utah). Since our last report, we have had good meetings, missions conferences, and visits in like-minded churches in North and South Carolina, Iowa, Colorado, and Utah. We anticipate a full summer of travel and meetings, and we will need God’s grace for each day.
We would appreciate your prayers for several specific requests:
- Increased love for God and His Word
- Fruitful ministry in Alberta and Alaska
- A safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery of our second child (due the end of October)
- Salvation of Rick, Justin, Jamie, Mindy, Steve, Linda, Brian, Jim, Serena, and Arturo
- Wisdom concerning planning of future meetings, travel, and ministry
- Our arrival in Uruguay early next year with co-workers Matías and Kristine Espinel
In grateful preparation for work in Uruguay,
John Mark, Déborah, and Elizabeth Steel
