Tom and Linda Gilmer: September 2019 Prayer Letter

September 2019

Dear Friends of Zion:

Thank the Lord for hearing your prayers for our health problems and for using your offerings to help keep our ministries expanding.

Linda and I celebrated the date we met on the day after 9/11! (But it was 59 years ago on 9/12/1960.) We celebrated the anniversary of our arrival in Brazil and my birthday on August 30. Only 11 months after we arrived, we held the first service of Templo Batista de Indianópolis in our home. The Brazilian Father’s Day—the second Sunday in August—marked the 52nd anniversary of the founding of the church.

Some e-mails that came within the past month encouraged and challenged us to keep going forward. From Moçambique, a Portuguese-speaking country, someone wrote to thank me for “some words you wrote in a Bible,” referring to my “Evangelism Notes Presenting the Messiah” printed in the Bible for Evangelism. Thank God for the assurance that the editorial work is not in vain.

Last month I mentioned the intimation received from the government, requiring an elevator and ramps to make Templo Batista de Indianópolis (TBI) more handicapped accessible, hoping to generate prayer support. A supporting church wrote about raising a special offering for this need. We will use this offering, and any others received, to challenge people of TBI to give the Brazilian equivalent of one dollar for every dollar that comes in from abroad. Studies show that, by installing an elevator, we can tear down all the walls on the first floor of the educational building and make room for required parking spaces, as well. The deaf church that meets on the second floor will be greatly benefited with the elevator. The city will give permission to use the roof to add an additional floor.

Just at the right moment, a Jew whom we hadn’t seen for some time, showed up at our Friends of Zion meeting on a Friday night. He now lives in Rio de Janeiro but accepted Christ in São Paulo as a young engineer. He worked for the company that did the structure of the auditorium in the 1970´s. He is excited about donating the structural plans to reinforce columns to support another floor in the educational building.

Thank you for working with us with your prayers and offerings.

May God richly bless you all.
Yours for the Messiah,
Tom and Linda Gilmer

PRAISE:

1. Professions of faith: 13.
2. Progress in digital and print projects.
3. Linda is now walking without the walker!
4. Tom can see better without glasses now than with glasses before his cataract surgery.

PRAYER:

1. Salvation decisions, Jews and Gentiles.
2. Ongoing projects (Bible study helps, media outlets, warehouse for Bibles, exportation of Bibles).
3. East Timor Tetum Bible translation project.
4. Two new directors for the Bible printing ministry.
5. More churches to help in the handicapped accessibility requirement for TBI, our first church.