Tom Gilmer: February 2015 Prayer Letter

Dear Friends of Zion:

Thank you for helping our ministries another month with prayers and offerings. The starting of the Guacuri church is reminiscent of starting the Ingá church. Time frames and plans of action are still in flux. Thank the Lord, all the team members are open-minded, rethinking decisions and changing plans as needed.

In January a medical doctor and his wife, who has a Greek name, attended a service at Templo Batista de Indianópolis (TBI). Active members of another good church in São Paulo, they love Israel and want to attend our Friday night Friends of Zion meetings. They reminded me that I had visited them over 20 years ago with George Dragotas, who had been their neighbor in the early 1970’s. George’s wife Aleka was a member of TBI who prayed fervently for her unsaved, negligent husband. Aleka’s parents took her and her two children to Greece, their country of origin, but Aleka would write to George in care of the church. I would talk to him about his soul’s need every time he came to get a letter. Early one Sunday morning, I witnessed to him again. This time George bowed his head and asked Jesus to save him. I told him, if he was sincere, he should catch the next ship to Greece and join his family. He didn’t even stay for the service. Months went by. No news. Then a prayer card came! George with a big smile, holding a big Bible, reunited with his family, now a missionary in Greece! George and Aleka served together for at least 27 years until his Homegoing. Aleka continues actively witnessing to Jews, Greeks, Bulgarian gypsies, and even immigrant Muslims. Her prayer letters read like a chapter from the Book of Acts. The economic crisis in Greece has put Aleka in desperate need of more support.

Please pray for three conferences coming up. The first will be at the end of this month in which I will be speaking six times for the anniversary of a church. The second will be the National Bible Baptist Fellowship Meeting in July. We are helping Pastor Marcos (pastor of TBI and president of the National BBF) with preparations. The theme will be “The Return of Christ as it relates to Holy Living and Evangelization,” with Dr. Thomas Ice, author and professor, as the main speaker, alongside Missionary Alexandre Dutra, president of our Brazilian Jewish Ministries. Dr. Bill Patterson, President of Mt. Abarim, Bible translator and consultant with First Word and Trinitarian Bible Society, will also give an emphasis on Bible translation using the traditional Hebrew Masoretic Text and Greek Textus Receptus. The third conference will be at the end of August. We will celebrate the 50^th anniversary of our coming to Brazil, beginning with an emphasis on our Jewish Ministry on Friday night, an all-day seminar on Bible Texts on Saturday and an emphasis on our Bible Ministry that night, and ending with evangelistic services Sunday morning, afternoon and evening with lunch at the church and the participation of the deaf church that meets in the Educational Building at TBI. We are thrilled that our daughter Ruth will be coming from the States, as well as Thomas, Jr., and all his family! They already have their plane tickets in hand! So, God willing, all four of our children will be here, and six of our fourteen grandchildren.

Yours for the Messiah,
Tom and Linda Gilmer

PRAISE:

Professions of faith: 5.
Lawyer working on Guacuri church building project.
More tracts, more sowing, more reaping.
New APP of Portuguese Bible text (see prayer letter of Harold Ralph for details).

PRAYER: