Last night after eating we heard a knock at the gate, although it was late it was not unusual. But the visitor was quite a surprise, one of our Shuar pastors who had made the one day journey to our home in Sucua, wearing a smile and ready to share a testimony. He told us of a father and daughter from a distant tribe called the Achuar who arrived in the remote village where he pastors the local church. They had come there after days of travel searching for a local, well-known and supposedly powerful witchdoctor, who resides in the same village, to take the curse off of his daughter. But before he had the chance to find the shaman, he heard of this pastor and how he was in direct communion with God and his ability to help others find Him. After several hours of sharing the Gospel message the father and daughter understood that life, eternal life, only comes from faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior. Both of them repented and humbled themselves before God on the dirt floor of the thatched roof hut that serves as the pastor's home. Now when they return home they will be arriving as the first converts from their village.
As a result of your prayers and support, a little over 12 years ago, we were able to help train this young pastor and through his continued faithfulness one more village in our region has a Christian presence. But as great as that is, in our opinion it is not enough. As we write this letter there are more than 500 villages scattered across a large part of our state in the southeast Ecuadorian Amazon who have yet to hear the Good News. And this is but 1 of the 7 jungle states in Ecuador where dense jungle make efforts difficult to simply arrive. There are thousands of men and women who will continue to live in darkness and fear until we reach them with our message of hope.
At this time we feel compelled to take the first step to double up (and hopefully triple up) our efforts in training national pastors and evangelists specifically to invade this area that is lost and isolated through a new endeavor we are calling Project Reach. But we need your help. God has blessed us so much that all of our present facilities are maxed out, this past Easter weekend we had over 1300 people in attendance in 5 different services here in Sucua alone! God has opened a tremendous door for us to purchase the perfect piece of land, but we have only two months to close the deal. The land is valued at $7 per square meter or a total value of $135,000, but the owner has given us a special price of only $3 per meter for a total cost of $60,000. We have purchased the first 7,000 meters and we need your help to buy the remaining 13,000 meters. Would you prayerfully consider partnering with us for this special project? It is simple, $30 will help buy 10 meters, $300 will help buy 100 meters and $3000 will help buy 1000 meters. With your help we will be able to train men and women to reach the unreached of the Amazon jungle.
Thank you for partnering with us,
Joil & Leah Marbut