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Venezuela UBF
November 8, 2013

He Loved Us

Key verse 1 Jn 4:10 “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

We thank God for blessing our summer Bible Conference. Our report is as follows.

After the international conference, we held our 2013 Venezuela Summer Bible Conference with 160 participants from August 22-25. There were around 70 sheep. Many young people assisted as well as family members. Four months before the conference we held a members’ meeting to decide on the theme of the conference. After the discussion we decided on “love” as a theme. We agreed that people in Venezuela needed to know the love of God more. While we prepared for our conference, I was called to give the message at ISBC 2013 and lead the Venezuelan team to USA. Moreover, there was a conflict going on between professors and the government over salaries, and the main public universities decided to stop activities. We believe God will use this conflict to work in the hearts of students, but we felt a little discouraged because we didn´t find students when we went fishing. Although the preparation was hard, I remember the words of Jesus, "It is finished". I repented again and believed in having a new beginning by Jesus' grace. I also remembered the prayers of all brothers and sisters and asked Mr. Joseph Ahn to pray for us in Chicago. We prepared through prayer meetings and also had a message workshop.

The Sunday before the conference I preached on Joshua 6:1-20, entitled: “Look, I have delivered Jericho in your hand.” We learned how God wanted to plant the promise of victory in Joshua and people’s hearts before the battle and give them a heavenly strategy of prayer, worship, repentance and obedience by marching around Jericho seven days. We had to believe God had given us the promise of victory.

Ingrid Useche preached on “God so loved” from John 3:16 with much conviction about the love of God showing us that we have a God who loves us, and gave us his Son. She suffered from emptiness having many boyfriends and because her family was almost destroyed by alcohol and drugs. But she encountered deeply the forgiveness of Jesus. She is praying and waiting to form a house church. Euker Ramos (geology, education) preached the message “Where are you?” based on Genesis 3. Through preparing her message, she confessed having many boyfriends and repented of her sins. She invited and brought her classmates and teachers to the conference. Pray for her to grow as a shepherdess.

On Friday, Holiver Hurtado (computist) gave us a Daily Bread message entitled, “Jesus is the vine” by, John 15:5. Betsy Barcenas (sociology), delivered on “Jesus loved a Samaritan Woman" from John 4. She thought that having boyfriends was the key to be happy but she found true love in Jesus. God established a beautiful house church between her and shepherd professor Luis Barcenas. Missionary Juan Baek, a guest from Panama, gave the message "Love of the Father’ based on the story of Luke 15:11-24. This word showed us how we have moved away from the Father's house of love and how the Father is waiting with open arms. We concluded Friday watching The Passion of Christ.

On Saturday Sister Maria Teresa Da Costa (systems engineer), delivered the morning message entitled, "He loved us" based on 1 John 4:10. We learned that love begins with God who loved us first and gave us his Son for our sins. She is a brilliant engineer and was the best student at UCV. She repented and received Jesus and now she is a faithful shepherdess. Afterwards, Shepherd Rafael Ayala (Chemistry Engineer) delivered the message entitled, "Father, Forgive them" (Luke 23:26-56). He fought to prepare a heart-moving message. Though he normally doesn’t cry, the grace of God helped him to cry during the message seeing the love of Jesus who forgave all his sins such as pride and fornication. Gustavo Prato gave the altar call. Around 25 sheep came forward to repent their sins and pray. Many cried and hugged each other because of God’s grace.

Saturday night we had a salvation party with joyous dance, theatre, and music. We also heard the life testimonies of our young disciples: Raymond Duke, Xiomara Azuaje, Eloy Diaz, Zhuray, Dannys, Franvic. They all testified that Jesus changed their lives and they repented of their sins and experienced the wonderful love and forgiveness of Jesus.

Sheperdess Yenny Rosales coordinated a special surprise recognition for Missionaries Juan and Ana Seo for their beautiful sacrificial life like missionaries in Venezuela. They were leaving for the USA for Missionary Juan Seo’s studies. This lasted around one and half hours while everyone gave words of love and gratitude for teaching us to love God’s word. There was much crying. I remembered Paul’s farewell to the Ephesian elders. They fought a lot to be like Venezuelans. M Juan was even recognized as a “Venezuelan Korean”.

M. Juan Seo gave the Sunday service message, "Feed My Sheep " John 21:1-17 and M. Ana gave her life testimony. Samuel and Anita Seo, also gave their greetings with tears. After the message Venezuelan elders prayed for the Seo family to send them as missionaries to the U.S. We all agreed that we were sending Venezuelan missionaries rather than Korean missionaries to USA. After that Juan Seo prayed for Shepherd Gustavo Prato, to be the new pastor of UBF Caracas. We pray that the Seo missionary family also can be a blessing for U.S. and can raise many sheep for the glory of God.

At the end there was an invitation to anyone who wanted to participate in the discipleship program. There were several who registered. We praise God who has blessed us once again through our 2013 Summer Bible Conference. Glory to God who fills us with his love and restores our lives through his forgiveness! Praise our God who answered our prayers and allows us to know and deepen our love. Glory to God!

Prayer Topics

• P. Gustavo: be filled with the Holy Spirit and God’s word to guide Caracas ministry
• Love one another with the love of Jesus/good co-working/1:1 Bible study like Paul in Tyrannus Lecture Hall.
• For brothers to grow through discipleship program 2013-2014.
• 120 SWS participants and Bible studies in Caracas.
• M Juan Seo’s family to settle down well in LA and have victory in studies.

With love in Christ
Gustavo Prato