I talked to a pastor some years ago and he kept reminding, told me to remember that my family was my first ministry. Without family, really didn't have a ministry. And so, it's really stuck with me and tried to remember that. And it's amazing the great part of ministry that my family has and as they grow and develop skills and gifts that God has given them. such a blessing to see them use those for the Lord's glory. And really our heart be to lift Him up, because we are nothing. In and of ourselves, we are nothing. And as we see this world around us, and there's so much darkness, and to be able to shine forth and say, you need the Savior. Be a light in this dark world that is so sad and burdened with pain that comes with all self-serving, and lift Him high and up. and exalt him in what we do as a family and how we serve him and proclaim him among the nations. So I thought I'd start out with some pictures of things you may not see here in town. Usually people go to the store to get their milk or this gentleman's bringing his milk to his house. So I have to stop and let him cross the street there. Then the picture there of the horse in front of the store, that's very common to see in the rural towns. We live in the rural areas of Uruguay. Uruguay is based on agriculture, and while their primary industry is tourism, because of the white sand beaches and the beautiful beaches, people come from Brazil, Argentina, down to vacation during the summertime. And the second industry is beef and lamb and wool. And then they have a lot of grain products and forestry industry. But just a little bit of a, kind of a, to get to the culture aspect of this, they have these stores, they're just little convenience stores with a little bit of everything. Out in the country, you'll have them at major crossroads. In the city, you'll have them almost every corner. And people live for the moment mentality. The fridges and freezers are empty besides some ice. And they go, for supper time, they'll go and they'll buy however many hot dogs, a package of rice, just what they need for that meal. And the next meal, they're back at the store. It's called almasen. And so it's a live for the moment mentality, and you see that permeates culture, not only in the way they eat, but the way they live, their transportation, but also affects the way they think about the gospel. When you present eternity, well, who cares about the future? I'm just thinking about today. And so it affects life as all around us. This next picture is just some of the country, some of the agricultural environment that's actually on our place, the place the Lord has given us to minister to him. And just give you a little bit of a background on Uruguay. Among the missions agencies, Uruguay is known as the graveyard of missionaries. And a lot of this is due to the atheistic mentality that's so prevalent among the Uruguayans. But it's also emphasized by the darkness of witchcraft that comes in from Brazil. I, from theworldatlas.com, they said, the Uruguay is the most secular nation in South America and has the highest percentage of agnostics and atheists in the Western Hemisphere, end quote. And so it's, Christianity was introduced into Uruguay by the European colonists, but it was established as a penal colony to begin with from Spain. And then later on the European, more European influence came in and brought Roman Catholicism with it and it was the Roman Catholics established it as a state religion in 1830 as Roman Catholicism. But then they rewrote the Constitution in 1917 and totally separated church and state And so today the statistics say 47% Catholic, and the majority of those are very nominal Catholics, where they say they're Catholics, I'm witness to people and they say they're Catholics, but they haven't been to church in 30 years. And so the other Christian denominations very, very broadly account for only 11% of Uruguay's population. And that's including Mormons, Jehovah's Witness, and also the very large Pentecostal group, which preaches a name and claim it, just health, wealth, and prosperity, gospel, and much of that's mixed with witchcraft. And so as a result, a lot of people we come in contact with, they're all good because they've been baptized or they go to a church. But when you really start probing their hearts, they really have no security of salvation. It's all based on the works. And so there's a large group of demonic worshipers, Satan worshipers in Melo and in our area. We're right close to the Brazilian border. So there on the left is a picture of an idol shop in just a plethora, just room after room of any idol imaginable that you can go by. Then there in the middle is a very common to see sacrifices at crossroads with chickens and liquor and cigarettes, other things. And then even in shops there on the right, you can go into a store and there'll be an idol sitting there on the counter. It's a very superstitious mentality. And death is viewed like the end of life. This is the cemetery there, and they have these slots where they slide the coffins into these slots. There's about three or four high, depending on the cemetery. And to go to a funeral is just such an oppressive event. There's weeping and crying as you're going down these aisles of rows of boxes that have been stacked in there and people stopping to weep where loved ones have been placed. And usually just a quiet procession. They walk and they slide the coffin in and seal it up with a cement slab. And then after two years, they call the family back to take out the coffin and collect the remains. And it's very despairing. And you talk to most people, and death is the end. There's no more hope. And so God has given us the privilege of preaching Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, and is coming again to the lost and dying there in Uruguay. And I was talking to the family a while back, and I said, you know, I kind of feel like a worm in the graveyard. Plenty to do, but not much life. So here's our logo, Reaching Gauchos for God's Glory. When we went to a survey trip back in 2007, when it was just Tanya and myself, God burdened us for the rural areas. And that's not... isolated to the rural areas because the people in the rural areas always have family and friends in the city. So, amazing how God took me from a ranching background, something I left, to go serve Him and brought us full circle back. Back to the ranching and what I've grown up learning, being able to use some of those things to reach people and preach the gospel and really open gates for ministries. This is our front gate going into our property, Faith Ranch. And it's taken at least 10 years to really start gaining the trust of people. They're so suspicious of anybody claiming to preach the Bible or talking about God because they've seen so many people or have family that have been taken advantage of. you know, trying to buy their way to heaven. And even the Pentecostal preachers will come out and pray. If your cows are sick, it wasn't because you haven't given them the right kind of medicine for parasites, which abound in a moist climate. It's not because of that. They've got demon possessed. And so for a certain amount of money, the pastor will come pray and cast the demons out of your cows. And so it's taken a while to gain trust of our neighbors. And here's a couple of our neighbors there on the right, Jose and Waltimar. And so just from the very beginning, just witnessing to them, telling them of our hope in Jesus Christ. And after about 10 years, then they finally started asking me to come help. So they had dug out a pond, had to dig out a pond so that in the dry season he could be able to catch some water for his animals. Fixing the roads, one time we had to pull the teacher of the rural school about a half mile away from the house, had to pull her car out of the ditch because the ruts in the road were a couple feet deep and it gets muddy and you slide off into the ditch. and so fixing roads for them. At the same time, witnessing to them fixing the roof. As you can see, about half the roof there in the, I'm sorry, change the picture, about half the roof is kind of shiny and the rest of it's pretty rusty. Well they had more holes in the roof than a sieve and so after the tornado had taken our roof off in 2019, after replacing that we had some pieces of tin They were still in really good shape and so took some of those over there and helped them replace about half their roof so their kitchen and living room wouldn't be leaking so bad. But at the same time witnessing to them and I think it was back in 2021 that one day, Lucia is her name, she called us up and asked if she could get a ride to town with us on Sunday morning. And Tanya said, well, I think she's just wanting to get a ride to go to the store and get something she needs. And I'm like, well, I don't know. She usually just gives me money and gives me her list and what she needs when we're in town. I said, she might be wanting to go to church. Well, sure enough, she came ready to go to church. And she hasn't gone very many times, but has gone to church a few times. And just to see the gradual softening of hearts, the Lord's working in hearts. When I was growing up, I had sheep. And I had them for about three years. And after that, I said, no more sheep. Sheep are so dumb. And they don't listen. They don't follow. They don't go through an open gate. And I will never again have sheep. Well, you know how that goes. And so we get to Uruguay, and everybody has sheep. And so our neighbors would take us to these livestock auctions. And at the livestock auctions, it's a big social event. And so our neighbors are introducing us to other relatives and friends and neighbors. And everybody says, so what kind of sheep do you have? I'm like, I don't have sheep. Look at us, whoa, you're weird, really. I mean, we're already from another planet, but now we're really weird because we don't have sheep. And part of the reason for that, if you look at the background, is in the rural areas, a lot of them have electricity now. There's still a lot of big areas that don't have electricity. But the areas. that they grew up eating sheep. A small family can't eat a beef before it goes bad if you don't have a freezer or a refrigerator place to put it in. And so they butcher sheep, hang it out in a tree. In the summertime, sometimes put it in a box, like have a screened-in box to keep most of the flies out of it until they can eat it. And so not having sheep was a real Real interesting. So we bought sheep and then just said, OK, we'll use this as an inroad not only to talk to people, open gates of opportunity, and then have these two different men come and help shear and then afterwards have a time of fellowship at the house or have a meal for them and present the gospel to them. I attend livestock auctions, like I mentioned, this is one of the uptown, upscale livestock auctions, and develop friendships, and talk to people, and present the gospel to them. This is another one, the owner of this one is a Catholic, a Catholic deacon, and he is actually a practicing Catholic. And so I was able to witness to him, and there's been a couple different times I walked in there, and he just stops right in the middle of selling whatever he's selling and greets me on the microphone and asking me how things are going and how the ministry's going. And so I use those as opportunities for preaching the gospel. And of course, I love hunting. So I'm able to, oops, I'm hunting. This is the man there in the blue jacket. We had a Bible study with him one night until well after midnight. And he just really seemed to be interested in the gospel. And he started talking to him afterwards. And he said, hey, y'all like hunting? I said, I love hunting. He said, well, come out tomorrow morning. We've had a lot of flooding and kind of driven the hogs out of the brush. And so come out, and we'll go hog hunting and capybara, which is the world's largest rodent, 150-pound rat. See if we can catch one of those, because they're quite tasty. And so use those for even, we were out there all day. And whenever we're going from one place to another, we're discussing different passages in the Bible. And then the quinceanera, the 15th birthday party for girls, is a big thing in Uruguay. So we use that as well. At first we thought, well, we just won't do anything. Most of the time they have a big party or take a big expensive trip. So when Katie turned 15, then we cleaned out our garage and had some friends come help decorate and used it. Invited about, I think, 80 plus people. And 50 some odd came. Some people had never been to our house, came. And we sang a song and then gave a devotional and everybody really enjoyed it. And so it's been another inroad for witnessing and being a light there. There's some of the ministry there in our house. There's the ways we can fellowship different couples in our house or outside in the summertime when it's hot. Here's the city of Melo, just kind of from up on a hill. There's about 50,000 people. So this is about a 45-minute drive from our house. And so this is where the main church plant is. And we're helping Pastor Eduardo, who's a national pastor. He started the work about 25 years ago. And there's the church there. The Horkies have been there and helped us with the Vacation Bible School about 10 years ago, if you can believe it's been a... and how fast the time goes by. So just so thankful for his faithfulness. This is Pastor Eduardo. During COVID, he was able to give some updates just from his living room to encourage the believers. And there's his wife, Selva, and their youngest daughter, Milena, who has Down syndrome. She's 27 years old, and she loves the Lord. It's just a huge testimony, just the brightness that she brings to the congregation. She knows all the hymns by memory. She cannot read and write, but she knows all the hymns by memory and is always witnessing. and so thankful for her part of the ministry. Here's some screenshots from a typical day at church. Some special music there, and then Pastor Eduardo preaching. Pastor Eduardo has a heart for teaching the younger generation, so he's always trying to include the next generation and encourage them to use the gifts God has given them, so we're thankful for that. And then Tanya is really good with the children's ministry. And a lot of these children come from dysfunctional, most of them come from dysfunctional homes, where they'll be living with one relative one week, the next week they'll be across town. So we really, to be able to get a Bible club together, we have to go out. Each club, each week, you have to go out and just walk the streets, go up and down, gather the kids. It can be kind of difficult on you. It was just amazing planning for a Christmas program, you know, when you're not sure who's going to be there. And so she just made a whole bunch of stuff up and had it ready for whoever we were going to have and prepared a wonderful service there where we could just magnify Christ. So then, about two years ago, the Lord just burdened us for a more visible area, because where the church is, it's kind of an outlying neighborhood, and we thought just a little more visibility would be really beneficial for the growth of the ministry. It's just, you know, we've had people come and go, come and go. Mr. Herkey was asking me, he said, you know, has the church grown? I was like, well, It's really not grown since they've been there. We've had some people have passed away. A couple of the elder ladies are shut-ins and they can't make it to church physically. We've had people come and people go. The Lord just burned down our hearts to rent a house on one of the main streets. downtown, and they just put in a stoplight at this corner. This house came available for rent, as we'd been praying for about three months. And one day we were driving down the main street, and this house was for rent. We called the owner right away and scheduled to meet with him that night after church and signed the rent contract the next day. So I just had all those things fall into place, and were able to hold services, bible studies, you see there on the right the bible studies in the garage in the hot days in the summer, a little bit cooler in the garage where they have a little more air flow and in the winter time you see the fireplace there. I just really have some special times with Bible studies, a couple of the neighbors started coming. And then we just had sporadic visitors. We had some that would come for a little bit and leave, come, leave. But it was also a place where we could go from there. Downtown, we could just walk several blocks to one of the main plazas. And there's some swings. And it's a place where people hang out when it's nice weather. And so even in this wintertime, when it was 60-something degrees, we would go down there and take the guitar and start singing hymns in the plaza and take tracks with us and hand out tracks. And we were able to talk to people that way. So just as the children have been honing their music skills and be able to do that. And even getting together, we have a keyboard and trying to get together a speaker that has a battery, its own battery, so we can plug in and even take a keyboard and a guitar and a trumpet down there and preach. And there's a pastor a couple hours away that loves playing the trumpet as well. And so he said, well, when you're ready to do evangelistic, then call me up and I'll come help. And so that's a big encouragement. This is the open air market. So we participate in those on Fridays. This was some of these pictures during COVID. And we set up and have Bibles and hand out tracks, talk to people. Here's just a little bit of a kind of give you a feel for a typical day at the open air market. It's just a long quarter mile stretch of stands like this. People walk up and down and buy about anything. And this here is a family that, well, the man and his wife there in the middle are a couple that had invited us to their home for a Bible study. And it's in a little town of about 60 to 70 families. It's on a dirt road about 10 miles from the main highway. So we drive over there and they invite us to their home and just really eager to learn about God's Word. And they'd been in different Pentecostal works and just left it and said, you know, the truth isn't there. And you know, we heard this and we heard that and they had all these questions, you know. They said we had to listen to these new revelations that God has sent and we had to pay and there were just this confusion, which is very typical We go into Bible study with somebody and have to unlearn a bunch of things they've learned and say, you know, our authority isn't what man says. I don't want anybody leaving here saying, Ivan said this. No. Our authority is in the Word of God. This is, if God's Word, if you have a question, we need to go to God's Word. And so we go to God's Word and show them the answers to their questions. And so it's just been really neat. They invited their daughter and her father and then a couple other families to come. And so we're praying for this family, Adi and Joanna, as just a sampling of the people that have left the lives and realize their need for Christ. This is Adriana. This really came about over the last almost 13 years. Her son was in one of our Bible clubs early on. And we got to know her and just started praying for her. We really didn't realize the extent to which she was in witchcraft. And she was practicing or learning to be a witch and practicing witchcraft. And I guess it would have been last year. Then as we have contact with her from time to time, we're always presenting the gospel to her. Then she had tried to kill herself three times last year. And she said, I have to leave. So she came to us. She said, I have to leave what I'm doing. I'm going to die. And she was terribly frightened. So we said, well, we'll come to your house and we'll have Bible study. We went to her house and started reading the Bible with her and explaining. And she just crying and said, that's what I need. That's what I need. And then after a while, she started coming to church. And she wanted to come to church for Bible study. She didn't want to have Bible study in her home. Later, we figured out why. She came in February, and she wanted to give testimony. She said, I choose Christ. And just, wow, only God can change a heart. And sometimes, after 13 years of being there and seeing one soul come to the point where they say, I choose Christ. I said, wow, we've probably had more blessing than some of the prophets of old that preached their lives and didn't see a soul saved. And so to get to that point where you have somebody say, I choose Christ. And the next day, she took her mom as a witness and got all this stuff. We found out the reason she didn't want Bible studies at her house was she had all her stuff from her witchcraft under her bed. And she didn't have peace at her house. She'd have nightmares and all this stuff. And so she took that in her car and drove way out of town and threw it in a big water hole out there, out in the middle of the pasture. And she said, I don't want anybody to be able to get to it or use it at all. And she got rid of it. And she just seemed to see the joy exuberating from her face. And so we thank the Lord. The ministry is His. And He works in His time and not our time, no. I could keep on going on and on, but I'd like to share just a little bit, just a passage in the time we have remaining, just a little bit from 1 John. I would say I'm going to preach, but I usually preach for about 45 minutes, so I don't think we're going to get there. I think it's going to be more of a devotional. I'll try to keep it short and sweet, but I just would like to... I so appreciate the focus on God's Word that Pastor and y'all keep here at church and realize that that is the central focus and where we get our understanding and everything we need for life on a day-to-day basis. And so 1 John chapter 1, and we'll read the first four verses together, if you will. So that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word of life, For the life was manifest, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifest unto us. That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship was with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. Are you joy, is your joy full? I think, you know, something we're passionate about, you know, I think about Uruguayans sometimes and I joke with the kids because Uruguayans can be so passionate about soccer. I mean, they'll paint their faces and their clothes, have their team's colors from head to toe, and they're sitting there thinking, well, what if some of the patriarchs of old had watched these guys, you know, yelling and jumping up and down in front of a black box, you know, a screen. And they're just exuberant. But that joy, is that us in our Christian life? Do we have that joy? Are we full? Wow, their joy is full at that moment. They're excited. What gets you excited? What really gets you excited? Is it the thought that Christ saved me, a wretch? He reached out and grabbed me from my rebellion, from my sin and my despair, and said, I choose you. and now I want to use you to proclaim me to the nations, to exalt him among the nations." I said, that's what gets me pumped. That's what gets me excited. Is your joy full? And that's what John wrote the believers here. He was trying to straighten out their confusion and help them. He said, I'm writing these things so that your joys be full. It's not just a passing feeling like at a game. Something comes and goes. There's a joy that's now and for eternity. It's like the theme for the conference is so fitting. You know, partnership in the gospel. And here it's translated what? Fellowship. Paul says that we have fellowship. This partnership. And in Spanish it's translated communion. And I like simple things, you know, so I'm thinking communion. What does communion mean? Common union, right? What do we have in common that unifies us? Now I hate plumbing. It's one of my worst things to do. I have to do it and the kids can attest that it just does not leave me in a good mood. But one of my favorite pieces of pipe, my favorite pipe fitting is a union. You know, because you can cut a pipe and you can take out a leak, you stick a union on there and you make two pieces of pipe, what? You know, common union. And here John says, that which we have seen, he's testifying to what, a change that he has experienced. He has seen the word of life and it changed him. And he says, the way we have this common union that brings us joy, not only is common union with God, first of all, but then with each other. And it makes us our joy full for now and eternity. This common union is inseparable. I always like asking questions. I really appreciate Mrs. Belinda asking questions. It gets us thinking when we ask questions. What does it mean to have fellowship with God? Maybe it's a word we use a lot. I ask people at church different words. We use the word a lot and say, what does that mean? What does that mean? How does that impact your life? How does it change the way you think and what you do from day to day? Well, what does it mean to have fellowship with God? I think there's like four pillars, we could say, that make this common union, this inseparable common union. First and foremost, you have to know God. It's not just knowing something about God, but a personal experiential knowledge of God. It's common union, so it's both-sided. God knows us through and through. He knows what we think, He knows what we say. He knows us through and through, but to know God personally. Not just, yeah, I can say verses and I can say the right things, but to know Him. Let's see if we can give an illustration. Who likes sports in here? Don't be bashful. Sports. And with sports, you have like different athletes that are famous, right? Who can name an athlete that's famous? I don't know anything about sports, because I never got into really much sports besides rodeos, but. Scotty Sheffer. Okay, okay. So, now how well do you know him? Do you know what he likes to eat for breakfast? No clue. So you can know a lot about somebody. How many times he's hit a ball, and I don't know how they measure golf, but you know, however it is. And you can know a lot about some guy, and whatever they tell you on the news, or when they're showing the game, or whatever. But to really know his heart, to really know about him. You know, when I first got to know, started getting to know Tanya, now BJ, what would we do? We'd go to the social parlor and we'd spend time talking. Hours on end, getting to know each other. One another likes. Getting to know each other, you have to spend time. It's a personal knowledge of somebody, not just about somebody. You know, I give an example. There's, out in front of the house we rented there in Melo, in the city of Melo, there was these street jugglers out there at the stoplights. and all these different clowns. And so I would go out there and start witnessing to them. And I was really flabbergasted at the scriptures these guys could say. Most of them, just one scripture after another. I'm thinking, where in the world did you come from? And you're just sitting in rags and begging on the street corner and performing tricks for those cars coming by. And I said, well, where did you learn these Bible verses? Oh, I went to such and such a church for years, but then I left. I had a lot of knowledge about God. but I didn't know God. You know, and I think it's been the thing since, even more so, exponentially so, since COVID. You know, I'll just worship God in my way. Well, God has a specific way he wants to be worshiped. We can come up with all kinds of ways that we're comfortable in the way we want to do things, but that's really not submitting to a higher authority, not submitting to our creator and the way he has chosen and outlined specifically. So we have to know Him. The second thing, and it's not well, the knowledge of Him changes us. Because it's a miracle. When we know God, it changes us. The second pillar that unifies, the common thing that unifies common union is being born again. You know, like Nicodemus there in John chapter 3, when Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom. And we don't have a long time to go through that. You remember the story and Nicodemus, this great knowledgeable guy that's a teacher, he said, I don't get it. Seriously? And Jesus explained, you have to be born of the Spirit. It's a rebirth. It's something actual. It's not imaginative or pretend. It's real. In 1 Peter 1.23, Peter said, being born again, not of corruptible seed, something that's going to perish, but of incorruptible. How? By the word of God, it transforms us, which liveth and abideth forever. 2 Peter 1, 4, wherein, whereby ye are given unto us, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. Have you ever thought about that? Partakers of the divine nature? What a magnificent plan of God. As believers, being known by God, knowing God, and then having God's nature, imparted to us, that should change the way we get up in the morning. That should change the way we walk out the door, the way we proclaim God to the nation. Partakers of the divine nature. There's nothing you can imagine, nothing you can, you can pretend, you can pretend to know God and you can pretend to do a lot of things, but if you don't, aren't partakers of God's nature. You don't have fellowship, you don't have that common union. with God and other believers. So if we're in fellowship with God, love is the third common unifying factor. 1 John 4, 7, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. It's impossible to really have a true love, an everlasting kind of love for someone without God. It's impossible. You know, we took a survey at one point during the open-air markets in Uruguay, and some of the questions were, what is love? And you get, I mean, over 300 answers, definitions of love, you can imagine. What is love? We really start thinking about self-sacrificial, Jesus Christ loved me. An unlovable, a rebel. They'd clench my fist against Him and His mighty power and say, I don't want anything to do with my Creator. And He loved me and said, I'll die for you. That's love. He showed us the great example of what love is. So without Him, we can't love. Love is from God. So we can have fellowship. You know, it's easy to think, wow, I love God when everything's great. When there's food on the table, when the electricity is great, when you got cell phone service, when you got internet, when your car's working, when you're healthy. But when all those tables have turned, and the stillness, and the darkness, and the pain, and the suffering, you can cling to God. And say with Paul, Romans 8.35, who shall separate us from the love of God? For the love of Christ shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, as it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long, and we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded, do you have that persuasion? For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Isn't it great? Separating, that unifying factor that joins us in fellowship. And fourth and lastly, when one's in fellowship with God, The fourth characteristic is communication. We can talk to God knowing that He hears us. With this confidence, like 1 John 5.14-15 says, 1 John 5.14, it says, and this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. And if we know that He heareth us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him. Can you come to God in that kind of confidence, knowing that He hears you? You know, we talk to so many people and they ask us, you pray for me. You pray for me. I don't feel comfortable. Well, of course you're not comfortable if you don't have that common union. If you don't have that fellowship, you're not going to feel comfortable to come and cry out, Abba, Father, I'm in need, I'm weak. And when we have this fellowship, these things that are common things that unify us, this fellowship with God, then he says, these things we write unto you that your joy may be full. That gives us fullness of joy to go about no matter the circumstances. And our joy can be full today, and it's a joy that'll last for eternity. Let's close in prayer. Heavenly Father, we just thank you so much for the simplicity of your word and the way you allow us to have the great benefit of having it in our hands, in our homes, to be able to open it daily and read and to have fellowship with you, Lord. Lord, we look forward to your soon coming. But until then, we'll be faithful in proclaiming you, being a light to the nations around in Jesus' name. Amen. So as you're joyful, Thank you, brother, that was really a very helpful message. And you know, if you know the Lord, if you know the Lord, you know true joy. And there may be some ups and downs, but the Lord is there. He said, I'll never leave you or forsake you. There is an abiding joy that we have as believers. And of course, the great hope that we have in Christ of eternal life with him in heaven. And you think about all the joyless people that are around us. They don't have Christ. We know the answer. We know what they need. We have the gospel. We know what they need to be told, what they need to hear. And so it's really on us. The Lord wants us to share the joy, spread the joy by spreading the gospel and appreciate just the practical ways. You can see the practical ways that the Largent family has taken advantage of different opportunities that the Lord lays in front of them. I mean, you've got an old couple sheets of roofing material to share with your neighbor, and you've got a tractor you can pull a car out of the ditch. These are little opportunities. I don't know what opportunities the Lord is giving you, but look for those opportunities and seize those opportunities. No meeting is an accident. Every meeting is a divine appointment. We have people that come up here and they'll pull into the church parking lot. It's a divine appointment, that's how I see it. And so I try to get out there with a tract or church brochure, who knows, maybe they need the Lord. I was in the dentist chair yesterday, and the hygienist was working on my mouth. Of course, I couldn't talk much at the time. But she was doing some talking and she found out I'm a pastor. In fact, she lives very close to our church here. And just immediately she shared with me, I really need help. My father just passed away two weeks ago. She's young. I said, how old was he? In his early 50s. And so there's just that opportunity to talk about the Lord, encourage her. She claimed to be a believer. Encourage her to get back into church where she can be around other believers. So look for those little opportunities that the Lord will give you. Well, let's pray together. Father, we thank you again for the blessing of being together and just being able to fellowship like this to get updates on the good mission work that is going on in Papua New Guinea and in Uruguay. And we thank you, Lord, for the work you're doing. We thank you for souls that are saved. We thank you for believers who are being taught in the word. And that's what we're doing here, too, and I pray, Lord, that you would help us to see our own mission field that is right around us, and that we would be endeavoring to do the very same thing here, reaching the lost for Christ and teaching his disciples. We pray you'd bless us now as we go our ways, in Jesus' name, amen.