Build A Church in Villa Real

For the past three years, Absalom & Karla Puente, a young church-planting couple that we mentor, have been working to plant a church in Villa Real - a community of 7,000+ souls on the outskirts of Piedras Negras. Amazingly, when they began ministering there, the community of Villa Real had NO church building... NO identifiable place of worship where believers could gather or which seekers could identify and come for spiritual instruction. 

Pastor Absalom and Karla have worked and prayed tirelessly to grow and disciple the believers in their community. As their fledgling church grew to a faithful group of about 25 meeting regularly in (and outside) their tiny rented home, they began to pray for a "place" of their own, where they could better meet the needs of the congregation and minister to the community. Each Sunday, they cleared their small living/dining room of furniture and set up chairs. When weather permitted, their Bible Club met outside the entrance of their house under a shade. (Temps in the area reach over 100 for five months of the year and drop to 40 and below in the winter.) Meeting out of doors in those extremes is difficult and they found that the limited space limited the growth of the body as well. 

In March, they found a house a few blocks from their home available to rent and have moved the church meetings there. Additionally, in faith, Absalom and Karla have begun to save for the purchase of a property where they can construct a meeting place of their own. A corner lot (one of the few left in the community) has come up for sale, but its cost is more than 10 times Absalom and Karla's sparse yearly income; to purchase it would be IMPOSSIBLE (humanly speaking). But we are praying with them that God will move mightily and provide, both for the property when the time is right, and for constructing a meeting place where people can gather for worship and where God will continue to BUILD HIS CHURCH.