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Thanks from a Lutheran Spanish Mission in Arizona

© Rev. Theodore Bodjanac

Once again, I am pleased to share with you a letter from my good friend, Rev. Bodjanac, who has some wonderful news to share! I thought this would be perfect to share on Thanksgiving, a day when we can give thanks for our many blessings, our freedoms, and especially the gift of a Savior from sin, Christ the Lord.

Note: Thanksgiving is a holiday in the United States on the fourth Thursday of November. It commemorates the original Thanksgiving held by the pilgrims with the Indians in Massachussetts who had helped the pilgrims in the past year to survive and plant a bounteous crop. Abraham Lincoln called for days of Thanksgiving during the Civil War. Eventually it became a holiday, even changed under President Franklib Roosevelt in an effort to lengthen the Christmas shopping season during the Great Depression.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving! And keep the newlyweds in the following letter in your prayers!

john

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November 25, 2003

Dear Friends in Christ,

I am writing to you today to Thank You for your continuing generous support of our congregation. Please be assured that we are continuing to improve our own stewardship as well as continuing to reach out to the community with the Gospel of Jesus Christ in both English and Spanish. Your offerings given to our church truly are supporting a ministry that is effecting and changing the lives of people both young and old leading them ever closer to The Savior our dear Lord Jesus Christ.

Recently our Lord opened an unexpected door for us with a phone call that came on a Sunday afternoon. A young woman asked me if I would consider performing her wedding service that following Saturday. I invited her to come talk it over that night in our church. She a young woman from Tabasco, Mexico, wanted to marry her boyfriend from La Paz, Bolivia.

After I explained briefly what the Lutheran Church believes and teaches and how their wedding service would proceed they agreed to come to a premarital Bible study that Thursday evening. In that Bible Study we read several chapters from the old and new testaments which I explained to them. Near the end they both with misty eyes seemed moved by having the Gospel clearly explained and applied to their lives. At this point Guadalupe, the bride to be, said to me in Spanish "Pastor, that is the most beautiful thing I have ever heard." For the first time they came to understand how much Christ loves them and completely forgives them all their sins.