JOSE: Lost, but Found!

"For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost" Mt 18:11

Few months ago a friend approached us and asked us to consider helping a man.After having prayed about it, we decided to visit him and try to help. The man was a Peruvian with a 10 years old son, and just divorced to his Dutch wife.

His story started at the slums of Lima, being abandoned by his father, and left behind with her mother as the youngest of five children. Things went even worst after his mother decided to start a new relationship whith another man, with whom she had four more kids. José experienced very deep wounds and was caught into the world of the drugs an illicit relations. A Dutch lady had come to his country and felt in love with him. After few years they had son. Because of the instability of Peru, they decided to move to the Netherlands, where his failure to learn the language, isolation, and his loneliness pushed him even deeper, into dependence on alcohol and drugs. When we first met him, he explained to us he didn't have anything to live for, except for his son. Even in such a situation, we felt God was up to something with them.

We introduced him to Jesus, as the Spirit of the Lord descended on that house. For the first time in his life he felt the peace of the Spirit of God falling upon him.

God opened doors for him to get into a rehab-program in Spain, and he is now back in the Netherlands, after three months of hard work to recover there.

Last week he came to Church were he showed real fruits of a believer, and announced his desire to be baptized.

As you may know, the way to rehabilitation could be hard and long, so we ask for your prayers on his behalf, since his housing situation is unstable, and his family does not show much respect to him and doesn't understand yet what has happened to him.

Would you please pray with us for:

• Wisdom to lead him as a disciple
• Strengthening of his Christian character to resist temptations (some drugs are legal in Holland)
• A house for him, so he could get established again
• His son and ex wife, so they also will be touched by the God of Jose
• For his legal status, which is not very clear because he is now divorced, and maybe the authorities could decide to send him back to Peru
• His desire to become a Missionary, so he can help others like him.

Thanks;

The Sarmiento's