|
Dear Friends,
I am sorry for not sending you an
update sooner, but my email list got all messed up and I was not
able to send one. My surgery went well and the surgeon came to me
the day after the surgery and told me that when she opened me up
I did not have the left thyroid gland. All I had was fatty tissue.
Therefore all she did was take out a small nodule and did not have
to mess with anything else, therefore my voice was not affectad
at all!
Another miracle from the Lord because
all of my cat-scans and ultrasounds showed I had that left thyroid
gland! The nodule that was taken out was sent to Pathology and I
got the report this week and it came back NEGATIVE! I do not have
any cancer!
Praise the Lord. Thanks for your prayers
and for your interest.
God bless you,
Missionary Byron Willis
David, Panama
|
|
Dear Friends,
I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. I will
be checking into the Hospital tomorrow and will have surgery to
remove my left thyroid gland on Wednesday the 6th. Thanks for your
prayers. My cellular phone number in Panama is 011-507-6501-7595.
If I am in surgery at the time you call, I may not be able to answer
you, ha.
Byron Willis
|
|
We trust you have a wonderful Christmas
and a very Happy and Prosperous New Year. God has been more than
wonderful towards us this whole year and we are excited about what
is in store for us this coming year.
OUR CHURCH: Our main church is growing and God
is giving us people saved and baptized every week. We had over 200
people saved in our services in the month of October. We had our
yearly Patriotic Sunday in October and five High School bands joined
us on this day and 120+ got saved!! Our attendance is consistently
growing and we are praying that God would give us a large property
located closer to downtown. Please pray with us for this need.
THE BIBLE COLLEGE: We held our fourth graduation
of our Bible College and we had four students graduate; three men
and one young lady. One of these men wants to be a missionary to
Colombia, the other wants to start a new Church amongst an Indian
tribe in this country and the other wants to go full time into the
music ministry. What holds these folks back from doing more sooner
is the lack of finances. Please pray God would provide for these
men.
OUR BUSES: We are still trying to gather up the
money to get the four buses we have waiting for us in Tennessee.
We need these buses and we ask you to pray God would provide the
money we need to get them down here soon. We have sold one of our
old buses and we hope to sell another one soon to have all the money
we need for shipping the buses.
THE GIRLS HOME: The government has come to us asking
us to take in 40 girls from a Catholic Home which will be shutting
down on December 31. Please pray we can be ready for this group
of girls, that they all get saved soon after arriving in the home
and that God would provide the funds for this need. This will give
us about 70 in the home and we are excited to see the Lord's name
glorified in all this.
RADIO PROGRAM: People have been calling in asking
questions on my radio program and I even had a man walk in from
off the street after hearing the program and he got saved there
in the broadcasting studio. Pray that many people will listen to
the program, be saved and that God would provide the $400.00 each
month to stay on the air.
MY HEALTH: My left thyroid gland was not taken
out three years ago when I had surgery to extract the cancerous
tumor which was on my right thyroid gland. All was well until some
nodules showed up on this left gland and since there are so many
and the first biopsy was inconclusive, it has been decided that
I should have surgery to take it out as well. This surgery will
be in January. Please pray that I do not have to have the surgery
and, if necessary, that God would provide.
OUR FAMILY: Our oldest son, Anthony, will be 18
years old in January and Rachel will be 15 in February. We have
many decisions to make in the future with our children, so please
pray for us in this crucial time.
Thank you for your prayers and faithful support.
Our church now has a website as well: please check it out.
In His Service,
Byron and Briceida Willis
|
|
Dear Friends,
The doctor told me on Friday that
instead of poking more holes in my neck that it was just best to
go ahead and do surgery and take out the thyroid if necessary and
do a biopsy on that. I will get the appointment date to meet with
the surgeon on Tuesday (Oct. 27).
I also went to see a naturalist doctor and I am on a detox diet
right now. Pray this will help as well. Thanks for all of the encouraging
notes and for your prayers.
God bless you,
In His Service,
Byron Willis
|
|
October 15, 2009
|
I trust you are well. This note is to please
remember me in your prayers a little more. On September 3, I had my regular
six month cat-scan and the doctors noticed that the remaining thyroid
gland is swollen and has nodules or zists on it. They proceede in taking
a sample with needles to do a biopsy two days ago and I will know the
results on the 23rd. If you would like to call me on that day to know
the results, my cel phone number is: 011-507-6501-7595. Please pray all
is well.
Thank you and God bless you,.
In His Service,
Byron Willis
|
|
Printable Version
September 30, 2009
Dear Friends,
We trust God is blessing each one of you just as
He has been blessing us here in Panama. We are very excited bout
what God has been doing the past couple of months and we are excited
to share it with you. Thank you for your support and for praying
for our ministries.
|
|
We have been averaging around 600 to 700
people in our church for the past four years. We have two services on
Sunday mornings, two children's churches and over 35 Sunday School classes
in, behind, and in front of our building. Our auditorium is around 85%
full every time we have a service. We need to buy around two acres to
be able to build a 600 seat auditorium and have the offices and classrooms
we need. The land in the picture above has almost two acres and it is
located only one block from the main street in downtown David. The land
is valued here at over $700,000.00 and we have nothing close to that amount,
but we are praying God will give us this land. Humanly speaking, there
is no way we can afford to do this as a church, but we know we have a
mighty God who will provide. Please pray God will provide us with the
property and the building we need to keep on growing in attendance.
| I now have a radio program which is
called "BUT THE BIBLE SAYS." I broadcast this program LIVE
every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoon at 4:00p.m. It is
a half hour program and I start with a theme and invite people to
call in to ask questions about the theme I am speaking on. God has
blessed and in the first two months we have seen many people call
and we trust many are coming to Christ. We are hoping to see people
in church soon as a result of this program. This program costs us
$400.00 a month and our church here has made pledges to give this
amount to cover this expense. Praise God for this new outreach. |
|
We have FOUR BUSES which were given to us
that are still in Tennessee. It will cost us at least $4,000.00 to get
each bus to Panama. We have sold one bus and we need to see another one
so we can have the money to bring the other four down. Once we have our
new building we will need to have at least 14 buses for all the routes
we run.
Our GIRL'S HOME turned three years old on Sep. 29 and
we have over 25 girls and children in the home!
In His Service,
Byron and Briceida Willis
|
|
It has been a wild three months! We trust
that you have had a great a time as God has given us here in Panama these
past three months. We thank you so much for your faithful giving that
allows us to invest our money in the Lord's work so that we can be doing
all that God has allowed us to do these past three months. Sorry for not
writing sooner, but I have just not stopped long enough to do so, and
anyone that has been with me will agree.
The LADIES CONFERENCE was in the month of May and my
wife always does a great job organizing this conference. We had a Pastor's
wife from California come and speak to the ladies and she (Mrs. Salazar)
was a wonderful blessing. There were over 500 ladies in attendance and
most of these ladies were from our own area. The MENS CONFEENCE was in
the month of June just a few days before Father's Day. A Hispanic Pastor
from Florida came to preach. We had over 300 men attend this Conference
and 75 men were saved and 35 were baptized. I wish we had as many men
as we have ladies, but at least we had more salvations and baptisms
Ha!
Our STEWARDSHIP MISSIONS CONFERENCE was in the month of July. Our folks
are growing in their faith as they commit to giving their tithes to the
Lord and giving by faith to Missions ($1,500.00 a month), and Building
fund ($800.00 a month). We had a preacher from San Luis Potosí,
Mexico come and preach this conference. As a result of this conference
our people decided to buy me a new car, since I receive no support from
the church here! Our people also gave a "One Weeks Salary for God"
offering and over $4,000.00 were raised on one Sunday. This is the average
amount that comes in during a whole month! Pray God will bless those that
give and that more give.
We have been averaging around 600 to 700 people in our church for the
past four years. We have two services on Sunday mornings, two children's
churches and over 35 Sunday School classes in, behind, and in front of
our building. Our auditorium is around 85% full every time we have a service.
We need to buy around two acres to be able to build a 600 seat auditorium
and have the offices and classrooms we need. Humanly speaking, there is
no way we can afford to do this as a church, but we know we have a mighty
God who will provide. No banks in Panama will loan money to any church
and the project we have ahead of us is no less than one million dollars.
Please pray God will provide us with the property and the building we
need to keep on growing in attendance.
We have FOUR BUSES which were given to us that are still
in Tennessee. It will cost us at least $4,000.00 to get each bus to Panama.
Pray we can sell two of the buses we have here so we can have the money
to bring the other four down. Once we have our new building we will need
to have at least 14 buses for all the routes we run.
Our BIBLE COLLEGE is half way through the year and we
have at least four graduates this year. Pray for them!
In His Service,
Byron and Briceida Willis
|
|
Printable Version
May 07,
2009
Dear Friends,
|
 |
Our BIBLE COLLEGE started on March 30,
with FOURTEEN STUDENTS (Seven men and seven ladies). Pray they all
stay faithful and finish their four years of schooling. We should
have six graduates this coming November. |
Thank you so much for taking time to read
this letter. We trust you are doing fine in spite of the difficult economic
times many of you are going through. We thank you for your faithfulness
in giving to missions during these hard times. We are doing well and God
has been blessing our ministries in wonderful ways.
Our Bible College is doing well. We do need at least
10 LAPTOP COMPUTERS for our computer class. If you would like to send
a good laptop computer which we could use to train these young men and
women for the ministry, please do so by mailing it to the following address:
Byron Willis; PTY 5023; P.O. BOX 025207; MIAMI, FL, 33102. If you mail
a computer to this address make sure you put the value on the outside
of the box because we will have to pay the duty on it. We have to pay
for the shipping and duty on each package. If you would rather send us
money to buy one down here, just send it to our home church and designate
it for a computer.
On Easter Sunday we had almost 1,000 people in church
with a good group of people getting saved and baptized. So far this year
we are doing well trying to reach the goals we have set for the year.
We have had over 1,350 people saved out soul-winning, 282 professions
of faith in our services, and 125 new converts have been baptized from
January through April. Our attendance is consistent and we see the Lord
giving us more and more faithful folks in our ministry every week. Pray
we may have more and more Sunday School teachers for over 35 classes we
have.
Panama now has a new President. Pray that this new President
may open many more doors to reach more folks with the Gospel. This president
is a good friend of the USA and we hope God blesses Panama more than ever
for their decision to elect a conservative, anti-socialist man for their
president.
The Girl's home/Orphanage is doing well. We have between
25 to 30 girls and children in this home at any given time. Pray we may
be able to open a home exclusively for children and dedicate the girl's
home specifically for girls with unwanted pregnancies. Also pray for the
feeding centers we run, feeding over 150 children daily.
This month we have a Ladies Conference and in June we
will be celebrating a Men's Conference. Please pray we may be able to
reach many more folks for Christ through these conferences. We held a
Youth Conference in April and had an attendance of over 300 teens in our
services, with many getting saved and baptized.
We have been given up to three more buses to bring to
Panama but it costs us around $4,000.00 to get each one here. Please pray
we may raise the funds to bring more buses to Panama so that more people
may be reached.
Thank you for your prayers and support. You gift (investment)
is never taken lightly. God bless you richly.
In His Service,
Byron and Briceida Willis
|
|
We have been so busy since January 1st that
I have not had an opportunity to get this 2008 report to you. We did have
a great year and we thank God for each and every one of you that has a
part in keeping us on the Field, reaching others for Christ. We trust
you are all doing well and seeing the blessings of God in your life.
THE MAIN CHURCH: Our Church in David had a good year.
We saw close to 900 people make public professions of faith in our services
and we had close to 200 people follow the Lord in believers' baptism.
Our people won, on average, around 50 souls to Christ every week through
our soul-winning programs and we had around 80 people out sharing the
gospel with others every week. We had a high day of over 1,250 this year
and we have seen our Sunday School grow to over 30 classes every Sunday
morning. Our offerings have been up. Our people are learning to give more
and more every year. Our people gave around $3,500.00 a month in tithes
and they gave $800.00 a month to Missions. Please pray our folks will
grow in this area of giving. We need much more income to do more to grow
more.
THE BIBLE COLLEGE had a good year with 15 students and
three of them graduated in December. We appreciate all the help we received
for the Bible College which was a great blessing in our ministry. Our
graduates are serving the Lord both here in our church, abroad, and preparing
to start new works.
THE GIRLS HOME: We finally achieved the certification
we needed from the government and since then they have begun sending us
girls and babies. The home has grown to maximum capacity on numerous occasions.
We have seen many babies lives saved from abortion and many girls lives
transformed by the saving power of God.
THE FEEDING CENTERS: All four of the feeding centers
we run did well this year and we fed, on average, 160 children two meals
a day, five days a week. Please pray these centers will keep on growing
and that these children may become great Christians. We thank God for
MANNA Worldwide (www.mannaworldwide.com) for sending us support to run
the Girls Home and Feeding Centers.
OTHER WORKS: The other works we are involved in are doing
well. Our missionary in El Salvador is building his building and working
hard, Bro. Rafael Rodriguez is doing a great job in the town of Dolega,
and the church that I started when I was 16 years old is still going strong
in the small town in El Valle. We also have College graduates from our
Church serving the Lord in the States, Mexico and Africa.
OUR GOALS for 2009 are to reach over 5,000 people for
the Lord through personal soul winning, over 2,500 people saved in our
services and over 500 people baptized. So far in January and February
we have had over 800 people saved, over 200 professions of faith and over
68 people baptized. 19 Bible clubs were able to reach over 1,200 children.
We had two camps this summer with over 130 kids attending. Thank you for
your prayers and your support. May God richly bless you and your ministry.
In His Service,
In His Service,
Byron and Briceida Willis
|
|
We hope and pray that this Christmas season
brings you much joy and blessings from the Lord. December is always a
very busy month in the country of Panama. In December we celebrate Mothers
Day (8th), end of the school year (March-December), Graduations, Christmas
and New Years Eve, and it does not stop there for us, because the first
Sunday of the year is our churches' anniversary. This year we will be
celebrating our Sixteenth anniversary. Thank you so much for the special
offerings in December which always help us cover all of the extra expenses
during this busy time.
At the time that this letter is being put into the mail
we have already celebrated five Christmas parties, and we have a few more
to go. We have four feeding centers, the girls home, the church and we
also have a party for all of the preachers and their families here in
our fellowship. My wife does a great job shopping and buying gifts for
over 200 children (clothing), and that does not include our immediate
family. Our church saves up more than $1,200.00 to buy gifts for over
350 children in our church, and we also have a Sunday where we give away
bags of "goodies" to over 500 children.
The months of October and November were very fruitful.
We started by having our annual Patriotic Sunday on the last Sunday of
October. We invited five high school marching bands to come to our church
on this Sunday morning, and we formed our own parade with our Sunday School
classes and these bands. After the parade was finished all of the members
of the bands were invited to come into the auditorium and listen to the
Preaching, receive their prizes, and feed them lunch. Our church people
could not fit in the auditorium with them, so we had closed circuit television
for them to see. Over 350 young people were in the auditorium and over
150 stood up in the invitation and received Christ as their personal Lord
and Savior! Praise the Lord! We also had a two day outreach after the
parades in downtown David and we had over 40 people saved in this activity.
On November 30, we invited the Fire Department to come
to our church, but the day the fire truck was to come we had a constant
rain, day and night. The fire truck did not come but the band from the
Fire Department did. They played patriotic and Christmas songs for the
congregation and afterwards we fed them lunch and witnessed to them. Over
30 members of the Fire Department trusted in Jesus Christ as their Lord
and Savior. All of this is possible thanks to your faithful support.
On November 15 we had our third College Graduation and
three students graduated! Praise the Lord! We held our annual Family Conference
in November with over 400 in the evenings. Pastor Minge from Washington
State came to preach! What a blessing He and his people were to our folks!
We had over 250 people saved in our services in November! Your support
keeps us going and doing more and more.
In His Service,
Byron and Briceida Willis
|
|
Printable Version
October 7, 2008
Dear Friends,
|
OUR MISSIONARY IN EL SALVADOR IS
DOING A GOOD JOB BUILDING THEIR CHURCH BUILDING.
THANKS FOR GIVING.
|
 |
We have had a couple of great months and
God has blessed us in wonderful ways. We trust the Lord gave you a great
summer and a relaxing time with your family. We invite you to come to
visit us for one of your vacations. There are great hotels here in Chiriqui
and we have, beside the many good churches and ministries, beautiful mountains
and beaches. Panama is a very safe country to travel in and the costs
are only a fraction of costs in the States. There are many Americans moving
to Panama taking advantage of the affordable living, the kind people,
and the friendly government. Come and see us.
My wife organized our Ladies' Conference in the month
of August. Over 300 ladies attended the conference and twenty-four Preacher's
wives were there as well. We are grateful to Mrs. Parada, wife of Pastor
Luis Parada in Long Beach, California, for coming and speaking to the
ladies. She was a great blessing and an encouragement to all. Over 20
ladies were saved in three nights.
In the months of August and September we had two weddings
in our church. Both weddings involved young people who have been in our
church since they were children. One was the bride of a young man who
is a missionary in Africa. His name is Ruben Castillo from Mexico. He
came to Panama to raise support and met Keysi, a girl that has attended
our church since she was 8 years old. Keysi graduated from our Bible College
four years ago, and she and Ruben were married on September 15. They are
in Mexico right now and will be going to Ghana, Africa next year. Please
pray for them. There is also a young lady from our church and graduate
of our Bible College who is married to a young man in Texas, and he has
since graduated from Bible College, and will be full-time in the ministry
very soon. Little by little God is allowing us to train people to go out
and serve Him in many different places.
We praise the Lord for the spiritual and numeric growth
that God has been giving us here in David, Panama. The attendance in the
evening services the past few months has increased to over 200 people
on many occasions. Our people have to come on their own for the evening
services and most of them do not have cars. Due to the high cost of fuel
we cannot use the buses all the time, but our people are still coming
on their own. We have five different soul-winning programs in our church
and we have at least 100 people saved every week through our visitation
program. We usually never have less than 10 people saved on any given
Sunday and at least one baptism. This past Sunday eleven were baptized.
God is blessing us with more and more workers and Sunday School teachers
as well!
On October 26 we have our Patriotic Sunday with six high
school bands invited to be in church for a parade. Last year over 100
teenagers were saved. Pray we have many more saved this year. On November
15, we will be having our College Graduation. At least four students will
be graduating this year. Please pray for these future preachers and preacher's
wives. Thanks for giving so we can go!
In His Service,
Byron and Briceida Willis
|
|
Printable
Version
July 31, 2008
Dear Friends,
|
OUR MISSIONARY IN
EL SALVADOR IS
BUILDING A CHURCH
BUILDING. PLEASE PRAY
AND GIVE IF YOU CAN.
|
 |
Thank you so much for your faithful support
and for your prayers. We have been very busy the past three months. We
trust you are enjoying your summer vacations and time with your families.
It is always good to get away once in a while. May God bless each one
of you. In the past three months we have been busy with Four Conferences,
the visit of over 80 people from the States from different churches, I
made a trip to preach in El Salvador, teaching in the Bible College, having
a cat-scan, keeping four feeding centers going feeding 200 children, and
doing the paperwork to see our Girls' Home grow.
When I was sixteen years old I won a young man to the
Lord who today is a missionary in El Salvador. I went to see him in May
and I was really impressed with the work he is doing. He is in a town
of over 80,000 people about 10 minutes from the Guatemalan border. He
has a great testimony in this town and he is building a church building.
He could use all the help he can get. If you would like to help this new
work in El Salvador with their building, just send me the money and I
will get it to him. Make sure it says on the check that it is for Bro.
Gabriel Bonilla's church building in El Salvador. Thank you so much.
We had a wonderful OLD PATHS BIBLE CONFERENCE the last
week of May. Bro. Allan Domelle came to preach along with Pastor May who
came with his wonderful wife. They were a great blessing and our people
enjoyed the preaching. My voice held up to be able to translate all the
preaching.
In June we had our ANNUAL MEN'S CONFERENCE and we had Pastor Rabon, Tippett
and Aldana with us from Beacon Baptist Church in N.C. Over 100 men attended
our conference each evening and we had over 60 men attend our church on
Father's Day. These preachers also brought their wives and they taught
in our Bible College as well as themselves. What a blessing it was to
have them here.
In July we had three groups come down to visit our church,
our feeding centers, and girl's home. Thanks to MANNA WORLDWIDE many people
are giving so that we can feed 200 children, two meals a day, and also
have a Girl's Home. These groups are always a blessing to have. One of
the Pastors that came with his church preached our MISSIONS AND STEWARDSHIP
CONFERENCE. Our people have committed to giving over $1,000.00 a month
to missions. We also have a YOUTH CONFERENCE on July 30-Aug. 1. Pray many
of our teens will surrender their lives to serve God.
In July I also went to have a Cat-scan to see how I am
doing. The technician that ran the scan was saved as a young boy in our
church 15 years ago!!! He said that all looked well! Please pray for me
that I may get over the allergic reactions I have to certain foods due
to the side effects of the chemotherapy. Thank you once again for your
faithful prayers and support. May God bless you.
In His Service,
Byron and Briceida Willis
|
|
For the FIRST TIME since we started our
church in 1993, we celebrated a COUPLES RETREAT. We now have over 35 couples
in our church that are interested in having a good marriage and home.
It was an exciting time for all of the couples involved, and as a result
I am sure we will be
having greater turnouts in future retreats. We are finally starting to
see the results of years of labor as we see more and more people place
the proper emphasis on the marriage and the home. Thank you for your prayers
as we try to reach more and more families for Christ here in Panama. Marriage
and the home is not important to the lost. We trust the Lord is blessing
you and thank you for reading this letter.
We started classes this year in our Bible College with 15 students. We
have students from five different churches and one travels as far as 120
miles every week to attend classes! We had to go to having night classes
because we do not have enough support coming in to be able to cover all
of the expenses if we were to have classes during the day. Our students
are in class Monday through Friday from 6:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. every
week. Please pray for these students that they be able to stay faithful
in spite of the rough hours, and please support us if God lays it on your
heart so that we may be able to cover all of the expenses we have in bringing
in preachers to teach in our college.
Every week in our church we are seeing from 15 to 20
adults and young people being saved in our services and an average of
five baptisms. We have four adult Sunday School classes, eight teen classes
and 22 children's classes every Sunday morning. We also have two preaching
services to be able to accommodate everyone in our auditorium. We will
eventually need a larger building if we are going to keep growing and
start running over 1,000 in church. A new building on a larger piece of
property will cost us no less than $500,000.00. Please pray God would
provide us the money we need to keep on growing and reaching more and
more people for the Lord.
My health is much better, but I do need some full-time
help. I pastor a church of over 700 people every Sunday morning and yet
I have no full-time staff men. I need help, but all of the $3,000.00 that
comes in monthly is spent on our buses, and regular church expenses. It
would cost me $500.00 a month to hire one man full-time. I have three
men that would quit their jobs on the spot if I had the money to hire
them. Would you support our church with this project? Hundreds would be
saved as a result! Thank you
In His Service,
Byron and Briceida Willis
|