As a young man, Luis Rosales got caught up in the temptation of drugs and alcohol. He quit going to school and was on the streets for a time. Growing up with an alcoholic father, Luis had always told himself he’d never get that bad. “But Satan is astute and he knew how to bring me to the worst place,” Luis shares.
Luis felt he was dead. No one wanted anything to do with him. In the midst of this, he met someone. “God put her in my life,” Luis says. Teresa de Jesús paid attention to Luis when no one else did. Then God gave Luis one of his greatest gifts in the form of a beautiful daughter named Gracia Evangelin.
“My daughter was the turning point,” Luis says. “To see my daughter every day, I knew I had to resolve my problems. I felt the moment was right to go to church.”
When Luis went to the local Church of God church, it felt like the sermon was for him. The pastor said, “Come to the feet of Jesus. You are tired, you feel defeated."
“In that moment God called me. He told me, ‘Son, get up and come to me.’ The drugs and alcohol had done what they wanted to with my life,” Luis says. “I believed and I went to Him. Since that day I have felt the love of God in my veins, in my heart, in my soul every day since then.”
The leadership of the church noticed Luis had experienced a life change. They asked him to come into the office and asked about him.
“When no one cared about me, they began to pay attention to me. They asked my name, where I was from, and why I had reconciled with God.” Luis felt loved and cared for by the church.
Some time later, a man asked Luis if he would be interested in planting a church with him. Luis was a little stunned but he had given his life completely to God and wanted to be obedient. “I said to him, ‘I am available to what God wants in my life.’”
Luis is being equipped to better share his testimony and the gospel through the church planter training with Multiplication Network Ministries (MNM). Although he has recently begun, Luis is passionate about the work.
“We have to go and preach the gospel. We cannot stay quiet with this flame we have within each of us. We have to go and ignite this flame,” Luis says enthusiastically. He is doing this with his friend in San Martir, utilizing the training MNM has provided them. They have a children’s program on Sunday mornings and a Bible study for adults on Tuesday evenings. Luis shares that around seven adults are coming and they have 25 children who are participating in the children’s activities.
“It is a beautiful place, filled with needs like any other place,” Luis shares. They have seen how God is working to bring people to him. One lady, Verónica, was reconciled with God. Her husband is an alcoholic and she has found a loving community within the Bible study group. Verónica’s daughter is learning about Jesus through the children’s program.
Luis never imagined he would be planting a church. But he says, “I use my testimony so the people can see that for God there is nothing impossible.” He calls his past, which was once such a negative thing, his greatest treasure because of how God has moved in his life.
“As I said, the greatest problem in my life was not having Christ in my heart. Every time I get up and look at my daughter and she gifts me with a smile, it is a smile from God on my life,” Luis says happily. “I just close my eyes and rewind the tape and remember where I came from. This gives me greater strength to continue forward every day. As the Word of God says, I am renewed like the eagle.”
Prayer requests:
- For health
- For God’s protection in all the places they have to go in El Salvador because it is dangerous because of the amount of crime.
- So that God and only God will finish the work they want to see and that God will continue to give them the strength every day to continue facing each battle they encounter.