Silvana Maldonado has been a Christian for several years and felt in her heart the need to share with others about God. She had the opportunity to do this when she learned about the church planter training provided by you through Multiplication Network Ministries (MNM).

Silvana says what impressed her most when she began the MNM training was how they were encouraged to get to know the area. She made a huge map of the area and went neighborhood to neighborhood learning where there was another church or another religion present.

“After doing this initial survey work, I arrived in this area. I started visiting several areas since I didn’t know the city well, but we could see there were no churches and I knew there was a great need to plant one,” Silvana says.

She found someone with an urgent need for healing and she visited the family to pray with them. Since then the family opened its doors and accepted Silvana to hear her preach the Word of God every week.

One of the transformed lives within this family was Marisel Dávalos. She shares how she had thought she knew about Christ, but when Silvana shared about Him, she realized she did not really know anything.

“Before, I felt empty and when I had problems, I felt I would not be able to overcome them. I felt the world was falling apart, but I learned to pray and to trust in God during the trials,” Marisel says.

Now Marisel and her family not only have saving faith in Jesus but also have hope during difficult times. They want other people to be able to hear about Jesus as well. For this reason, their home is where people meet together to hear about God and where various activities take place with the children of the area.

“I believe the Lord guided me to this place," shares Silvana. She says this family was the answer to several months of evangelism and visiting house to house.

For Silvana, it is very important to get to know the area and the reality of the people in order to carry the gospel there. She’s realized that caring about the spiritual as well as physical needs of a community opens doors and people are more receptive to the Word of God.

“We have seen the transformation of the family, as the seed planted yields its fruit. We saw that through the activities, the community told us they wanted to get involved after seeing our concern for them. We show the love of Christ towards them,” says Silvana.