Report

Report from Santiago, Chile for October, 2004
Greetings from Chile. I hope that all of you are doing well.
Rolando Suazo was baptized Saturday afternoon. He lives in Vicuña. He came to us originally through the Bible Correspondence course. Pedro and I with one of the elders from the Austin Avenue Church of Christ, Tom Stewardson, went to visit him several years ago. Since then he has been studying with us. We have shared several visits since then. When Rolando and I went to baptize him, we talked about his plans to worship in Vicuña. Unfortunately, he will be alone there until we can find others to become Christians and worship with him. I am looking forward to working with him in the future. At this time, we do not know how long that future will be, because Rolando suffers from a pancreas that barely functions. I have to confess that I do not know what that means, but he does not think he has long to live. Rolando has not been receiving good reports on his current checkup and needs our prayers.
Barbara, a young lady who is the girlfriend of one of the members in Villa Los Andes Del Sur, was baptized. She has been a good friend of several of us. She lives fairly close to me, and has been over my house quite a bit. Last night, she was here with several young people to celebrate the birthday of Alvaro, one of the young members of Villa Los Andes del Sur.
Also, Tatiana was baptized. I had studied with her several years ago. She is participating in the congregation in La Florida. She is another example of the need to maintain contact with people. I find that frequently here in Chile people go through a series of evangelistic studies and do not respond immediately, but often need to give it some time. People who make a decision in this way are often stronger than those who make speedier decisions.
In Domeyko, Rudolfo was baptized. This is an indication that this congregation may be getting back on its feet. The attendance there is up. Several men have started working with the congregation there. Hopefully, we will see it doing much better.
Eight baptisms were reported last week in various parts of the city. Independencia had two baptisms, as did Maipú. The rest were at Población Santiago.
Last Thursday, I and two carloads of people went out to the campgrounds that we have in El Tabo to inspect them.. It is in terrible shape. The grounds had a fence around it that was basically a rail fence that did not keep anyone out. This was in evidence when I went there, because two of the cabins were burnt to the ground. Someone had lit a fire in the dining hall, and several trees were chopped down. A wall to one of the bathrooms had been broken down. Most of the fence was gone, and the gate was broken. This sent a pretty clear message that we need to enclose the site with some good concrete walls, like most Latin American properties have. Otherwise we will lose the entire investment Unfortunately, this will cost some money for materials. If any of you would like to help in this, let me know.
For those of you who are curious, I have completed the Doctor of Ministry, with the exception that I have to send copies of the thesis to the library. I am waiting on the corrections that they want me to make. When this is done, I will be through. I am more than happy to get that behind me. I have been trying to be pretencioso (pretentious or pompous) about this, by insisting that everybody call me doctor, but the Chileans do not pay any attention to me. They are pretty good about keeping me humble. The theme of my thesis was implementing a model for evangelism in Santiago, Chile. I was able to use my experience here to complete that. The truth of the matter is that I learned a lot from the Chileans as I was working on the thesis through the last few years.
I also learned a lot from Ken Wilkey while he was here. Together we went to Lima where we gave a seminar on Bible study to several of the congregations in Peru. Ken gave an overview of the Bible, while I spoke on I John. Two other preachers also participated, Henry from Ibarra, Ecuador and Beto from San Cristobal, Venezuela. The seminar was well received. The impression that I received was that the church in Lima is weak. Perhaps that is true of only where I was, but the truth is that it needs a lot of attention.
On the 16th of October, the ladies had their nationwide meeting. Ladies from ten congregations in Santiago and two outside of Santiago participated. The theme was Unity in the Church. Seventy ladies participated. Three ladies from different congregations gave the presentations. They also shared a lunch together. All the sisters told me that it was an excellent activity.
As so often happens in Latin America, the men did the opposite of what the women did. They decided to not hold their meeting this November, because one of the congregations had a problem with another. In my opinion, this is one of the decisions that was not the wisest, but sometimes you have to allow people to be wrong.
The other day, I was out looking for Pedro Sanchez. I found him over at the house where we serve the meals to the children. I do not usually go over there. While I was there, I noticed that quite a lot of children were filing into the house and going into the back. I figured that since there were a lot of them, that they were from the program. I was also impressed with how nice they looked and how well behaved they were. Since it was a Saturday afternoon, and fairly late in the afternoon, I was curious about what was going on. So I asked. As it turns out, they were doing a Bible Study. The help that you are giving to this program is developing well mannered children in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Santiago. The church is doing a fine job there.
If you are interested in less formal information about what is happening here, you might check out http://harry1976.blogspot.com/
About the only thing left to mention now is that the exchange rate on the dollar is going downhill fast. This means that the dollar does not buy as much as it previously did, which means that everything is more expensive. Currently, the exchange rate is down 22% from its high.
Thank you for your support. May God bless you.
In Christ,
Harry R. Hamilton