Well, it has been a pretty hectic day in Santiago, from what I can tell by watching the news. You all should be aware that violent protests are a commonplace occurrence here, and the police in Chile have a lot of experience in dealing with it. Tomorrow is supposed to be worse.
I should point out that a lot of these protests are done by individuals who have not figured out that they need to do something with their life.
However, these protesters cause a tremendous amount of damage. They can erase a year's economic growth in a night. In a small country like Chile, several million dollars worth of damage can represent the amount that the economy grew in a year. This actually happened one year. The amount of damage that was done in rioting was the same amount that the economy grew in that year. So chile did not come out ahead.
Another thing that is damaging is that this rioting creates a culture of violence. For many years, Sept. 11 was when people rioted in the streets protesting the coup of Pinochet. There is no doubt that certain elements looked forward to it each year. This year I was beginning to think the country was getting past this, when we have the riots going on today.
Friday, November 19, 2004
Thursday, November 18, 2004
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
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
Saturday, November 13, 2004
On a more serious note.
As you might imagine, these last few days have been a little more difficult for the American image here in Chile.
For some reason, most Chileans I know think that I would not vote for George W. Bush. The image that Bush has is horrible, but that is because the news here follows the Europeans and has been negative towards Bush always, with nothing positive to say. Also, the movie that the Moore character made has been making the rounds, and people accept everything it says without trying to figure out if it is true or not. Another thing is that people are scared because of the war in Iraq. At times like these, the Pentecostals pull out the old theory about this being the last days and we are entering into the seven years of grand tribulation. The same thing happened to me in 1991. A Pentecostal lady at my workplace in Abilene swore up and down that the world would be coming to an end in seven years. I should have called her up in 1998 and asked her what she was still doing here. The same thing is happening now.
I do not bring this up to talk about politics, but to talk about how people think. One of the areas where I spend a lot of time working is in how Chileans think. I try to understand how they think, because what I do is I change the way they think. This is not really a psychological concept as much as it is an anthropological one. The difference is that psychology might work with the individual person, and the anthropological approach works with the currents of thought and forces that shape the way people view themselves and their world. Religion is one of these forces and might actually be the most important one. As an evangelist, I shape the way people think. I try to help them understand their world in the light of Christian concepts.
How do I do this?
First of all, I want to be absolutely persuasive. So I will start with something that is truthful and makes sense. For example, I might say, "The function of religion is that it describes reality." Usually it takes people a second to figure out what I am talking about.
Once they realize what I have said, I take it one step further. Why would you believe in something if it does not describe reality? After all, is that not what having faith means- you understand something as real and truthful. It is reality.
Remember what John 20:30-31 says. "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name."
The reality that the Bible asks you to believe in is that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
For some reason, most Chileans I know think that I would not vote for George W. Bush. The image that Bush has is horrible, but that is because the news here follows the Europeans and has been negative towards Bush always, with nothing positive to say. Also, the movie that the Moore character made has been making the rounds, and people accept everything it says without trying to figure out if it is true or not. Another thing is that people are scared because of the war in Iraq. At times like these, the Pentecostals pull out the old theory about this being the last days and we are entering into the seven years of grand tribulation. The same thing happened to me in 1991. A Pentecostal lady at my workplace in Abilene swore up and down that the world would be coming to an end in seven years. I should have called her up in 1998 and asked her what she was still doing here. The same thing is happening now.
I do not bring this up to talk about politics, but to talk about how people think. One of the areas where I spend a lot of time working is in how Chileans think. I try to understand how they think, because what I do is I change the way they think. This is not really a psychological concept as much as it is an anthropological one. The difference is that psychology might work with the individual person, and the anthropological approach works with the currents of thought and forces that shape the way people view themselves and their world. Religion is one of these forces and might actually be the most important one. As an evangelist, I shape the way people think. I try to help them understand their world in the light of Christian concepts.
How do I do this?
First of all, I want to be absolutely persuasive. So I will start with something that is truthful and makes sense. For example, I might say, "The function of religion is that it describes reality." Usually it takes people a second to figure out what I am talking about.
Once they realize what I have said, I take it one step further. Why would you believe in something if it does not describe reality? After all, is that not what having faith means- you understand something as real and truthful. It is reality.
Remember what John 20:30-31 says. "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name."
The reality that the Bible asks you to believe in is that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
Non Report Stuff, that is to say, stuff I would never put in my report.
Friday afternoon, I made some strawberry ice cream. It was delicious. It is great to be a missionary.
Yesterday and today, it rained. When it rains here in Chile, it cools off considerably. Why in the world I was making ice cream, I do not know.
One of my favorite times of the year is Christmas. I must confess that I already have put up a Christmas tree. The official reason that I am starting early is that since I am so busy, I do not get to enjoy it like I like so I extend the season. The other reason is that I just like Christmas.
Jaqueline, Lisa, and several of the ladies had a birthday party for the kids at the dining ministry. That phrase "dining ministry" indicates right off the bat that we have a terrible problem in that we have a ministry with no name. Anybody want to be a dining minister? I am afraid I already have that nailed down. We are already pretty well known as the church that eats together.
The ladies decided that they wanted to make a gingerbread house for the children for Christmas. Foodtv.ca has instructions on how to do it, and we will probably do it. I will take pictures.
My next report will probably be tomorrow.
Yesterday and today, it rained. When it rains here in Chile, it cools off considerably. Why in the world I was making ice cream, I do not know.
One of my favorite times of the year is Christmas. I must confess that I already have put up a Christmas tree. The official reason that I am starting early is that since I am so busy, I do not get to enjoy it like I like so I extend the season. The other reason is that I just like Christmas.
Jaqueline, Lisa, and several of the ladies had a birthday party for the kids at the dining ministry. That phrase "dining ministry" indicates right off the bat that we have a terrible problem in that we have a ministry with no name. Anybody want to be a dining minister? I am afraid I already have that nailed down. We are already pretty well known as the church that eats together.
The ladies decided that they wanted to make a gingerbread house for the children for Christmas. Foodtv.ca has instructions on how to do it, and we will probably do it. I will take pictures.
My next report will probably be tomorrow.
Prayer requests
Well, it is Saturday night, and I am getting ready for tomorrow morning. I have still got some things to do.
Here are some people to pray for.
Pedro Sanchez had to go to the hospital with some kidney stones or something like that. He should be fine, but pray for him anyway.
Rolando suazo has a barely functioning pancreas. He believes that he is not long for this world, and to tell you the truth, he has me convinced. Rolando was baptized last Saturday.
One of our congregations has had a falling out with another congregation and that has kept me busy for a good part of this week.
I will be going to Lima and Ecuador in December.
I also have several things pending.
Sibyl Miranda is dying from cancer.
While this list is short, by no means do I intend to be abrupt. I am trying to do this quickly.
Here are some people to pray for.
Pedro Sanchez had to go to the hospital with some kidney stones or something like that. He should be fine, but pray for him anyway.
Rolando suazo has a barely functioning pancreas. He believes that he is not long for this world, and to tell you the truth, he has me convinced. Rolando was baptized last Saturday.
One of our congregations has had a falling out with another congregation and that has kept me busy for a good part of this week.
I will be going to Lima and Ecuador in December.
I also have several things pending.
Sibyl Miranda is dying from cancer.
While this list is short, by no means do I intend to be abrupt. I am trying to do this quickly.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)