Friday, December 16, 2011

Report for November, 2011

Greetings from Santiago.

            In November, the congregation in La Villa held our Spring Retreat. We had 73 participants. The theme for the retreat was the Bond of Love, which comes from Colossians 3:14. I gave four presentations: Colossians 3:1-17, which speaks of the bond of love; Ephesians 5:1-21, which speaks of being imitators of God; 1 Peter 3:8-22, which speaks of returning good for evil; and Philippians 2:1-11, which speaks of being of the same mind and having the same love. In each case, the passage cites the example of Jesus, who offered himself in love upon the cross. The development of the idea is that the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is the ultimate expression of love. I wanted to show the relationship between the teaching of the gospel and the practice of learning to love. My thought was that I would try to make the emotional side of being a Christian more understandable. I wanted to avoid the pitfall of doing a “feel good” presentation, since I stress repeatedly to the Chileans that we want to do what pleases God rather than what pleases ourselves (which is a difficult enough task as it is). I wanted to balance the emotional with the doctrinal.

            A second thought that I had was I wanted to help the Christians understand the gospel of Jesus (his death, burial, and resurrection) better. All Christians should be able to explain the gospel convincingly to others. I thought that showing the sacrifice of Jesus as an expression of God’s love might help them to better share the gospel story. Time will tell if I have been successful with this theme.

            In the retreat, we sang a lot. All our Christians love to sing. Some are better than others. We sound good, though. We also had three baptisms in the retreat. Camila, from Machali, was baptized. You may recall that our sister in Christ, Liza, goes up there every Wednesday to study the Bible. Aileen, from Rancagua, was baptized. Also Mirella from the congregation La Villa was baptized. After the retreat was over, everyone agreed that it was an excellent retreat.

            As we were going home, I talked with Elsa about the retreat to see if she liked it. Since Elsa lives in Quilacura, which is on the extreme north side of Santiago, I give her a ride. It is a long way from where the rest of the congregation lives. We began talking about her family and how she wanted to share the gospel with them. They are devout Catholics. In fact, her parents at one time had prohibited her from being baptized. As we talked, I was surprised to hear how Elsa is sharing her faith with many of her friends. Every time we talk, I always give her something to think about. She is a great young woman. When we arrived at Elsa’s house, I had the opportunity to meet her entire family. Her older sister sported the look that a lot of the young folks like, tattoos on both shoulders and that kind of thing. Her parents were pretty conservative. They let me know they were Catholic. I talked with them a little bit. I told them that we were people of faith that believed that we should obey the Bible. I left them with some things to think about.

            Another person was baptized in Los Andes. Roberto, from Los Andes, had studied the Bible with the son in law of the brother who passed away this year, also named Roberto, who was from San Felipe. As Roberto from Los Andes talked to me about how he had evangelized this other person, Carlos, I could not help but think that he has come a long way. When I first met him fifteen or sixteen years ago, he came strolling into the room in the prison in Los Andes where Pedro and I were teaching a class. He was carrying a guitar. He told me later that he was only interested I what he could get from me. As we met at his home and began to teach him the Word, he was baptized, with his wife Elizabeth (not to be confused with the Elizabeth that works with me), who later became instrumental in leading many of her family to Christ. As Roberto related to me the way that he evangelized Carlos, I was happy to see the dedication and the patience that he exhibited in teaching him. Here in Chile, converting people to Christ is difficult, as it surely is anywhere. The more that our people are involved in evangelism, the better they get at it. I always tell them that the best thing they can do is do it.

            Since Thanksgiving was the day before our retreat, I did not celebrate it this year. I worked on my presentations for the retreat. Somewhere here in Chile, a turkey is more thankful than I was.

            Liza told me a story about one of our eight year olds. Cristobal was offered a ticket to the circus by his aunt. It was for noon on Sunday. His reply, Tia, I can’t go. I have to be at church. Later, I also asked him about the retreat, whether he liked it. He said it was great. He loved the singing. Another of the kids, Henry, who is five, was really shy around me. Now he comes up and greets me every chance he gets. These kids really pay attention when I preach, which I find amazing. One of the activities that we had at the retreat was group discussions. Liza did the group for the kids. It was great. We called on them to answer some questions. They all had good answers. It is great to see our ladies do a good job with the kids.

            We are still working on our lot. We can use all the help we can get. It is a great opportunity for us.

            Thank you for your support. May God bless you.