Friday, March 23, 2012

Report for February, 2012

             Greetings from Santiago, Chile. We are in the last stages of summer here. Already the nights are getting real cool.

Here is some important news. I have closed the post office box. Please do not send any mail to Casilla 9692, Santiago. They wanted to raise the price about five times what it was, so I decided to not continue it. This ends thirty years with that Post office box.

I finally had to move from my house. The real estate agents assured me that there were no houses available in La Florida, the municipality where I live. They were pretty much right. As fast as I could find a house, somebody else beat me to it. In the end, it amounted to who I knew. One of my neighbors found out that another neighbor wanted to rent a house. All of my neighbors in the passageway here told her that she should rent to me, so she did. The house is smaller, which is definitely complicating my Monday meetings. So far we are meeting outside. Several of the Chilean brothers helped me move. It was a lot of hard work. It was good for the weight loss program. I think I lost four kilos in four days.

The year 2011 was a good year for us. The congregation La Villa Los Andes Del Sur bought a lot. It was motivating for the congregation that they could see some fruit from the long years of saving money. The lot was a good buy, considering that the other lots and houses in the area sell for a lot more than what we paid. Since we bought it, we put up a fence on the two sides that border the street, in effect closing up the property. This cost about 6,000 dollars, of which I put up 1000 dollars and Delbert and Beverly Langford put up 1000 dollars, and the congregation put up the rest.

Apart from the lot, the Lord blessed us in other ways. The congregations that I work with baptized 52 people. Also, Pedro reports that 95 were baptized through his ministry in different parts of Latin America and also in the USA. Last year, we also had two wonderful retreats as well as several conferences and other activities. As all of you know, I have worked with several congregations in teaching and preaching. These activities will continue in this year.

In January, a young man (Wilson) arrived from Colombia to work with the congregation in Lota that was established as a result of the aid to the earthquake victims. The previous couple had returned to Colombia. Unfortunately, upon their return, the wife died from pneumonia that she had contracted in Chile.

We had a short visit (one day) from members of the Lake Houston Church of Christ. The Lattens visited the congregation in the Villa. I thought we had an excellent visit considering that it was so short. Maybe the word is getting out that the best way to visit Harry is in small doses.

The Bible study in Machali on Wednesdays is going well. Currently, about ten people are studying. You might remember that Machali is outside Rancagua. Anais had her first birthday in Machali. Camila, her mother, and our first Christian in Machali, invited several of us from Santiago to her birthday party. I met a lot of people who are related to Camila. One of Camila’s close friends, Judith, has been attending church with her in Rancagua.

I have also been sending Bible Correspondence courses to Collipulli. Thirty more people have signed up.

Three people were baptized in Los Andes. One person is the husband of one of the members of the congregation, Alesandra.  We have been studying with him for a while, so it was good to see that he had been baptized. Alesandra is the daughter of Teresa, who is the sister of Elizabeth in Los Andes. You may recall that I have mentioned in the past that Elizabeth in Los Andes has done everything she could to help her family become Christians. This is a different Elizabeth than the one who works in my house.

Also, a young man named Pedro was baptized. The third person that was baptized is the husband of one of Roberto Labra’s daughters. If you recall, Roberto Labra passed away last year. He was the first convert we had from our trips to the jail in San Felipe years ago. Earlier this year, his wife passed away. Pedro spoke at the funeral. Since the funeral, the church in Los Andes has been studying with several people. The result is that this man was baptized.

Recently, one of the professors from the Bible Institute in Quito, Ecuador (Juan) came and visited us. He came to my Men’s Meeting on Mondays. He also went with us to Los Andes Tuesday. He has been staying with Saul at least part of the time he was here.

One of the areas where I spend a lot of time is teaching others to evangelize. Most of this activity is on the informal level. People ask me questions about how to engage with their friends and family. During the class time, it is more formal training. Several concepts guide my activity in this area. First of all, I understand church leadership to be the lifting up of others. So I help people to be teachers, evangelists, preachers and other servants. Second, it is important that all the Chileans understand that they are the ones that need to take the initiative on this. If the church is to exist, then everything has to be done by them. I am the resource guy. I help them to learn, to think, and to communicate their faith. I mention this because I believe that we have an army of evangelists who are engaging with the people around them. Most of the time, efforts at evangelism are unsuccessful, because people often decide to be sinners rather than Christians. We can appreciate the efforts of our Christians, though. If the Lord is willing, we should have other stories of people who have come to Christ.

I want to remind you that we would appreciate any help with our building. Currently, we are in the planning stage for the building. Sunday, I will be talking with a builder. We have to get a plan approved by the municipality and then we can start building. Most likely, we will do what we can when we can.

I appreciate your faithfulness in supporting the work here. May God bless you.