Report From Santiago, Chile, May 24, 2012
Greetings
from Santiago, Chile. I hope that all of you are enjoying your warm weather. It
has been unseasonably warm here in Santiago. I am sure that we will be getting
some cold weather next month.
The
other night, on the way to Los Andes, I was talking to Saul about his mother.
Saul is serving as the minister for the congregation that meets on Domeyko
street. He is a native of Ecuador. His mother was baptized several years ago
when she made a visit to Santiago. As you might imagine, she is elderly. Saul
was telling me about her activity in the town where she lives. She goes to
church regularly and participates in activities like women’s meetings. Even
more importantly, she has been sharing the gospel with her children and her
grandchildren. Saul told me that several of his brothers and sisters are now
Christians as are several of his nephews and nieces. The lesson for all of us
is one is never too old to talk to others about being a Christian.
The Christians
here in Chile are involved in outreach in a variety of ways. Newspapers do not
have the circulation that they used to have, so it is difficult to justify an
ad buy.Television and radio are mostly out of our reach, but Luis, the young
minister who works with Pedro and Helmer in Los Nogales, is doing a radio
program in Maipu at an independent radio station. Practically all the churches
have web pages, but most of the congregations and the youth groups are doing
Facebook more than anything else. Some of our young ladies post Bible verses
on their pages. We have our most success when we invite people, so I remind
them to invite, invite, invite. All of the congregations do outreach in their
neighborhood through passing out leaflets.
Sergio and
Milton went and taught the Bible in Peru during this month. They returned
Tuesday. Sergio dropped by this morning to give me an abbreviated report. Ten
people were baptized. Equally important, they were able to work with several of
the ministers and elders from different congregations.
As a missionary,
I have tried to shape my ministry through the use of strategic concepts. One,
for example, is that I would be congregation oriented, working within
congregations to establish long lasting churches. Another is that when I first
arrived in Chile, I determined that it would not be about me. Rather, I would
work with people that wanted to serve. I would work with anyone that God sent
my way. I also determined that I would challenge them to be the most that they
could be. The bottom line is that God has blessed us with some excellent
people.
I believe that
is due to the fact that we teach the Bible seriously and well. Last November,
Camila was baptized. Before she was baptized, she really took her time
considering becoming a Christian. Camila is Anais’ mom, for those of you who
saw the photos of me with Anais. Camila and I have become good friends. I told
her the other day, Camila, you fall well with me, which is the Chilean way of
saying, I really like you. She told me, Tio
(Uncle), you fall well with me, too. The reason that I like Camila is that she
has taken being a Christian seriously. She talks to me about Bible questions. I
do my best to teach her, so that she can teach others. However, I am not the
one that teaches Camila the most. Elizabeth, the lady that cleans my house,
goes to Machali every Thursday to teach in Camila’s home. A while back,
Elizabeth told me that she would love to have been a missionary. I told her it
is never too late. Then I told her we would have to see what doors God opens
up. One door that opened was teaching Elizabeth’s own family in Rancagua, which
we have been doing for the last five years or so. This is how we met Camila.
One day, Camila
asked Elizabeth if she could teach a class in her home. Elizabeth agreed to do
so. She started going on Wednesdays. Camila has really been an example for us.
She invited her best friend, Judit, and her mom and several of their neighbors.
Judit is a university student, studying something very similar to what I
studied at Texas A&M University, which is Agricultural Engineering. I
explained that at A&M, I disappointed all my professors. Judit laughed and
said, me too. What I like about Judit is that she is a serious student of the
Word. When I teach, she takes copious notes, and I have no doubt that she does
that with Elizabeth. She reminds me of one of the elders at the congregation in
Los Nogales, Raul. He heard the Word, found out what he had to do, and never
looked back. Not too long ago, Judit was baptized. She is a good person and
will be a great Christian young lady.
Meanwhile,
Camila has been working on her mother. Every morning, she wakes up and talks
with her mother, Juanita. She tells her, she needs to repent of her sin, or she
will go to hell. Basically, Juanita has been sitting on the sidelines, studying
the Bible on Thursdays, but not making any commitment. However, something
happened yesterday that has her thinking. She was out on the street, when she
saw an old friend of hers. The woman looked horrible, but Juanita did not want
to ask her why she looked so bad. So she asked her instead, Luz Maria, what has
happened that you look so beautiful this morning? Luz Maria told her, Juanita,
I do not look beautiful this morning. I look bad, and I know it. It is just that
I have had so many problems. My husband was thrown in jail, I got evicted from
my house, I have nowhere to live, nothing to eat, so I tried to kill myself. The
municipality had agreed to give her a shack to live in, but it was hardly fit
to live in. Juanita told her that they were going to take care of that
immediately. So she and Luz Marie went directly to the mayor’s office. Juanita,
upon arriving at the mayor’s office, told him, Mister Mayor, you did very well
to give Luz Maria a place to live, but it is hardly fit to live in. It needs to
be fixed up. So the mayor told her, there are two businessmen outside that you
can talk to. So Juanita talked to them, and they agreed to fix up the house.
They made the arrangements and got to work on it. Everything worked out just
fine. Juanita later told Camilla and Elizabeth that she had prayed to God that
everything would work out. Liza told her, this is why you need to be a
Christian. You have a good heart. I told Liza afterwards when she told me the
story, now you need to tell her that she needs to glorify God with her good
deeds instead of herself.
Later in the
afternoon, when Elizabeth was teaching the ladies’ Bible class, the mayor went
over to Juanita’s house. Juanita told the mayor; here we study the Bible every
Thursday. The mayor met Liza. All the ladies told him that Liza was a great
Bible teacher.
The lesson here
is that you never know who will be a good Bible teacher and a good minister,
which is why you challenge people. You never know who will step up. Marlene
told me today that her yoga teacher was talking about how the world was going
to come to an end in the next few days. The yoga teacher was talking about
Nostradamus or the Mayans or maybe both. So Marlene told her, we do not really
know when the world is going to end, maybe it will end in a few days, maybe
sooner, which is why you need to repent of your sins. Elizabeth and Marlene are
women of the Word. They are not the only ones. Pilar has brought several of her
friends to the Bible class in her home. As a result, my Wednesday night Bible
class has been packed. Romina has also invited a friend as has Fabiola. Just so
you are aware of it, is not just the ladies that are making good ministers.
Elizabeth’s husband Rafael (or Felo) coordinates the worship service every
Sunday evening, when we go to Rancagua. Here in the last month or so, he has
preached a couple of times and done quite well. Roberto has also preached some
good lessons.
Two people were
baptized in Paine.
The other day, I
was in Los Andes, talking to Alexandra, a young lady who is married to a young
man named Jorge, who recently became a Christian. She mentioned that she and
her husband read the Bible together every day. I thought what an excellent way
to get their marriage going. As a Christian minister, I am pro-marriage,
without actually having to take the leap.
The congregation
in Los Andes (an hour outside of Santiago) is motivated. The class on Tuesday
evenings is growing slowly. The worship service on Sunday is evidently at least
twice the number that shows up on Tuesdays. I only go on Tuesdays since I have
other places I go on Sundays.
About six weeks
ago, Marlene went down to the municipality and got a list from them of
everything that we needed to do to get construction approved on our lot. The
list is long. The first thing we had to do is get a certificate of some kind.
They said it will take only fifteen working days to get it. Well, we are just
now getting it back, so now we can move on to the second thing. This is all permits,
which is not actual construction. If we started to build without all the
permits we need, we could be asked to tear down what we built, and even pay a
fine. This aspect of the situation really can try one’s patience. Fortunately,
I have lived in Latin America so long that I am accustomed to this. My response
is to tell Marlene and Elizabeth, you are the president and the secretary of
our corporation, go get it done. They usually laugh in my face, but then from
the goodness of their heart, they go do what needs to be done. That is
different from me. I usually just do what they tell me to do.
I appreciate
your support for our work. Due to your continued support, we have a vibrant and
energetic church here in Chile. May God bless you.