Thursday, May 24, 2012

Report May 24, 2012


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.