Preaching the Gospel in Chile

Report for November, 2011

2011-12-16T18:59:00.000-03:00

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.

Report From Santiago, Chile for September and October, 2011

2011-11-18T16:31:00.000-03:00

Greetings from Chile. In the congregation in La Villa, we had a traumatic episode that made us all mad, sad, and a whole range of emotions in between. Some of our young people (Daniel, Paulina, Elsa, and Paulina’s friend Carolina) were visiting Sergio Paulo’s house (Sergio Paulo is Milton and Jacqueline’s son) for his birthday. Daniel, Paulina, Elsa, and Carolina stepped out to buy some Cokes and stuff for the birthday party. On the way back, they were attacked by a gang of about twenty teenage boys. One of the boys started trying to grab Elsa, so Daniel stepped in between them. Then they tried to get away from them by running. Unfortunately, Daniel fell down, and when he did, three of the boys started stabbing him. When Paulina saw what they were doing to her cousin, she ran back screaming at the boys. In doing so, she was able to distract their attention from hurting Daniel. When she went back, one boy pulled out a pistol and pointed it at her head. Fortunately, she was able to get Daniel up and they ran to Milton’s house. Even more fortunately, Milton was able to get Daniel to the hospital really quickly. The doctor said that they had delivered Daniel to the hospital just in the nick of time. Daniel told me later that he could hear the doctors and the nurses, but it was as if they were far away. We are extremely thankful that Daniel survived this traumatic episode, and that nothing happened to our beautiful young ladies. It was extremely traumatic for our girls. Paulina and Elsa (and I am sure Carolina) cried for days. Daniel is recovering quite well now.

This affected our church. I am sure I weary all of you with the recital of the relationships of our members, but it is important to remember that many of our members are not just church family, but they are family. I have known Paulina, Daniel and Sergio Paulo all of their lives. Paulina and Daniel accompany me when I go to Los Andes. Paulina also has been doing secretary work for me, especially as we prepare for our retreat. Liza, who works in my house (Paulina is her daughter), Marlene (my dear friend who also worked with me for years here in the house, Daniel is her brother) and many others are upset about this as you can imagine. We all realize, though, that it could have been much worse. We are thankful that it was not.

On Sunday mornings, I teach class and preach at the Villa, except for the last Sunday of the month when I go to Domeyko. Saul, our preacher there, is doing an excellent job. The attendance is up. They are evangelizing people. The congregation is participating with the Villa in the retreat that we will have the last weekend in November. In both congregations, I am teaching different themes rather than going through any books of the Bible. I have been teaching about sin, faith, and other themes central to an understanding of what it means to be a Christian. On Sunday evening, several members of the congregation in La Villa and I go to Rancagua where we meet with the church there. I always teach the class and I share the preaching with others, as is my practice. We have had several visitors to the congregation in Rancagua. Last Sunday, we had a lady who had visited before, but she freely confessed that she did not understand anything at all about the Bible. I used that as an opportunity to talk about how you would understand the Bible, if you were to sit down and start reading it. I explained that you understand the Bible at three levels: the Bible as an entire book, the different books of the Bible, and also the different passages, whatever they may be. I explained that at the level of the complete Bible, Genesis 1-11 is a prologue which describes the problem that man has with God, which is sin. What you do not find in Genesis 1-11 is the solution to the problem of sin. The solution begins in Genesis 12 where God makes three promises to Abraham and in Genesis 17 where a new promise is made. The four promises are the promised land, the great nation, blessings and cursings and the covenant. These four themes flow throughout the Bible. I then showed that each book has a central idea that helps one to understand why the author wrote the book. Then I showed that each book has many passages. Each passage has a central idea that God is trying to communicate to us. After we had discussed all this (and I did not go through all this just because of the lady, but because I thought it would be good for the others to hear it), the visitor told us that she had a great desire to learn the truth, but she also wanted to be spiritual. I used this opportunity to show her John 4:23-24. When I showed her that, she started crying, and said that was what she wanted. Liza’s sister Ya-ya told her to come every Sunday and we would all study the Bible together. Ya-ya is very good about inviting people to her house to be with us. A couple of weeks ago, Liza asked a little boy if he wanted to come to Bible class. He was playing in the little plaza in front of Ya-ya’s house. He asked Liza if she was going to teach him about Jesus. Liza replied that she would. The little boy shouted, “Yippee!” It made me laugh. He was excited though, because the next week, he brought one of his buddies.

My Monday Bible Study with the ministers has been well attended. I am going over different themes related to studying the Bible and preaching. We have several younger people who are participating in this, such as Daniel that I mentioned before, as well as several of the older guys. One of the fellows who participated in my class in past years, Julio, is gravely ill. I went to see him yesterday in the hospital. He was not doing well at all.

On Tuesdays, I still go to Los Andes. Sergio usually accompanies me, but he broke his hand, and so he has been in his house. Paulina and Daniel have also been accompanying me, but this week, Chile played against Paraguay in soccer, so they stayed at home to watch it. I have been studying some of the same themes that I studies in Rancagua. Not everybody that goes to church on Sundays in Los Andes goes to the Tuesday night class because of work and school, but we do have a regular bunch. The class is helping the church. The church in Los Andes had seven baptisms.

On Wednesday evenings, I have my class in Beto and Pilar’s house. Their living room is packed. We have people sitting on the stairs and in the hall. We are currently looking at the theme of repentance. I talk to the Christians about establishing an environment of repentance in the congregation. (I searched my mind for how we say that in English and for the life of me, I cannot remember how we say this). We all do stupid things, and we need to be able to say, I am sorry I did that. I try to remember this when I do stupid things also.

This month, I have been visited by several members from Collipulli in the South. They have come to study the Bible with me on several occasions. They are really motivated. Due to the efforts of one of the brothers in Los Nogales, they have started studying the Bible with me, both in person and by correspondence. I have been able to get the Bible Correspondence Course started up again. I had several sign up from Talcahuano, several from Collipulli, and some from the other side of the mountains from Collipulli in Argentina. Paulina printed out a couple of boxes of Bible studies and sent them to Collipulli, Talcahuano, and Argentina. Unbelievably, I ran out of ink in both printers, and I also ran out of paper at the same time. It cost me 150 dollars to buy more ink, about 300 dollars for the paper, and then a hundred dollars more to send off the boxes. I also spent about 700 dollars on Bibles to give to the students that needed them. This is just to remind you all that the work fund expenses always mount up. So far, seven people have been baptized in Collipulli.

Once a month on Saturday afternoon, the church in La Florida has invited me to give an evangelistic presentation. They have been good about inviting people. I usually follow the evangelism ideas that I presented in my doctoral thesis. What that means is that I teach passages that will transform the way that they think. This is where conversion takes place. Last time, I talked about the difference between the religion of the Old Testament and the religion of the New. Previous to that, I had talked about the darkened understanding in Ephesians 4:18. Most of my presentations are well received. The congregation in La Florida reports five baptisms.

Liza, Sergio, Paulina, and Daniel have been going to Rancagua and Machali on Wednesdays. Liza has been a little bummed out because her father and brother told her and Sergio to not study with them anymore. They are still going to Machali and the study goes well there. Last Sunday night, I drove over there with Roberto and Fabiola and Felo and Elizabeth after the church service in Rancagua and we had once with Juanita and Camila. This was about ten pm, so I wound up getting back home about 1:00 am. These people are growing in their understanding of what God wants from them.

One of the former members of the congregation in La Villa, Isaul, had moved to the town of Colina outside of Santiago to be closer to his work. He reports that five people were baptized in that town.

Sometimes I feel like a gossip columnist more than a missionary, but I would like to remind you of a few things. Chile is a people oriented society. The church is about people, and the truth is we have a lot of fine people here in Chile. Newcomers want to be with serious, good people. I teach the Bible to inspire people. I also assume that people want to be treated as adults. So there is always the challenge to be better people. Our Christians have always been good about inviting people, and as a result, I always have new people in my classes.

Last Saturday afternoon, we had our Semi Annual Men’s Conference. The participation was about forty, which may be due to the fact that I changed the time to the afternoon. The men really enjoyed the topic which was creating spiritual growth in the church. The ladies had a similar conference in October with about 80 persons attending. They always do better than we do. They also do not invite me, for obvious reasons. That is probably why they have a better attendance.

I may not always talk about everybody, because it is hard to keep up with everyone. Pedro has responsibilities in different places, so I do not see much of him now. Milton comes every Monday to my Bible study, but I usually forget to ask him what he is up to. One of the elders at Los Nogales, Sebastian, always comes to my Monday class, except when he is in the extreme south. He visits the church in Punta Arenas. If you do not know where that is, get out your map. It is great that we have a congregation, even though it is small, there.

Currently, we are trying to get the municipality to cart off trash from our lot. They say they will do it, but have not yet. This is typical of Latin America, by the way. We may have to pay for it. Since we are short on money, we are trying to not spend any more money than we have to.

Delbert and Beverly Langford visited me from Texas. It was my first time to meet them, but we have common friends and acquaintances. They really liked the congregation in La Villa.

I would like for you all to know that I really appreciate the support that you all contribute to our effort. I know that times are difficult in the States. I look for ways to cut costs, but it is not always so easy. I do trust in the Lord. May God bless you.

In Christ,

Harry Hamilton

Report from Santiago, Chile for August, 2011

2011-09-16T16:50:00.002-03:00

Greetings from Santiago. I hope that all of you are well. During the winter here, it has rained and snowed about once a week, so we have had pretty mountains overhead for most of the winter. The other blessing of that is the air has been pretty clean. Of course, we have to put up with a lot of cold to get these benefits.

I have a few things that I want to share with you so I will get right to it. Last Sunday, we went to Rancagua in the morning instead of the usual evening hour, because it was the 11^th of September, which in Chile is a protest day. In order to not get caught up in the protests, we went in the morning, held church services and had lunch together. Then we all returned to Santiago. On this particular morning, I preached about 1 John 1:5-2:2. John creates a tension in the reader as he draws a contrast between “God is light and there is no darkness in him” and “if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” The tension is between sinning and not sinning, which we all feel inside us. We do not want to sin, but we sin. John draws attention to this conflict so that we will not sin (v.1). John also mentions being in the light (v. 2:10) and walking in the light (v. 1:7). Being in the light is a reference to your spiritual position (Where are you?). Walking in the light refers to your practice (What do you do?). I mentioned that he who walks in darkness and is in darkness will not be saved. I also mentioned that he who is in darkness; even though he practices the light will not be saved. I then said that the person who is in the light but practices darkness will not be saved. The one who will be saved is he that is in the light and walks in the light. After church, I was sitting in the living room alone with Aileen who is a teenager, and Liza’s niece, Marlene’s cousin, etc. Aileen told me, Tio, your sermon really touched my heart. I used that as an opportunity to explain that in the church we all help one another to be the best Christians we can be.

We had a lady come to church with us there in Rancagua. She heard us singing and asked Ya-ya if she could participate. Ya-ya is good about inviting her friends as is Aileen. We always have visitors.

I want the church to take root among the young people. I have known a lot of the young people, like Romina and Paulina, Daniel, Sergio Paolo, and others all of their life. This is one of the blessings of being a long term missionary. I always wonder if they understand and believe the things that I teach. So I am always looking for signs that they believe. An example of this is that Paulina is always putting up verses on her Facebook. She asked me the other day what she could put up there. I explained to her that what we want to do is attract people by helping them to think about things that they had not thought about before. So we want to put up Scriptures that challenge people. I offered as an example of that is 2 Chronicles 15. I often preach this chapter when I go to evangelize someplace, because it challenges people to look for God. It also makes an excellent sermon, at least in Spanish. So Paulina put the Scripture up. She has also put up a lot of others.

Pedro went to the USA for a couple of months. He did an excellent job of preaching to Hispanic congregations all over the place. Unfortunately, he became ill and returned to Chile, where he had an operation. He is currently recuperating.

Milton has been teaching in Peru. He has also gone down South. I see him every Monday, but I forgot to ask him last Monday how his latest trip went. Milton has also been teaching in Los Nogales.

Sergio has been involved in activities also. He helps with the young people in the Villa. He has classes with Domeyko on Thursdays and Fridays. He goes with me on Sundays to Rancagua and on Tuesdays to Los Andes. He has several ministries that seem to doing well.

I should mention that Sergio’s father passed away recently. I went to the funeral and also visited in the home. I have known the gentleman for many years, maybe thirty or so. It was a disappointment for Sergio that he never decided to become a Christian, even though we all had taught him through the years.

I continue to receive good reports from Pablo and Marcelo in New Zealand. The New Zealand folks evidently really like them.

On Saturdays, I have been helping to teach an evangelistic class with Eugenio in La Florida. We have had visitors. All of my classes are doing well. I have new people in all of them.

One of the blessings of being a long-term missionary is that people know where to find me. Not too long ago, one of the brothers who I had not seen in ten years or so called me up and asked to come by the house. I agreed. When he showed up, he brought his cousin with him. The cousin is from the South. We had a Bible study here in the house, and I signed him up for the Bible Correspondence Course. When he returned, he signed up twenty others to study the Bible through Bible Correspondence Courses. Since then, Helmer and Luis (one of the elders in Los Nogales) went down and studied with them. They report a group of people that want to know more about the Word.

The young people meet every other Saturday in Beto and Pilar’s house, where we also meet on Wednesday evenings. Beto and Pilar I have known for more than twenty years. I know their children, Tomas and Javiera, all of their life. All of these children are now young adults. These young adults have been involved in different activities, such as going to Rancagua with us to help us get the church going. They have also been good about inviting their friends to their Saturday meetings, which Sergio teaches. Elsa, a young lady who was baptized last year, invited two of her friends last week. Paulina has also invited her friends, as has many of the others. I am hoping that our congregation will attract lots of young people.

Another of our young people is Daniel, Roberto and Fabiola’s younger son, and Marlene’s younger brother (also Liza’s nephew, Romina and Paulina’s cousin- you get the idea). Daniel has been participating in my Monday class. He has also been going with me to Los Andes. He has been preparing a Bible study and sermon on Mondays, and has been participating in the youth activities, as well as the class on Wednesday night. This is encouraging to me to see that he is preparing himself like he is.

Not too long ago, one of Liza’s neighbors rang her doorbell and asked to speak to her. This was a Monday morning right before she was supposed to come to work. The lady unburdened her heart. She said no one in her family had a job. She did not know what to do. Liza said she would talk to the church. Liza knows that I have a policy that no one will go hungry if I can help it. We have helped lots of people in this way. So after the men’s class, we went to the grocery store, which I do every Monday since they have a five percent discount on everything. I told Liza to get a basket for this family, and I would shop for my house. So we filled a shopping cart for them. I took it over to Liza’s house. She and her husband then took it to the neighbor. Liza told me that the woman started crying on the spot. From this, Liza began to talk with her about God. She had a Bible study.The lady has a daughter that is a young mother. When they started studying the Bible, the young lady said to Liza, “Tia, we do not know anything at all about the Bible. Nothing at all.” Liza said, “In that case, let’s start on page one. What is the first thing that God tells us in his Bible? He is the Creator. And we are his Creation. This is the basic spiritual relationship that everyone has with God.” When she said that, the young lady’s eyes got huge, and she said, “no one has ever told me that before.” I told Liza later that that reminded me of Hosea 4:1, where God complains that there is no faithfulness, no steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land.

Sergio and Liza go every Wednesday to Machali where they study the Bible with Camila’s mother and a few others. Camila is Anais’s mom, if you have seen the picture of Anais and me on Facebook. Anais is three or four months old. After they study with the group in Machali, they then go over to Liza’s dad’s house, where Sergio studies with him, and Liza studies with her sister-in-law Patricia. If all Christians worked as hard as Liza to ensure that their families were Christians, then the church would be growing.

For the last twenty years, I have been meeting with the ministers and a few of the men on Mondays as we have a Bible study together, which lasts through the middle of the day. Obviously at that time, I do not expect many men to participate, because most people have to work. Here in this year, we have had people participate, that I generally do not expect to participate, such as students and working men. As it turns out, I have at least three participants who are taking off work to be with us. How they can arrange that, I do not know. The students I can explain, because all of the college students are on strike this year, and have been for the entire year. Here in Chile, being on strike means protesting in the streets, throwing rocks, burning tires, and general mayhem which the police respond to with water cannons and tear gas. A couple of weeks ago, I was returning from Los Andes with Saul who works with the congregation in Domeyko and Sergio. We were arriving at Domeyko about 10:30 p.m. I noticed that the area around the church in Domeyko looked a little foggy, so I rolled down the window to see better. A huge cloud of tear gas filled the car. Sergio started tearing up and complaining. I told him that he needed to man up. Then I looked over beside the car, and beside me was a water cannon. I decided I need to get out of there, because people always throw rocks at those things. The last thing I needed was a rock through the window. So I left there as quickly as I could. At any rate, I am happy to report that at least some of our students are not out on the streets throwing rocks, but are studying the Bible with us on Mondays. Of course, they might be doing both. We are having excellent classes on Mondays. The men are working at learning to study the Bible and preparing sermons from the passages in the Bible they are studying.

I am happy to report that we bought the lot. The church paid for two thirds of it, I paid for a sixth (from my savings) and Austin Avenue Church of Christ paid for a sixth of it. The Smiths in Missouri gave $100.00. We have received the title to the property. The next step is that Marlene and Liza will go over to some government office somewhere and get it re-zoned to a house of prayer. Several members from the congregation, including myself went over to clean it up. That proved to be a daunting task. We moved a mountain of rubbish. We are now waiting for the municipality to send over a truck to haul off a ton of trash.

The congregation is really excited about our purchase. We have all been going through our houses, finding out what we can donate to sell in the ferias so that we can make some money for the building. I had Liza go through the entire house, through every nook and cranny to see if we can find something to sell. I had given a lot of stuff away in the earthquake, I had given a lot of stuff to Sergio and Pedro and I had thrown a lot of stuff out, so there was not that much to sell. I did sell a space heater, at the wrong time of the year, because it got cold afterward. We have made a little bit of money. The next step after getting it all cleared away is to build a wall. That is to close it off. We cannot do that though until we get it re-zoned. So we have some things to do.

We will need some help in the building, or we will have to wait until we get enough money to build. If you would like to help, please let me know.

Thank you for your support.

Harry R. Hamilton

Report from Santiago for June 2011

2011-06-27T11:23:00.000-04:00

Since the last time I wrote, we have had a couple of earthquakes, a volcano has erupted, and a tornado showed up. We do have the occasional earthquake or volcano eruption, but a tornado is something we never see in Chile. The tornado struck the same town that our excellent brother and sister in Christ, Roberto and his wife Catalina, moved to earlier this year. God watched over them and they were not harmed in any way. They are pretty close to where the volcano erupted also. Maybe the good Lord is trying to tell them something. Here in Santiago, I am just dealing with the cold.

Our retreat in November was such a success that we decided to have another. In May, we held our retreat at the same place where we held it in November. This place is convenient for us because they provide a place to meet, a place to sleep, and they provide all the meals for a low cost. The only complaint that I have about the place is that the beds are super hard. It is owned by a fellow who is the owner of a chain of jewelry stores. The fellow is a friend of our brother Toño from his evangelical days. Toño did us the service of suggesting that the owner invest in a bunch of new mattresses. Thank you, Toño.

I made a mistake in the beginning. I tried to do the power point slick presentation. It soon was apparent that was not working so I returned to my usual way of presenting things, which is teaching. Sometimes we have to do what we do well. Fortunately, I was able to tell that it was not working. I apologized and told the congregation that I would not make that mistake again. The theme of the retreat was Singing Praises to God. Before we had the retreat, I asked the congregation if they had a theme in mind. They preferred this one. I thought it was a good choice, because we had attracted a lot of attention with our singing last time from the different groups that were meeting in the campgrounds. I thought that this would be a good opportunity to help everybody understand the worship that God asks of us. I started in Ephesians 1:3-14, where the formula God made us his adopted children in order to praise him was repeated three times. In verses 5 and 6, we find he predestined us … to the praise of his glorious grace. In verses 11 and 12, we find we have obtained an inheritance… so that we … might be to the praise of his glory. In verses 13 and 14, we find in him you also … were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit… to the praise of his glory. I mentioned that with this formula, God makes Christians the instruments of his praise. We are children of God so that we might praise him. The orientation is from us to God. I went on to show that this same orientation is mentioned in Colossians 3:16 and Ephesians 5:19: to the Lord with your heart. One of the things that distinguishes the Churches of Christ from others is that we look for that form of worship that pleases God rather than the form of worship that pleases us, which is of course idolatry. We also looked at other scriptures such as Hebrews 13:15: let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. I spent some time talking about the worship service as a sacrifice that we offer to God. As you can imagine, after spending time with these themes, the singing in the retreat was spectacular. I am sure that everybody was motivated by our weekend together.

Something that has me motivated is that I have several younger men coming to my Monday morning Bible study. A young man, David, from the Los Nogales congregation is participating. Also, Marlene’s youngest brother, Daniel, is coming to the class. Currently, I am teaching the theme of How to Study the Bible. Eugenio Palma and Juan Carlos Varas from the La Florida congregation have also been participating. Hector brought a friend of his last Monday. We also have the usual bunch, such as Saul from Domeyko and Sebastian from Los Nogales.

Milton is currently in Peru teaching. Pedro is in the USA visiting various congregations. He reports four baptisms in North Carolina. He visited churches in Winston Salem, Greensboro, and Charlotte. Evidently he has also visited Lexington, Kentucky, Houston, Texas, Searcy, Arkansas, and maybe a few other places. The brother spends more time in the USA than I do.

Sergio and Elizabeth spend every Wednesday in Rancagua, evangelizing a family there. Several of us go every Sunday to conduct worship at Eduardo and Yaya’s house. We always have visitors.

On Tuesdays, Sergio and I continue our studies in Los Andes. One person has been baptized. The congregation meets in the afternoon on Sundays. Several of the members from the congregation in La Villa are now going to help them in their worship services, while Felo, Liza, Serio, Romina, Paulina, and I go to Rancagua. So the entire congregation is busy on Sundays.

Domeyko reports a baptism. I am going every fourth Sunday to this congregation and preaching and teaching there. Saul is really helping the congregation to grow. They are planning to have more baptisms this Sunday. I will be preaching there then.

Pedro made a trip to Colombia. He reports that there were eleven baptisms in the different congregations there. He visited ten congregations there. I will see if I can make his report available to you.

I posted a video on YouTube. You can find it here. I may try to do more of this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9AtCOc4ijk

My class on Wednesday night has nearly doubled in size. We have some visitors and a couple of the young university group is coming. We are studying the dynamics of faith.

I had my stress level go up a lot the first of the month. The owner of the house that I live in called and said she wanted to sell the house. This means that I have to either buy it or leave. I have been looking at my different options.

One of the options that I looked at was buying a lot and building a house. Here in Santiago the lots are pretty expensive unless you buy in a poor neighborhood, which opens you up to having your house robbed. In my neighborhood, we had looked at the prices they were asking for a couple of spaces several years ago. One spot was on the market for half a million dollars, and they were asking a million dollars for another good sized lot. This was in the middle of the boom when they built two shopping malls close to here. Now the prices have gone down considerably. Since I have lots of visitors to my house, including women, I am looking to locate in a fairly secure neighborhood. So I am looking at either paying more rent of buying, if I can manage that. Either way, I am looking at spending more money. One of the benefits of living where I am is that the landlord has never raised the rent in sixteen years, which is pretty remarkable. So now I have to see what I can do.

While we were looking at my options, we came across a lot off of one of the major thoroughfares here in Santiago, Vicuña McKenna, not too far from my house. I was looking to see if I could but it, when several of the members started talking about buying it for the church. We started to look into it and we discovered several things.

· It is a good location for a church, since it is a block from a major street in Santiago, located close to a major mall. It is two blocks from the subway.

· The architect for the municipality told us that it was zoned to build a church on it. That is to say that a church building was one of the options of land use for this property.

· The architect said that it also met the minimum space requirement for a church building.

· A member of the church that works in building construction went over to the site to see if it was stable enough to handle a large building. It was.

· Marlene’s husband, Alan, who is a banker for Banco Santander, contacted the real estate agent for the property. He negotiated the price to 27.000.000 pesos Chilean. The congregation has 17,000,000 pesos saved up, which is about two thirds of the price. Roughly, the lot costs 60,000 dollars USA and the church has about forty thousand dollars USA saved up (in Chilean pesos of course).

We have been saving up and looking for possibilities for sixteen years or so. We have spent time in prayer about this issue. We have considered this option, and we believe that God has given us a wonderful opportunity. As a congregation, we decided that we would buy this property. This is an enormous challenge for us. We have decided to move out on faith. We still lack twenty thousand dollars to complete the purchase. This will be for the purchase of the property only. Once we purchase it, we will still need to build on it.

I have decided that I will do whatever is necessary to buy the property for the church. If I need to sell my car, or get a loan, I will do that. I was thinking that I could buy the property and build a house on it, but when the church started showing interest, I remembered Haggai 1. It is time to build the Lord’s house.

I would like to invite you to help us in this project. If you are interested in helping, please write me. harryh@vtr.net or hamilton.harry@gmail.com .

Thank you for your consideration and your support. May God bless you;

In Christ,

Harry R. Hamilton

Video of the retreat and some other pictures

2011-05-07T19:42:00.000-03:00

Report December 2010 and January 2011

2011-02-18T17:47:00.000-03:00

Report From Santiago, Chile for December 2010 and January 2011

Greetings from Santiago, Chile. I hope that all of you are doing well. I understand that the USA has been suffering from some cold weather. Not so much here. It has been pretty hot this summer.

Our retreat in November has really set the stage for our summer. If you recall, the congregation in the Villa held a retreat in November. It was an excellent retreat. We decided to hold our end of the year church picnic at the same place where we held our retreat. It is a campground owned by an evangelical businessman. We invited our friends and family to participate with us there. We had a good turnout, about 80 people. We never did get an accurate count because some people got lost and arrived late. While we waited for the late people to arrive, I showed a slide presentation that Marlene made of our retreat. Marlene is a good photographer.

Something funny happened at the picnic. The place charged 2000 pesos to get in. I was the first one to arrive, and I explained that we were the Church of Christ and that we had reservations for the day. The fellow asked me who was in charge, and I said I was, so he didn’t charge me the entry fee. So for the rest of the day, everybody said that next time they would make sure that they were the first to arrive so they would not have to pay.

We had a worship service there on the grounds. Our congregation already had an excellent reputation with the workers there. When we had the retreat, we sang all the time. Everybody that was there told us that they had never heard anyone sing like we sang. During the morning of the picnic, we also sang as a part of the worship service. Many of the people that were there came and listened to the songs, and then they listened to the sermon that I preached. I talked about the sacrifice of worship that we offer up to God. Most of the evangelicals have the attitude that the worship service is for the enjoyment of the individual. I explain frequently to our Christians, that we offer up a sacrifice to God when we worship him, and that sacrifice must be to God’s liking. We had several visitors there that day. I am sure that they learned something from the Word.

We brought our lunch. The ladies of the congregation fixed different salads, so we had a little bit of everything. Beto, Felo, Angel, and Alan took charge of the barbecue. It was great. They definitely made it hard to stay on the diet. After lunch, we did the Secret Friend thing where you give a gift to a name you drew. I forget what this is called in English. We passed out our gifts. Then practically everybody headed for the swimming pool. Not me. I sat around talking to the other old timers. Later on, several of the guys started playing soccer. At the end of the afternoon, we headed to Santiago.

This activity, coupled with the retreat has really motivated the congregation. We have several visitors that are visiting us regularly now. This also motivated the Christians. At the beginning of the year, I handed out a calendar to the members of the church with a reading assignment for each day. Each family would read two chapters an evening. I am really surprised at the number of people that are participating on this. It is much better than I thought it would be. I also handed out the calendars to other congregations, such as Rancagua, Los Andes, Domeyko, and la Florida. It is important that people read the Bible. If you find you do not have enough time to read the Bible, I can tell you how to find more time. Turn the TV off.

Paulina impressed me a couple of weeks ago. She was going to the beach with some friends for the week. This is common practice here in Chile. I am probably the only person in Santiago that does not go to the beach at least once in the summertime. Anyway, Liza made Paulina write a list of everything that she was to take with her for the week. She asked Paulina if there was anything she forgot. Paulina replied that there was. She put her Bible on the list. She told her mom, we are reading the Bible, every day, remember? Anyway, when Paulina came back, she asked me if I would give a Bible to one of her friends. This friend saw Paulina reading the Bible and decided that she wanted to read it too. So I gave the friend a Bible and the first Correspondence Course lesson. (By the way, this is one of the ways that the Work Fund helps out, among many).

Every Sunday afternoon, we go to Rancagua. We try to take some of the young people with us. Last weekend, Beto, Pilar and Javiera went with us (Felo, Liza, Romina, Paulina, Sergio, and myself). We had quite a group from Santiago going. We had the regulars there (Eduardo, Ya-Ya, Jonatan, and Yenny. In addition, we had six non-Christians participating with us. It takes a while, but we do grow, when we keep hanging in there.

We had two Christian men pass away this summer. One, Hugo, was a regular at my Monday meeting. He was over eighty years old. His body just gave out. I preached the funeral. Several members of the family came and paid their respects. Hugo reminded us frequently that he was the oldest member of the Church in Santiago in terms of time in the Church. He was not the oldest member, because we have a lady who is a member of the Church who is 96 years old. I keep trying to get my picture taken with her, but I keep forgetting.

The other member of the church that passed away was Roberto Labra. He was the first convert that we had from our jail ministry in San Felipe. Pedro and I would go to the prison every Tuesday morning at San Felipe, which is outside of Santiago about an hour and fifteen minutes. Roberto had recently been released from the prison when we started. He would accompany us to the prison and listen as we taught the Bible. He actually gave me a storythat I use from time to time. We were sitting in a restaurant in Los Andes eating cazuela, when I asked him what the gospel was. He sat there thinking for a bit, and started sweating. He wanted to give me a good answer, but he did not know. Finally, he said, I don’t know. So Pedro and I explained to him what the gospel of Jesus was. I mentioned to him that it was important to know what the gospel was, because how can we obey the gospel if we do not know what it is. Shortly thereafter, he was baptized. Roberto died of a blood hemorrhage in the brain. Some of you that have been here may become concerned that I am talking about the Roberto from Los Andes. I am not. The Roberto from Los Andes is Roberto Maturana, this is Roberto Labra from San Felipe.

Claudio, one of the brothers from Domeyko, has begun a Bible study with some of his family members in the city of Curico. Sergio Plaza is directing the study. We hope to have a congregation start there. Others in the city have been baptized, but they have not been meeting together. Hopefully, we will be able to get something going there. Curico is about three hours to the south of Santiago.

In 2010, there were 65 baptisms at the different congregations here in Chile that work with me, with the exception of Arica, and some of the other congregations that keep to themselves. Since they did not respond, I do not know how many baptisms in all there were in Chile.

Marcelo and Pablo finally got back to New Zealand. They are enrolled and studying in the Bible Institute there. I expect them to dedicate themselves and become fine preachers.

I will post this on the blog that I have, with a picture or two. The blog is Preaching the Gospel in Chile http://harry1976.blogspot.com . I will post this in a bit.

My work fund is low currently. If you feel the desire to help with the work here let me know.

Thank you for your support. May God bless you.

In Christ,

Harry R. Hamilton

Report for May and June

2010-07-08T19:24:00.000-04:00

Report from Santiago. Chile for May and June 2010

Hello from Santiago. I hope that you all are enjoying your summer. Here it is the middle of winter. So far this month, it has been really cold, getting down to 4 degrees below freezing. That is pretty cold for Santiago.

At the end of May, I visited David in Arica for the weekend. Every time I visit, I have the opportunity to renew friendships. One such friendship is that of Emilia , who has been a Christian for about eight years. Emilia is an example of what is good about the congregation in Arica. She has learned a lot about the Bible in her time in the church. She has also brought several members of her family to Christ. Her daughter, her sister, and her mother are now Christians. This illustrates one of the strengths of the Churches of Christ in Chile. We have a lot of success with the people that we know. I constantly remind the Christians of this in the hope that they will always invite and teach their friends and family.

My evaluation of the Church in Arica is that it has three strengths. The Church has been well instructed. The Christians are sharing the gospel with their loved ones. There is good interaction and sharing among the Christians. I mentioned that we would be running some advertisements in the newspaper. If we got any contacts, we would share them with him. My visit was short. It was good to make this contact with David.

I did run an ad in the newspaper. We had one response. I sent the person the first lesson. They have not responded since.

For many years, the North Oaks congregation in Canyon Country, California has participated in the ministry here in Chile. They have been faithful and encouraging in their constant support. Recently, they informed me that they were unable to continue with their support. I would like for the brothers and sisters in North Oaks to know that their help has been greatly appreciated. May God continue to bless you in the coming years.

In May, we had a Men’s Meeting. The theme was preaching the New Testament. I developed the theme of preaching the four promises that God made to Abraham as they appear in the New Testament. In Genesis 12 and 17, God made four promises to Abraham: the Promised Land, the great nation, blessings and cursings and the covenant. In the New Testament, these four promises are given different meanings than they have in the Old Testament. I showed how they appear in the New Testament. Then I showed that by preaching these promises in the New Testament, we help people to understand even more the message of the Bible. The conference was well received. We had about 40 men present. Several made some good comments about the presentation afterward.

Our lunch program has come to an end. Olga decided that she could no longer maintain the level of activity that she once did. I appreciate the commitment that she has had to this ministry over the last several years. She has been a real servant in this effort. I also appreciate the sacrifices that many have made to see that this program continued. Several current members of the church became Christians because of this program. Thank you to all that helped on this program.

Sergio continued his preaching and teaching in Peru. Pedro has been preaching and teaching in Colombia. In both cases, they are completing a vital ministry in helping the different churches to better understand the Word.

On Sunday morning, I am teaching a class in the congregation in La Villa. The congregation asked me to teach Revelation. It is a challenge to make it understandable to the congregation. The class is well attended. The congregation in La Villa has been good about inviting people. We always have visitors.

Every Sunday evening, I teach and preach in Rancagua. The congregation has been good about inviting people to participate with us. Only five people have been baptized there so far. Usually when I go, three or four Christians accompany me. We may have nine or ten Christians present and usually three or four non- Christians. We continue to preach and teach, trusting that God will give the increase to the congregation.

On Mondays, I teach the ministers class on Monday morning, Currently, I am teaching on how to study the Bible. I am pushing the different Christians to be more conscientious about the importance of knowing the truth and preaching it. I have always taught about the importance of the Bible in our lives, but I am returning to this theme because I am not satisfied that this is being preached in the congregations like it should be. So I am doing this again. Part of this is that there are many new people that have not heard this before.

On Monday evenings, I am teaching a class on the Basic themes of the Bible. About eight to ten people participate. About half of the class is non-Christians, usually about four persons.

I started a Bible study class on Tuesday morning. Three people attend.

Every Tuesday, I teach a class in the city of Los Andes. We have about a dozen participants in this study. Currently, we are studying about how to study the Bible.

Every Wednesday, I teach a class in Puente Alto. Currently, we are studying a book of the Old Testament, Hosea. We had studied Mark before, but we decided to study a book from the Old Testament. I decided to teach Hosea because it is short. I will be going to the USA in September and I did not want to start a study that I would not be able to finish.

On Thursday evenings, I teach a class in my house. The participants are different members of the congregation in La Villa. I am studying the theme of How to Study the Bible.

Our group of young university students is doing quite well. The different students are inviting their buddies to participate in different activities, such as devotionals, Bible studies, and pizza suppers. These are the same students that participated in the mission trip to Iquique in February.

In these difficult economic times, many in the United States are making sacrifices so that the work here in Chile can continue. The Churches of Christ would not exist here in Chile if Christians in the States did not make sacrifices. The offering that you make for the Church is greatly appreciated and essential to the ministry that I do here. Even more so, it allows us to preach the Word to this corner of the Earth.

The Chileans are deeply appreciative that you have made these sacrifices. Scarcely a week does not go by without one of the Chilean brothers or sisters making a comment about the importance of my presence here in Chile. Others comment about how happy they are that their brother or sister or other family member is a Christian. I am confident that the Lord’s Church will be here in Chile long after I am gone.

It is helpful to remember the ways that the Chilean church is helping to make sacrifices. Let me remind you of a few things that have happened. The little congregation in Rancagua used the funds that they had accumulated in their offerings from the last year to help the churches in the South after the earthquake. Romina and Paulina, young ladies from the congregation in La Villa, donated their winter coats to sisters in the South. Other members of the Church in La Villa also gave away their clothes and other items so that people in the South could make it through the winter. For years, Olga in Los Nogales labored to feed children in her neighborhood and teach them the Bible. For years, our ministers have labored throughout Chile, often sleeping on the floors in brothers’ homes, or going without meals, to spread the Word. The Church in La Villa has accumulated funds toward a new church building. The Church in Los Nogales bought and built their building without outside help, as far as I know.

The Church of Christ here in Chile has been a blessing to the nation. We are becoming known as a generous and loving church. In the period after the earthquake, I have heard comments from different people who are not of our Church that they appreciate what we have done for the Church. We have helped in a variety of ways. We have rented trucks four times to take goods to the congregations affected in the South. We have bought goods for them. We helped in the repairs to the church in Domeyko. We found two small towns that were affected by the earthquake that had not received any help from anyone and we helped them. We bought some winter boots for children in the South. We helped one Christian family repair their home. They did not have enough to pay for that. We also did the same with Sergio Plaza’s home. We went to some Christians’ homes in Curico and Molina with help. It should be noted that nineteen people were baptized as a result of the Church’s generosity.

Thank you for your support. May God bless you.

Earthquake, 2010

2010-03-02T09:47:00.000-03:00

I was sound asleep when the earthquake hit. Almost immediately, I could tell this was going to be a big one. In more than twenty years here in Santiago, I have experienced a lot of earthquakes, but, as I was soon to find out, this would be the worst. My first thought was, “I need to get the door open.” Who wants to be trapped in a house which might fall on top of you at any moment?

I got out of bed as quickly as I could. I grabbed for my glasses, for my shoes. I can not honestly say if I found them or not, because I was still half asleep and I was in a hurry to get out of the bedroom to get the door open. I flipped the bedroom light on. Almost immediately, the lights went off. This was my second indication that this was a big earthquake. It was already taking down the electrical lines.

As I headed out the bedroom door, the earthquake grew in intensity. With every step, it became more violent. I had to make it into the office to get the keys to the house and then back to the front door. Just making it across the floor was difficult. It felt like I was walking on water, but in the middle of a storm. The floor moved in waves, but violently so. The floor buckled up and down. It was pitch black. I could not see anything. All around me, I could hear things crashing to the floor. Later, I would see the floor covered with glass and everything else that had fallen.

I finally got the door open. I waited there for the quake to end. The conventional wisdom is that you do not go outside, unless you absolutely have to. It can be as dangerous outside as in. Falling objects could hit you. Electrical lines could zap you. The Chileans say that you could even get swallowed up by the earth. I don’t know if that is true, but who wants to find out?

When the earthquake was over, I just stood there in the doorway for a minute, thinking, “That was something else.” The quake was like going a round in a boxing match. It was an intense fight for a couple of minutes, but suddenly it was over. Who was the winner? I was a champ, having made it through that. I was surprised by how calm I was. I never feared for my life. I was surprised though that my house did not fall on top of me. Later, when I learned how powerful it was, I was even more surprised.

The Chileans always congregate in the street after an earthquake. They do this to see if everyone is Ok, and also because they want to wait out the aftershocks. I was so sleepy though that I returned to bed. I later found out that all my neighbors thought I was dead. I’m sorry to disappoint them.

My electricity was off for several days after that. Fortunately, I had water. I also had gas, because here in Chile you buy the natural gas in 15 kilo or 45 kilo tanks. So the last few days I had just been waiting for the electricity to come back on.

The infrastructure here in Chile has taken some hits. In the more devastated areas to the south of Santiago, communities have been wiped out. We called several members of our church, but we did not get a response from almost all of them. We did talk to one lady. Her family was unhurt. She said that bridges were out and roads were torn up. Her house was completely destroyed. Her family had no water, no electricity, and no food. To make matters even worse, looters came and took everything that they had. The neighbors there banded together for protection.

Evidently, the looting has been making the headlines all over the world. My Chilean friends are embarrassed by this. Most Chileans are not like that. I agree. Right now, a lot of people in the devastated areas are desperate for food and water. I understand that water is getting to them. It is a logistical nightmare. The Chilean government has responded well, even though some mistakes have been made.

I thank God that I survived this experience unscathed.

Francisca's baptism

2009-10-24T12:29:00.001-03:00

The Baptism of Ivan

2009-10-24T12:18:00.003-03:00

Report for September and October, 2009

2009-10-24T12:12:00.001-03:00

You will not find anyone who believes in global warming here in Santiago. As we move into the spring, we have had several cool fronts come in, bringing cool temperatures and rain. Generally, Santiago begins to warm up in October. I am still wearing sweaters and taking my coat with me, just in case. I am ready for some of that warm weather to come along.
Frequently, I see signs that the congregation in Villa Los Andes Del Sur is functioning as it should. One of the families from the congregation, Beto and Pilar and their children, Tomás and Javiera, along with Pilar’s brother, Ivan, her sister, Salomé, and her niece, Daniela, went to Cuba. While there, they had the opportunity to visit with a student from the Bible Correspondence Course, Blanca. Blanca is an elderly lady in her seventies. She is a retired teacher. She had been at one time a member of the Communist Party, which she quit at some point in her life to become an evangelical. When she quit, the Commies rescinded her privileges. Today, she lives in abject poverty. The apartment she lives in is smaller than my bedroom. She lacks the basic necessities. Fortunately, Beto and Pilar were able to carry her some things like toothpaste and other amenities. As you can imagine, she needs our prayers. It has been four or five years since Beto and Pilar had visited her. Blanca told them that she prayed every day that they would be able to return and visit with them again. When Beto and Pilar arrived at her apartment, she was not at home. They inquired with a neighbor, who said she was in a house about a block away. As it turns out, Blanca was teaching the Bible Correspondence lessons that I had sent her to her neighbors. She evidently teaches in different houses every day. The good thing is that I was able to send her a complete package of lessons with Beto and Pilar. Blanca has not been baptized yet, but we are working on that. You can imagine the difficulty that we have when the visits are five years apart.
Pilar has been good about inviting her family and friends. Several of her friends are participating in Bible studies. Last Sunday, her brother, Ivan, was baptized. Photos of the baptism can be found here. http://harry1976.blogspot.com/
Beto and Pilar are not the only ones involved in mission work outside Chile. At the end of October, one of the Chilean ministers, Pedro Sanchez, will begin a preaching trip to Colombia.
Beto and Pilar are not the only ones involved in mission work outside Chile. One of the Chilean ministers, Sergio Plaza, (who is extremely poorly paid) was invited to preach and teach in a small town in Peru. Sergio spent a month preaching and teaching there. He preached to 600 people. Evidently there is a desire to become members of the Church of Christ among the indigenous people of Peru. Unfortunately, their knowledge of the Bible is minimal, which is where Sergio comes in. He is an excellent teacher of the Word. Sergio reported 20 baptisms in the town where he was. I am sorry but I do not know the name of the town. He later spent some time in Lima where he had the opportunity to teach.
Just so you know it, Beto and Pilar are not the only ones who are involved in mission work outside Chile. Nine ladies from three congregations in Santiago attended a ladies conference in Peru. One lady from each congregation gave a presentation. They were: my ex-secretary and Milton’s wife, Jacqueline, from the congregation in Los Nogales; my housekeeper, Liza, from Villa Los Andes del Sur; and my dentist, Maria Inez, from the congregation in Domeyko. From what Liza tells me, it was quite an adventure. Four of the ladies were older and needed some help getting around in their visit to Lima. Liza, the good-hearted woman that she is, helped these ladies, who according to her were as adept at getting into trouble as Lucille Ball or the Three Stooges. She kept me laughing with her stories about the trip. I view the participation in these activities as necessary for two reasons. The understanding of the Bible is not good in many of these areas, and it is necessary that our brothers in Christ receive good teaching. Fortunately, our Chilean brothers and sisters are quite knowledgeable and able to teach. This is a product of insisting on good teaching. Second, participating in these activities helps our Chilean brothers to be concerned about world missions. I strongly support the Chileans participating in these activities.
Our young people from the congregation in Villa Los Andes Del Sur are planning a mission trip of their own. They have been working at saving up money for the trip. Unfortunately, at this moment in time, they do not know where they will go. We are looking at possibilities.
One of my favorite Chileans, Francisca, was baptized. She has been participating with us for some time. Francisca is a social work major at one of the universities here in Santiago. She is a lovely young woman.
Liza and her husband, Felo, have been working to bring their families to Christ. As you know, we go to Rancagua every Sunday afternoon to conduct worship services at the home of Liza’s sister. You may recall that we baptized five members of that family earlier in the year. Through the years, Liza has talked to me about her family and Felo’s family. Since both families were strong Pentecostals, they worried about how to reach them. In both cases, I said that we should pray that God will open their heart. As you can see, God has been answering our prayers. Recently, due to an extremely grave illness of Felo’s brother, several of his family members have begun to study the Bible. So far they have been amazed by what they did not know about the Scriptures. As is true with many people, they did not realize what they did not know. This family also needs your prayers.
As you know, I continue with my studies. The classes have good participation. The Chileans are learning a lot. They would probably surprise you with what they know, much of which you may not know. I always begin my classes by asking for a brief review of what we have said previously. Last Wednesday night, Belén, a high school girl, gave the summary of what we had studied in Mark. She was able to say that the central idea of Mark is “Who is Jesus?” She showed us that in Mark 8, Jesus asks the question “Who do men say that I am?” He then asks the same question to his disciples. Peter responds that Jesus is the Son of the living God. Belén explained to us that in the first part of Mark, before these questions in Mark 8, the question is “Who is Jesus?” After Mark 8, Mark answers the question by showing that Jesus is the one who will die on the cross, be buried, and be raised on the third day. This demonstrates clearly that Mark is a gospel, and definitely belongs in the New Testament. I think it is outstanding that a high school girl has this level of knowledge about the Word.
Pedro Sanchez and I went to Iquique to study with the church there. Since I had a bad cold, I let Pedro do all of the teaching. I started out teaching on the Thursday night, but was hacking so much that I finally gave up. However, Pedro did a good job.
Claudio, a member of Domeyko, reported to me that his daughter was baptized. He mentioned that to me when we were at Domeyko baptizing Ivan. Another lady was also baptized.
The church in Los Nogales is planning to renovate the kitchen where the lunches are being prepared. They are also planning to build a second floor, evidently.
Thanks to the out of control spending the government has been doing, the dollar has been taking a nosedive. It is currently worth about 531 pesos to the dollar. This means we are going to be poor until it gets better. In spite of the economic situation, I am thankful for your support. May God bless you.

In Christ,

Harry R. Hamilton

La Iglesia de Cristo en Villa Los Andes Del Sur

2009-09-19T15:53:00.001-04:00

Here we have some fotos from a dinner we had with the church.

Here is a photo from my youth.

2009-09-18T15:36:00.000-04:00

Report from Chile

2009-08-14T13:44:00.001-04:00

Greetings from Chile. I hope that all of you are doing well.
I have been busy with the various activities. On Sunday mornings, I am teaching Galatians in the Bible class. The congregation has understood the book better, because we talked last year about the promises that God made to Abraham in Genesis 12 and 17. I explained that one understands the Bible through ideas. The four promises that God makes to Abraham flow throughout the entire Bible, giving structure to the Bible. These four promises are the Promised Land, the great nation, the covenant, and blessings and curses. In Galatians, Paul helps us understand how God blesses the nations through the Gospel. God’s promises are fulfilled in Christ.
Last Sunday morning in Bible class, Viviana raised her hand to make a comment. Viviana has been participating in our activities, with her two children. All are studying the Bible. She is a widow who lost her husband about four years ago. Her husband was a politician and an agnostic. Viviana said that she and her children stayed up until three am on Saturday talking about faith. She said that they all realized that their late father was wrong about faith. One could actually learn about God and come to faith. Her words were an inspiration to all of us. Her daughter, Nina, is a young lady who has been caught up in some kind of Buddhist teaching through yoga, or who knows what. She came to me and asked about Christianity, and how she could know whether it was the true religion. I talked to her about Buddhism and explained why Buddhism could not be a true religion. Then I explained to her why Christianity is the true religion that comes from God. Since then, she has been studying the Bible with renewed enthusiasm. Viviana’s comments show us the growth that her entire family has.
While I have been teaching the adults, Sergio Plaza has been working with the young people, along with Liza and Felo. Most of these kids are either in their later teens or their early twenties. Génesis is the youngest of the group at fifteen. Paulina has invited her friend Fernanda, who is a sweet young lady. I let both of them, along with Romina, come over and eat lunch at my house whenever they want. Rodrigo and Francisca (his girlfriend) come over quite frequently, and we study the Bible together. Francisca is also a sweet young lady. Daniel and Elsa (his girlfriend) also participate in the young people’s class. Elsa has a difficult home life because of problems between her parents. She has been faithful in coming to church since the first time she has come. The participants in the class are Paulina, Daniel, Rodrigo, Francisca, Romina, Elsa, Nina, Juan, Luis, Belén, Génesis, Israel, Nicolás, Tomás, and Javiera. The young people who are not Christians (7) are studying the Bible to be saved. Here in Chile, when we teach the Bible, we work hard on teaching conviction and conversion. We want them to be committed Christians. I am proud of the way that our young people are growing spiritually. The teaching for commitment pays off. Liza told me that she overheard Rodrigo talking to his cousin about our church. The cousin asked if we used instrumental music. Rodrigo assured him that we most definitely do not. The cousin, who plays the guitar in church, asked Rodrigo why not. Rodrigo asked him, “When you play, do you like the attention that your playing gets you?” The cousin admitted that he liked it. Rodrigo told him, “That is where the problem is, because we look for what God likes, not what we like. The worship service should be oriented toward God, not ourselves.” The cousin admitted that Rodrigo was right.
The young people decided that they wanted to do a mission trip next summer. So, for all of this year, they have been working to save up money for the trip. We hope to go to Iquique where there are a number of young people. If that does not work out, we will go to another location.
On Sunday evenings, I go to Rancagua. This congregation is getting started. So far, we have baptized five people here, all family members of Liza. Liza’s nephews, Franco and Jonathan, have been participating with our young people, along with Jenny. They are really wonderful young people.
We have had some difficulty with Liza’s family. Liza’s father denounced her, claiming that she was a religious fanatic. She shed some tears over this. I am a bit surprised that he did not denounce me, since I am obviously the one that is the religious fanatic. Now consider this gentleman’s family. His daughter Elizabeth and her husband Felo are members of the church, as are their three children. His daughter Fabiola and her husband Roberto are members of the church, as are their four children: his granddaughter Marlene and her husband Alan, his grandson Roberto and his wife Catalina (his two great-grandchildren attend church) and two grandsons more, Eric and Daniel. His daughter Ya-ya and her husband Eduardo are members of the church, as are his two grandsons, Jonathan and Franco, and Franco’s future wife, Jenny. Another son and his wife along with their children attend the service. It is easier to count the people in this family who are not Christians or attending church: one son and his family in Rancagua, and another daughter and her family in Spain.
The great thing about this little church is that they work. They invite people and they talk about the Bible to people. A couple of Sundays ago, they came to Santiago for a lunch with the congregation in Villa Los Andes Del Sur. Jenny and Ya-ya really worked with the ladies of the congregation in preparing lunch. It was great.
I changed my minister’s meetings on Monday to the early afternoon. This is motivated mainly by the need to exercise and go on a diet. Since I am trying to lose weight, I decided I needed to be more disciplined in getting my exercise and also in cutting back on eating. Another thing is that the supermarket that I go to has a discount day on Mondays and I needed to get over there to take advantage of that. So I moved the class to the afternoon. Currently, we are studying Acts.
I also made a change on Monday nights. I had taught everything that I could to the men of the congregation about preaching, at least for the time being. Beto asked me if I would consider teaching a class in his home. I told him I would, so I changed the Monday class to Beto’s home. His wife, Pilar, invited several neighbors over, so we have been studying basic themes with them.
On Tuesdays, I have been going to Los Andes. We are studying Mark. The participation has been smaller since they moved out to the country, so we are working with that.
On Wednesdays, I teach a class on Mark at Angel and Doris’s house. In spite of the cold winter nights, the participation has been good. Their living room has been filled with about twenty-five people participating.
On Thursdays, I teach 1 John in my home. I have about twenty people who participate in that.
On Fridays, I have been alternating between having a meeting with the ladies in my home, and having the young people over. Last week, I had the young people over for homemade pizza. It was great. (Goodbye diet). Tonight, the ladies of the congregation will be here, perhaps for more pizza. (It is tough being a missionary.)
On Saturdays, we have several different activities, usually special activities, depending on the weekend.
Twelve people were baptized in Maipú. These are people that Pedro Sánchez met in Valparaiso. The Lord has blessed us as always. Thank you for your support.
Harry Hamilton

Some Pictures from the baptisms in Iquique.

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The new congregation in Curico. With some brothers from Santiago.

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Baprisms in Curico.

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Several of the Brothers studying the Bible

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Abby is suffering a little bit here.

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The Church in Villa Los Andes Del Sur

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Here is a photo of the church in Villa Los Andes Del Sur with the visitors from Houston.

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This is a picture from the volcano in the South that someone sent me. While it has nothing to do with the mission work here in Chile, I thought it was pretty interesting.

The Three Stooges?

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This is for those of us who can speak a little bit of Spanish. about two minutes into the video, Liza says, "Let's confuse the gringos." It is kinda hard to tell who really is confused here.

The Christmas Party for the Children in the Lunch Program

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I hope you enjoy this video.

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Here is a picture of the Church of Christ in Villa Los Andes Del Sur at the end of the year supper. We had several guests present.

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Studying the Bible in Los Andes.

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Who says it does not get cold in Santiago?

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Eduardo at his art exhibit.

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Birthday party. Some guys have all the luck.

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The Elders and deacons of the Poblacion Santiago church.

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Praying Together

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Baptism of Hugo son

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Hugo Father and Hugo son

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Baptism of Eduardo

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Offering a Prayer for the Spiritual Growth of Eduardo and Delia

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The Baptism of Eduardo and Delia

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The Hand

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Several of the Christians in Iquique.

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The ministry team.

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Here I am teaching a class in Iquique

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This is what the desert in the north of Chile looks like.

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Eating Lunch in the home of Augusto Fuentes and his wife Berta.

The Final Chronicles of our trip to the North

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Day Eleven, Friday, December 9, 2005

Friday morning, we took a break from our morning Bible study, and did some of the housekeeping chores, such as washing clothes and helping to clean up the house. It has to be a real chore to let five men come into your house and stay. We are grateful to Jaime and Eliana for letting us stay in their house.
Over the course of the next couple of days, Friday and Saturday, I played about fifteen games of chess with Jaime. This was the first time that I dared do so. I did not win a single game. Could it be because Jaime was a national champion in Chess in Chile? One of the things that Jaime does is teach classes in chess to children. During the weekend, he has several children in for chess class. Probably any one of them could tear me up in chess. Henry thought that this was particularly funny, because in Ecuador, two of the girls in the church in Ibarra wanted to play me in chess. They were champions in their particular age category. I was able to beat them in several games. Henry thought that Jaime beating me up in chess was a perfect revenge.
Friday afternoon, we had our last meeting in the prison. Milton taught the class. We were able to lay the groundwork for future classes that Jaime will have with these men. Milton taught on the need for these men to look to their salvation. It led to a good question and answer session. We left the prison in good spirits, since we felt that we had helped Jaime and that we had also built up a good relationship with the prisoners. Another positive factor is that our presence in Iquique also helps out Jaime. It gives him credibility in the sense that it is good for the prison guards to see that Jaime has backing from Santiago. The credibility that Pedro, Milton and I have with the prison system is excellent, since the head chaplain of all prisons in Chile said that we are the only ones that actually preach the Bible in all Chile. It makes you wonder what everybody else does. The chaplain also gave us an open door to any prison in Chile. This is limited to security considerations, of course, but we visit any inmate that asks for a visit. These requests may increase with the TV program.
Friday evening I returned to the question of sin, because the church members still had questions about it. This was especially important because of the one family that was trying to impose their view of sin on everyone else. Now, before I go any further, I have to confess that there is an element of this that has me laughing on the inside, because this family was telling everyone that several different activities, such as watching soccer games at the stadium or on the television, was sinful. What made me laugh is that this condemned all of our ministers. Pedro and Milton are some of the most addicted soccer fans that I know. What is even more humorous about this is that both support two of the most unsuccessful teams in Chile. So in their case, watching soccer probably is sinful.
On a spiritual level, the position that watching soccer games is sinful is troubling because it demonstrates a lack of understanding of the nature of sin. So on Friday evening, I worked with several characteristics of sin. I emphasized the universality of sin, because I thought this family could use a bit more humility. The truth of the matter is that religious life is susceptible to misunderstandings, extremism, and disagreements for many different reasons. One reason is that some people are not very well centered. As an example, some believe that if a little bit of something is good, then a lot of the same is better. This is not always true. I believe that the Christian life is the healthiest life that one can live. After all, if God is our creator, he certainly knows better than anyone else what is the healthiest lifestyle. Yet many take this beautiful Christian life and make it something it was never intended to be. This is why I talked about wisdom previously. Knowing how to live the Christian life is important.
The reason that I talked about the universality of sin is that some people are willing to accuse and condemn others, while forgetting that they have been sinful themselves. The proper response for the Christian is to confess his sinfulness, repent, and ask for forgiveness, which I try to live out. After all, we all do things that we wish we had not done. Remember what the apostle Paul said in Romans 7:15, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate. (RSV)” That statement should help all of us to be a bit more humble in the face of our shortcomings.
In the end, my read on the tension in the group on this theme is that it is not resolved. Undoubtedly it will re surface. The end result is that the congregation is better prepared to face these difficulties in the future.

Day Twelve, Saturday, December 10, 2005

Saturday was a bit slower than the rest of the week had been. We did not go to the prison, because we had not received permission to go. All of the Chileans had to go to the police station and sign a form explaining that they would be unable to vote on Sunday. As I mentioned, I played chess with Jaime. I have to admit that it was probably a waste of time for him, because there is no way that I am going to offer him any competition. As you can see, I was humiliated. I also helped Jaime install Windows XP on his computer.
In the evening, we held our last series of the conferences. I continued speaking about the nature of sin. I offered some strategies for resisting sin. I reminded the Christians that Jesus is our model that we follow in living the Christian life. While the theme of sin is not the most positive theme, it is a necessary one, because we accommodate sin too much. The conferences ended on a positive note. We shared an once together with the church.

Day Thirteen, Sunday, December 11, 2005

As I waited for church to start, I noticed that the voting station was around the corner from Jaime´s house. In Chile, the police always shut down the street of the voting location. In addition, cars were beginning to occupy all of the parking spots in the street. Since we were planning on leaving after church services, I suggested to Milton that he needed to get his car out on the street or we would get blocked in.
The church service was pretty good. Milton did the class on I Thess. I preached on Ephesians 1 during the worship service. Henry led the congregation in the Lord’s Supper. We had a good meeting.
Afterward, we all ate a quick lunch together of empanadas and soft drinks. Then we spent an inordinate amount of time taking pictures of everybody. I think that digital cameras have created a nightmare. Now that it costs nothing to take photos, everybody has to get their picture taken. We took pictures of every single combination possible: Milton with Jaime and Eliana, Pedro with Jaime and Eliana, Milton with Sebastian, Pedro with Sebastian, and so on. We took group photos and everybody had to take pictures with his own camera (seven or eight cameras). I thought this whole process was endless, especially considering that I wanted to get on the road as soon as possible.
Well, we loaded up and got going fairly quickly. We always take the ocean highway between Iquique and Antofagasta, because it is more scenic than driving the desert route. We drove for hours with the desert on one side and the deep blue ocean on the other. Our original idea was to go to Antofagasta on Sunday, Vicuña on Monday and arrive in Santiago on Tuesday. When we arrived in Antofagasta, the first thing that we noticed is that the beaches were absolutely packed. On voting Sundays, the day is always a holiday. People generally try to vote as early as possible, so that they can enjoy the day. Elizabeth, the sister who cleans my house, had to serve on the voting booths in Santiago, which means she was obligated to be there for the entire day. The people in Antofagasta obviously used this day to go to the beach. We had reservations in a residencial but we cancelled because Milton wanted to continue driving. This was a strong indication that he was ready to get back to his wife. The only problem with continuing the drive was figuring out where we would stay. When you leave Antofagasta, you have to climb up to the Pan American highway and drive through the desert. There is no other road. Between Antofagasta and Chañaral, there is only one gas station. There is a handful of posadas where you can stop and eat. There is about four of them, and two are located at the place where the gas station is. We drove on through the desert. We made one stop at a giant sculpture of a hand in the middle of the desert. Who did it and why, I do not know. We took some pictures. The whole time I was there I had this mental image of an earthquake shaking the hand over and it falling down on top of us and squashing us like a flyswatter swatting a bunch of flies. That sounds like something out of the Far Side comic strip.
We stopped at the posada for supper about ten p.m. The TV was on and the election returns were coming out. This election is interesting for many reasons. One, it is interesting because the political power of the various parties is determined by their showing in the elections. Thus, the elections often demonstrate if there is a major shift in public opinion. Poll indications were that the Chilean public opinion is moving away from the left toward some more conservative stances. Second, the candidate for the leftist socialist coalition is a woman. No woman has ever been elected President of any Latin American country before. Will it happen here? Who knows? I predict that this woman will have a difficult time overcoming the traditional machismo of Latin America. The other factor that makes this more difficult is that she is not too personable. She really struggles to make herself likable, and she comes across sometimes as trying too hard. Third, as it turns out, the results of the election demonstrated that no one won a clear majority, so the elections move to a runoff on Jan. 15. The candidate on the left won less support than was thought likely. The Communists did not do as well as they thought they would do, although they won the vote in Antartica, which is a military vote. Could it be that some military personnel have decided that they have been there long enough? The runoff will be between the lady on the left and the owner of one of the TV stations in Santiago. They are neck and neck. Internationally speaking, this election is important for Latin America, because Latin America is splitting into two camps between those on the hard left such as Chavez, FARC, the president in Brazil, the recently elected president to be in Bolivia, and perhaps others and those who are centrists or slightly oriented towards the left, such as Fox and the current president of Chile, Lagos. The best thing that could happen for the region is if Chile elected a moderate President.
Continuing with the trip, we arrived in Chañaral about midnight. We asked around and found a moderate residencial where we spent the night. It actually worked out better because it was cheaper than the residencial in Antofagasta. Also, we were closer to home.

Day Twelve, Monday, December 12, 2005

We got on the road early Monday morning. We drove directly from Chañaral to Rolando’s house in Vicuña, where his wife served us a delicious lunch. After resting for a little bit, we climbed back into the car and started for Santiago.
As we got into Santiago, we were all ready to get into our homes. After we dropped Pedro and Henry off at their homes, Milton dropped me by my house. I arrived home at 1:30 a.m. It was great to be back home after a 3000 mile/5000 kilometer trip.

More News From The Trip

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Day Four, Friday, Dec. 2, 2005

I have to confess that it is more difficult to find time on our trip to do this than I thought. Also, since I am away from my computer in my house, I do not have the program to put pictures on this page.
On day four in the morning, we shared in a Bible study with all the participants of the trip: Henry, Rolando, Pedro, Milton, and myself. David Cisternas and his wife also joined us. David is the preacher for the congregation in Arica. All five of us are staying in his house. In this Bible study, we finished reading Nehemiah and began talking about what we learned from it.
Afterwards, we ate lunch together. Then I prepared for the evening study with the church while everyone else went to the beach.
That evening, we met with the church in the building on Gonzalo Cerda street. I preached from Philippians 2:1-11. It was enjoyable to once again be with Augusto Fuentes and his wife Berta. When I was in Arica in April, Augusto was recovering from a heart attack. He seems in better health, although his age seems to be catching up with him. He is eight-one years old, and Berta is eighty. Both are such sweet people that it is always a pleasure to pass time with them.
Another person that is faithful at church is Emilia Raby. She has never stopped coming to church since the day several years ago when Augusto and I went to visit her. She has also been instrumental in bringing several members of her family to church.
Several members of David’s family also were present. His brother, Luis, felt the need to share his insight with me. He told me, Harry, you are getting old. Thanks for the reminder.
After the lesson, we shared a typical Chilean once together. An once is a sandwich and a cup of hot tea or coffee.

Day Five, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2005

We continued our study in the morning after breakfast. During this study, we discussed the central idea of Nehemiah which is that God gives success to his people when they seek to do the will of God. Also, we looked at how to study the Bible.
After lunch, we visited with some of David’s neighbors whom we invited to the Bible studies at the church.
That night, Pedro preached from 2 Chron. 15. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. He did a good job, as always. Afterwards, Milton and I accused Pedro of stealing our sermons. We were joking of course.

Day Six, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2005

We all met together for worship Sunday morning. Milton taught the Bible class. He spoke on 2 Thessalonians. Milton is an excellent Bible teacher. In the worship service, Henry preached. He spoke on Philippians 2:1-11 again, and he did an excellent job.
After church, Milton, Henry, and Pedro went to the prison to visit several inmates who are members of the church there. Rolando and I went to the hospital with David and Felipe, David’s son. We visited a member of the church who was there for an operation.
That evening, Milton and Henry went over to Tacna, Peru. They met with members of the church there. The rest of us returned to the church building in the evening for our last meeting with the church in Arica. I preached from Ephesians 4:17-24. The theme was the darkened understanding of pagans versus the new life in Christ. After the meeting, we shared once one last time and said our goodbyes to the Christians we would not see again for awhile.

Day Seven, Monday, Dec. 5, 2005

We started the day with breakfast and then a Bible study. We talked more about how to study the Bible. Then we went over to Augusto’s and Berta’s for lunch. For a couple of people in their eighties, they are a pretty lively couple. Augusto was talking about the need to have cataract surgery on his eyes, when Berta mentioned that her grandmother died from cataracts. Of course, then someone had to ask her how that was possible, and Berta replied, She was pushed. That is funny, even in English. (cataract >noun 1 a large waterfall. 2 a medical condition in which the lens of the eye becomes progressively opaque, resulting in blurred vision.)
In the evening, we went to Marta’s house (David’s sister) for once. Several members of David’s family were there. We had a good time together on our last night before leaving Arica.
I should point out that Luis, one of the men who was baptized in the prison in Arica has been faithful in his attendance since he has been released from prison. We also heard word from the brothers in the prison that Milton Flores, one of the prisoners recently released, had returned to Peru, where he has started a church in his hometown outside of Puno. Other prisoners have returned to Bolivia.

Day Eight, Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2005

We planned on leaving at nine a.m. from Arica, but after Milton got through puttering around it was more like ten a.m. We were going to Iquique, and since we had to be there in the evening, and it was only four hours away, we took our time in getting there. Several times along the way, we got out and took pictures of the road. Several places along the way, the road clings to the side of the mountain. As I mentioned before, you feel like you could quite easily drive off into the great beyond. When we stopped, we looked into the abyss, and tried to guess how many times a car would bounce before it came to a fiery stop. You fall asleep on this road, and you are a goner. On the trip from Arica to Iquique, we did find one truck whose brakes had gone out. At several places along the way, the road has emergency lanes for trucks to use when their brakes go out. We saw one truck that had been carrying cars stuck on one of the lanes, with several cars scattered about. The truck driver was sitting on the side of the road waiting for the crane to arrive. Undoubtedly, he was thinking about his next job, which probably was not going to be driving trucks to Arica.
We arrived in Iquique about three p.m. We were planning on staying in Jaime and Eliana’s house. Since they are both teachers, we did not expect them to be home until later. When we arrived at their home, we were surprised to find Eliana at home. She had taken the week off to be with us.
We had a Bible study that evening. I had the opportunity to meet several new Christians that I had not met before, as well as renew some old friendships along the way. One of the prisoners, Luis, had been released from the prison and was meeting regularly with the church, as was another ex-prisoner that I had not met, Victor. Both of them demonstrate signs of low self-esteem. I understand that this is common among prisoners. However, if there is a place where they can feel the love, it is in the church. We also had the privilege of visiting with Carlos Segura, and his wife, who both were baptized in the prison in Arica. Both have been instrumental in starting the church in Coihaique.
An old friend that we had the chance to visit with is Marilyn. She was a student of Eliana’s that was converted several years ago. Since then, her boyfriend, Sebastian, was also converted. He is an industrial engineering student. I also met Maritza, a student of Eliana’s who is studying the Bible to become a Christian.
In the Bible study, I spoke on the theme of sin. One of the problems that has surfaced in this congregation is that one of the members has spoken out against things that he considers sinful. Unfortunately for him, he is wrong, and instead of keeping his opinions to himself he has insisted that the other Christians practice his opinions. This has provided for some conflict, so we arrived at an opportune time to deal with this conflict. To give an example, this person has insisted that football (soccer in the USA) is sinful and members of the church are sinful for watching it. While soccer is dreadfully boring, it is not a sin. I taught about some of the characteristics of sin, such as it is destructive, and it entices people while at the same time deceiving people. Hopefully, people will be able to understand more about what sin actually is.
After the Bible study, we shared an once together.

Day Nine, Wednesday, December 7, 2005

We studied the Bible in the morning. We are working on understanding more about how to study the Bible, using Nehemiah as an example.
Eliana fixed us lunch. After lunch, we went to the prison, where we held a class with five prisoners. I spoke on Ephesians 4:17-24 again. This is a sermon of mine that Pedro always asks me to bring out when we talk to new people.
In the evening, I had a Bible study with Maritza, where I talked with her about some scriptures and also about who God is.
We met again with the church. I addressed the theme of sin again, explaining how sin separates one from God. Afterwards, we shared an once together again.

Day Ten, Thursday, December 8, 2005

Thursday was about like Wednesday. We had a Bible study in the morning. Then we ate lunch. Afterwards, we went to the prison again. This time, we had seven men present. Henry gave the presentation. He spoke on the Bible as the authoritative Word of God. Since it is common in our present time that not many people read the Bible, many do not know what role the Bible should have in their life. I am going to say that the larger role the Bible has in a person’s life, the better off he will be. Henry did a good job.
Later on, I waited for Maritza to show up, but she did not.
That evening, we met again with the church. I chose to no longer speak on the theme of sin, preferring to speak on wisdom and the importance of being wise. I spoke on Proverbs 1:1-7, ending with the thought that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God. The turnout was larger, and we had the added blessing of Milton teaching the congregation how to sing various hymns. Remember that each of these congregations are fairly young, and still need to learn how to be a church. Afterwards, we shared once together.

Starting the trip to Arica

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Notes from Day One

The road from Santiago to Arica is simple to navigate. All you have to do is get on the Pan American Highway and head north. No other road goes north for the entire length of Chile. It would probably be foolish to have another road go the length of Chile, since the country is only 120 miles wide at the widest.
Generally speaking, I hardly notice the countryside outside of Santiago, when we begin the trip, until we get to the ocean. One time, a visitor to Santiago made the comment that Santiago was in the desert. I never considered it that way until he said it. It helped me understand how North Americans see Chile. It is hard for me to consider Santiago as being in the desert, because I know what the north of Chile is like. That is desert.
The drive from Santiago to Ovalle, our first stop, is a drive of about five hours. In Ovalle, we are going to meet with Angel, a Bible Correspondence student. We are going to meet him for the first time. I have talked to him several times on the telephone. After we visit with him, we will continue on to Vicuña. There we will stay with Rolando Suazo. Tomorrow, Rolando will accompany us to the north.
UPDATE. We went to Angel’s house, but we were later than we expected. He was not there. We will have to call him later, and meet him on the return trip, or at another time.
In the trip, we decided to look at the book of Nehemiah. One of my favorite questions for our ministers is What is the central concept of the book (or passage)? This usually keeps them tied up for hours. We have been reading the book as we go along. Then I ask them to tell me all that they observe from the chapter that we read. The book of Nehemiah has a good message for us on our trip. God will give us success (2:20). It also describes several ways that people impede us as we work to achieve success.
When we arrived at Rolando’s house, he was waiting for us with a nice little supper. The church that eats together, stays together. After we visited for a bit, we all headed for the bed.

Day Two

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Notes From Day Two

At Rolando’s house Wednesday morning, we all started to move about six a.m. By eight a.m., we were ready to move out. After we stopped for gas, we were on the road by 8:30 a.m.
On the road, we had to drive back to La Serena before we could continue on to Antofagasta. I decided that we would continue with our study of Nehemiah with the emphasis on how to study the Bible. One conversation that occurred in the course of our journey addressed the Great Commission. Somebody mentioned that the phrase “preach the gospel to the ends of the earth” was a direct reference to Chile. Chile of course is the end of the earth, which is true, especially if you consider Punta Arenas in the south of Chile. I used the opportunity to point out to the men that we were obeying the command to the gospel to the ends of the earth, as well as the command to preach the gospel to all creatures.
We ate lunch at a roadhouse that was on the road on the way into Copiapo. We always look for the restaurants where the truck drivers stop. Most of the restaurants on the road give you a good meal for an inexpensive price. The meal usually consists of a soup, which is usually a cazuela, which is either a beef stew or a chicken stew, and a main course, which is usually fried fish, rice and a salad. All of this for a reasonable price. Most of the time, it is better than eating in a fancy restaurant. Since the road follows the coast a lot of the time, the restaurants serve a lot of fish.
In Copiapo, we visited a person that we had studied with at various times during the last few years. One of the things that is true of Milton, Pedro and me is that we know people all over the place in the North, because we have been all over the North at various opportunities. We visited with this family and shared a few things from the Word of God with them. We then promised to visit in the future.
As we continued on our journey to Antofagasta, we drove for hours. By the time we arrived in Chañaral, we were in the desert. This was apparent when we went to the bathroom in the gas station there. They charged us almost a dollar each for the use of the facilities. I assume that this was for the cost of water in the desert.
Another thing that I find outrageous is that there are toll booths everywhere on the road. Each one costs from seven to ten dollars a piece. On a long trip, we can wind up paying as much for tolls as we pay for gasoline. It makes the trips expensive.
We continued with our reading of Nehemiah on the road. I have the men make all the observations that they can about the chapters we read. We still have a lot of work to do.
We arrived in Antofagasta at midnight. We had called ahead and made arrangements with the hotel to let us stay. As soon as we checked in, we found out that the bathroom in one of the rooms was messed up. We went downstairs to tell the clerk, and she had already left and went home. We had to go to the owner’s house and get him out of bed to come take care of us, if you can believe that. Fortunately, he was able to fix us up, because I was ready to go look for another place. After a long trip, and a bit of discomfort at not being able to go to sleep right away, we finally hit the sack.

Starting the trip to Arica

2005-12-02T17:52:00.000-03:00

Day Three

If you are ever in Antofagasta, do not stay at the hotel that we stayed in. When we got ready to leave, we could not find a clerk anywhere. I finally left the keys in the room and we left. They had asked for payment in advance when we arrived, and I can see why. They had no intention of being around.
As we were leaving Antofagasta, Milton started complaining about not having any breakfast. Chileans usually drink a breakfast of coffee and bread. Milton explained that he had to have his café con leche (milk and coffee) or he begins to feel weak. So we drove over to the town of Mejillones, where we searched for a restaurant that would serve us breakfast. I should point out that in Spanish, you do not eat breakfast, you drink it. We finally found a restaurant that would serve us breakfast. The cooks were all nice ladies, and they decided to serve us. They were even nice enough to go and buy some milk, so Milton could have his milk. We wound up joking a lot with them. I promised them that we would come back some time and eat lunch with them, so we would really know how they cook.
As it turns out, Rolando had a daughter in the town (pop. 8200 people) who was the principal of the grade school. We went over to her school and visited with her for a little bit. She was a very nice person.
In Antofagasta, we had left the main road, and we were taking the coastal road to Iquique. This road follows the coast. It is much prettier, but it has a lot more curves and hills than the main road. I took some pictures along the way. At one point, I noticed that the road which was located on the side of a mountain was split. Most likely, a earthquake had caused some of the foundation to begin to fall away. As a result, the road was beginning to break up. This is not an entirely comfortable thought, considering that the road itself is several hundred feet above the ocean. When we return that way, I will let you know if the road is still there. If it is not, I will take a picture, before we start the long journey back around the mountains.
We stopped briefly in Iquique to say hello to the brothers before we continued on to Arica. One brother fixed us some sandwiches in his shop, which is evidently doing pretty well. I will tell you more about the church in Iquique when we return.
We drove on to Arica, passing several memorable places in the desert. One place was where I hit a rock some years ago and knocked a hole in my gas tank. This had the wonderful effect of making me wonder if we were going to be stranded in the desert. Fortunately, at the time, we were not, because I had enough gas to make it in to town. Another place was where my car broke down, and I had to wait a day there for Pedro to go into town and buy a part.
Another memorable aspect of the trip from Iquique to Arica is that there are four cuestas. Cuestas are where the road climbs up through the mountains and then descends again. For the life of me, I can not remember what they are called in English. One cuesta descends for seventeen kilometers, and another climbs for eleven kilometers. The whole time we are climbing and descending, the side of the road falls away for several thousand feet into an abyss, the bottom of which you can not see. For the entire time, the shoulder of the road is only a yard or so wide before it begins to fall away into the abyss. There is no protection placed along a good portion of the road, which means that there is no protection against driving off into eternity. Every now and then, some poor soul falls asleep at the wheel and drives a kilometer or two without the benefit of traction nor wings, only to be awakened in the next life. As you can imagine, I watched Milton who was driving like a hawk. I did not want him to fall asleep or anything. This part of the trip is always tense.
We made it into Arica safe and sound around eleven thirty p.m. We visited with David Cisternas and his wife until about two a.m. before finally making it to bed.

I am on the trip

2005-12-01T18:14:00.000-03:00

If you are expecting to read about the trip, do not give up yet. I have been traveling for the last three days. I will sit down and write about some of our stories as soon as I get some time. We are currently in Iquique, and we are here for a break only. We will finish driving to Arica tonight.

On the first day, Tuesday, we left my house at noon. We drove to Ovalle, and then to Vicuña, arriving at 10:00 p.m. Wednesday, we left Vicuña at 8:30 a.m. and arrived in Antofagasta at midnight. This morning we left Antofagasta at 9:00 a.m. and we are in Iquique at 6:00 p.m. We intend to continue on to Arica, arriving around 10:30 p.m. or eleven.

I will share more about our trip tomorrow.

2005-11-29T12:46:00.001-03:00

Eating shrimp in Ecuador

2005-11-29T12:46:00.000-03:00

Thanksgiving Day Lunch

2005-11-29T12:44:00.000-03:00

Thanksgiving Day Lunch

Report for November, 2005

2005-11-29T10:53:00.000-03:00

Greetings once again from Chile. I hope that all of you are doing well.
We began November with some welcome news. Steve Ridgell, with the Herald of Truth ministry, Rex Morgan, producer of the television program "Con La Biblia Abierta", Marlene Albarrán, my secretary, and I met with Christian Salamovich V., the executive director of the television station UCVTV- Universidad Católica Valparaiso TV 3:30 p.m. Friday, November 4, 2005. During our meeting we finalized the last details of our television program. In the coming year, we will offer a television program starting on March 1, 2006 through October 28, 2006 at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday morning. I invite you all to pray for the success of this venture. As you all know, we have been preparing for this opportunity for some time now.
In November, I spent two weekends working with two churches in Ecuador, one in Ibarra and one in Guayaquil. I taught a conference in Ibarra to a full house. The congregation is more active now, showing some improvement, specifically in two areas. They are actively considering naming elders. They are also having more success inviting in new people. In addition, they have finished construction on a couple of additional rooms to the church building, which they did themselves. I also gave some presentations at the church in Guayaquil. I found out that this church was on the brink of giving up and going home, when I first arrived there. Now they have a young man from Ibarra, Juan Pablo Rosero, Henry Rosero’s brother, who is working full time there. I spent the entire time in Ibarra and Guayaquil talking about the gospel. I figured that we would spend time on the basics. The result of this is that the two congregations understand more clearly what we believe. The congregation in Ibarra also has new people. Juan Pablo has been studying with two new persons. In addition, two people showed up Sunday morning when I preached from off the street. I suspect that they heard me preach during the week. At any rate, I think there is marked improvement in the churches.
Henry Rosero accompanied me to Chile. Beto Hernandez from Venezuela and Henry gave a series of presentations in Santiago during the last week of November.
On Thanksgiving, I invited the participants from my class on John on Thursday morning to participate with me in a Thanksgiving meal. We gave thanks to God for many things, and then we sat down to turkey and dressing and all the trimmings. Beto and Henry enjoyed this unique American experience tremendously. It was a pleasure for me to share that with all of the Latin Americans present. On Thursday evening, I continued my class on evangelism.
Saturday morning, we held our national men’s meeting that we have twice a year. I left the house with plenty of time that morning, but had the bright idea that I would take one of the brand new highways in town to the church. It was a colossal mistake. I got stuck in a massive traffic jam. It was thirty minutes before I could leave the area, and then I had to drive around until I found another route to the church. I arrived late to find everyone waiting on me, since I was to be the first speaker. I gave a talk on Ephesians 1. The theme was the spiritual improvement of the church. It was a good theme for all of us. Sergio Plaza also spoke and then Beto Hernandez ended it. We also had lunch together. It was good.
Sunday evening and Monday, we had a ministers’ mini-retreat. Twenty men participated. We went down to Casablanca about twenty feet from the Pacific Ocean. We talked about what God expects in men, in relation to manliness. We also ate some delicious fried fish fresh from the ocean. Undoubtedly, we are going to be known as the church that eats together. That is biblical.
Today, I am leaving for a trip to the north. I will be gone two weeks. This trip is to visit various congregations. Pedro Sanchez, Milton Muñoz, Henry Rosero from Ecuador, and Rolando Suazo from Vicuña will accompany me. I am going to write about it on the website, Preaching the Gospel in Chile, www.harry1976.blogspot.com if you want to accompany me on the trip.
God bless you. Thank you for your support.

In Christ,

Harry R. Hamilton

Report for September and October, 2005

2005-11-08T11:07:00.000-03:00

Greetings. Spring has arrived here in Santiago. I will confess that I have already made some ice cream (chocolate and peach), but I have not really had any good barbecues yet. Generally I need a good excuse, such as a visit from friends. The secret to being able to have barbecues and make ice cream is to always share it with somebody.
In the congregation at Villa Los Andes del Sur, Pilar and Beto took a turn at being missionaries. The school that Pilar works at sent several teachers to Cuba for some educational conference. Pilar tells me all these teachers are Communists, which explains why they went to Cuba. Pilar and Beto used this trip as an opportunity to visit with some of my Bible Correspondence Course students. They were able to clear up a couple of things with my students. One is that some of the lessons did not arrive, possibly due to censorship. Since some of the people had not heard from me, they thought we were not sending lessons. We were able to clear up the point about our faithfulness in sending them. What we will do in the future is that I will step back and let the Chileans maintain the contacts to avoid censorship difficulties. Pilar and Beto reports that the Cubans they visited with were thrilled at the visit. They all want to know more about the Bible. You can imagine the difficulties. Pilar and Beto were also touched by the poverty of the Cubans. Most can not afford anything. They lack basic necessities such as soap and shampoo and other such items. Pilar and Beto plan to collect some items to send them. The contact is great. It motivated the Chileans and the Cubans. As in all missionary work, you never know what will work out, but we have an opportunity to do some good.
One of the brothers at Población Santiago, Luis Lucero, reports the baptism of his aunt, an elderly woman who lives in the city of Cartagena. This lady was a Jehovah’s Witness for forty years. She is now the only member of the Church of Christ in her city.
Pedro Sanchez went to the USA. While there, he worked with the Spanish speaking congregation in Lexington, Kentucky. This congregation is fairly new with a young preacher. Pedro worked with him, and also gave Bible studies. The congregation was motivated. Pedro also studied with several families and baptized seventeen people.
The program for feeding the children has been going well. Our sister Olga has developed an outstanding ministry in this area. She has also been attending evangelism classes. I am impressed that so many of our people want to do evangelism here in Santiago. Recently, the young adults at Villa Los Andes del Sur began an evangelism class to prepare for the Television program next year.
The Men´s class on Mondays has been going well. Several of the guys are learning to study the Bible and preach. All of us are looking forward to next year.
I have been teaching a class in Independencia on Sunday morning. Currently the theme is “spiritual gifts.” This theme is always difficult, especially here in Chile with the Pentecostal influence. The Chileans find it interesting to see what the Bible actually says about the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
May God bless you. Thank you for your support.

In Christ,

Harry R. Hamilton

Television Program

2005-11-05T20:31:00.000-03:00

Steve Ridgell, with the Herald of Truth ministry, Rex Morgan, producer of the television program "Con La Biblia Abierta", Marlene Albarrán, my secretary, and I met with Christian Salamovich V., the executive director of the television station UCVTV- Universidad Católica Valparaiso TV 3:30 p.m. Friday. During our meeting we finalized the last details of our television program. In the coming year, we will offer a television program starting on March 1, 2006 through October 28, 2006 at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday morning. I invite you all to pray for the success of this venture.

2005-09-23T11:14:00.000-04:00

Got to have that stove.

2005-09-23T11:13:00.000-04:00

Too cute for words.

Spam

2005-09-22T10:09:00.000-04:00

I changed comments back to registered users because someone was sending me spam. No thanks, and stay off my blog, spammers.

Do you seriously think that I would use your service or recommend it to anyone else when you are uninvited?

Interaction among friends is welcome.

Report for July and August, 2005

2005-09-22T09:37:00.000-04:00

Report for July and August, 2005

Greetings once again from Santiago, Chile. This weekend was one of those unhealthy weekends. You know the type: Thanksgiving weekend, Fourth of July, Christmas, New Year’s Day, all the holidays where you eat. Specifically, the celebration is the Chilean Independence day on September 18th. One of the traditional foods is the empanada, a meat pastry that has a beef, onion, olive, raisin, and boiled egg filling. It took me a while to get used to this, but now I can handle them pretty well. It seems that part of being a missionary is breaking bread together. My problem is that I give the bread a pretty good workout after I break it. This weekend, in spite of my protestations that I am on a diet, I am trying to lose weight, I am trying to cut back, which is true, I was still obligated to consume my fair share of empanadas. Yesterday, Saul, who is the minister at the congregation in Domeyko, invited me to eat some empanadas there. I enjoyed three of the biggest empanadas I have seen in my life, but I had to fight a cat to get to them. Just as we are sitting down at the table, a cat comes walking in and jumps up on the table. I had to knock the turkey off. Good thing it didn’t affect the flavor of the empanadas.
The class on evangelism is producing several up and coming evangelists. Saul has had several Bible studies, some of which have resulted in baptisms. He asked me to help him with a Pentecostal couple. The husband is considering being baptized, but his wife is not. Saul asked me to work with him and them. We will see how this goes. Another study that Saul has is with one of my Bible correspondence course students. I asked Saul to visit this older man in his home because I thought Saul could use the experience, and also because the congregation in Domeyko consists of mostly older members.
Another student in the evangelism class (Jocelyn) is studying with her sister. She shared with me some of the difficulties that she has in convincing her sister of many different things. One reason that some of our Christians have a difficult time is that they have not come to a good understanding of many topics, and so it is harder to convince people of their need to obey the gospel. This young woman struggles with this problem.
Several of the young people from the congregation in Población Santiago (who have also been attending my evangelism class) held a campaign in Chillan, where we have been working on starting a new congregation. Two people were baptized. They came back to Santiago real excited about their trip.
I have another fellow, Gabriel, who participates in my Monday class, my Tuesday class, and my Saturday class. He has decided that he wants to be an evangelist. In Spanish, when somebody says that, they are not talking about preaching or teaching, they are talking about evangelizing. Gabriel has been doing a good job. He has signed up three of his friends from work for our Bible correspondence course. As you may know, my practice with Bible studies is that I always take someone with me, and I have them do the lessons, if it is possible, from the very beginning. This is to avoid developing a dependency relationship where they do not do anything, but expect the missionary to do it all. The reason this is not a good idea is that it creates bottlenecks. The more people we have evangelizing, the more we will grow as a church. My job is to help our people do the teaching well. Gabriel and I have been studying with one friend of his, Eduardo and his girlfriend, Delia. They are coming along well.
Gabriel told me Saturday that he was on the bus with his girlfriend when he noticed a young lady who was reading the Bible. He was looking for the right opportunity to speak with her, but did not know when that would be. The bus he was on with his girlfriend, who is a member of the Independencia congregation, suddenly stopped. The bus driver started fighting with the bus driver from another bus. This happens sometimes from the competition between bus drivers. Gabriel used this time to talk to the girl. As it turns out, she lives close to the Villa Los Andes del Sur congregation. Gabriel told me that what I had said about memorizing certain passages of the Bible so you could always talk about the Bible really works. He told me that he started talking about II Timothy 3:16-7, explaining it like I wrote it in the study, “¿Porqué estudiamos la Biblia?”. I was amused with him because he was excited.
A good indication that someone is evangelistic is if their family is Christian. In the city of Los Andes, to the north of Santiago, Roberto Matarana and his wife Elizabeth are Christians. Roberto and Elizabeth have worked to bring their entire family to Christ. I recently found out that she is evangelizing eleven persons. Three of the eleven have already been baptized.
Victor tells me that there were five baptisms in Población Santiago.
The church in Villa Los Andes del Sur lost a member this month. Viviana married an American of Chilean descent and moved to California. Jaqueline has been working with the women of the congregation. Milton has been preaching some good sermons.
I have been teaching the Bible class in Independencia, as well as preaching in several places. I currently have classes every day of the week, except Friday.
Congregations continue to meet in several different towns throughout Chile. The tiny church in Vicuña meets regularly, which is not difficult since it has only two members. They are working on their next member though.
People tell me all kinds of wonderful stories. Maybe my age is catching up with me, but I can not remember half of the stories.
We are still planning on the television program next year. Many good things happen all the time that indicate to me that we will be ready for it when it comes. One is that we are going to have a good number of experienced evangelists because a lot of people are evangelizing now. This may be the fruit of having a class on evangelism. If you were to ask me if we were focused on evangelism throughout my time here in Chile, I would reply that we were very much focused on evangelism, but perhaps many of the Christians did not perceive it that way, since many more seem to be evangelizing now than before. The other possibility is that the class on evangelism helped them understand that it was more possible. Another indication that we are ready for the program on evangelism is that more congregations seem to be more healthy spiritually than they were ten years ago. I think this is a benefit of having different activities and good interaction among the congregations.
One of the things that is a concern for next year is the cost of the outreach for next year. I predict that we will have some additional costs next year. How much will depend on the number of contacts.
Finally, the ministry to feed the children continues. This has been a star in the crown of the congregation in Población Santiago, both in their concern for these children, and in their reaching out to them and teaching them the Word. Costs are running ahead of income by about a hundred dollars a month. The sisters are working wonders in taking care of this need.
Thank you for your support. May God bless you.

In Christ,

Harry R. Hamilton

I thought this was funny

2005-07-28T20:28:00.000-04:00

I was out exercising and I saw a newspaper with a headline that I will translate from Spanish.
"The Antichrist will be born in 2009. All you losers, this is your chance."

2005-07-27T13:47:00.000-04:00

This is a picture of my Monday class.

2005-07-09T11:16:00.000-04:00

Do not ask me how she got up there.

2005-07-09T11:14:00.000-04:00

Cute as a bug in a rug, wait, she is a bug in a rug, or at least a pup in a blanket.

2005-07-09T11:12:00.000-04:00

Here is the new puppy, Abby.

New Puppy

2005-07-09T11:03:00.000-04:00

I have a new puppy now. It is a female, a Boxer, and we have decided to go with the name Abby. That was a choice of convenience. We got on the Internet, looked up names, and Abby was the first one we came to that I liked. She is cute as the pictures will attest. This puppy has managed to get into absolutely everything. She has had me laughing a lot here in the last two days. I actually posted these fotos in the reverse order that I wanted. I should have thought about it more.

Independence Day

2005-07-09T10:57:00.000-04:00

I had an excellent 4th of July Independence Day celebration as these pictures will show. I forgot to take a picture of our group eating together. Maybe I was too busy.

2005-07-09T10:46:00.000-04:00

The 4th of July. I am sorry but I had no fireworks.

2005-07-09T10:45:00.000-04:00

Several of the ministers help me celebrate the 4th.

2005-07-09T10:40:00.000-04:00

There is never a shortage of people willing to help with the barbecue. The Chileans helped me celebrate the 4th and there is no better way than this.

2005-07-09T10:38:00.000-04:00

Marlene and elizabeth are helping prepare lunch on the 4th of July.

Report for May and June 2005

2005-07-09T10:29:00.000-04:00

Report for May and June, 2005
Greetings from Santiago.
Every time that we have had success starting a new congregation, it has been due to the desire of someone in the congregation taking the lead and taking responsibility for the work in his area. I can point to several individuals such as Augusto Fuentes in Arica, Jaime Correa in Iquique, Daniel and Susana in Puerto Montt, Roberto Maturana in San Esteban, and Juan Huerta in Los Andes. Rolando Suazo appears to be such a person in Vicuña. Last month Pedro Sanchez and I went to visit him for the express purpose of baptizing Hugo, a friend of Rolandós. We had a good visit. We were able to study the Bible with these men, and we had the opportunity to share some nice meals. I found out that Rolando likes to sing, and has been in the past a member of a chorus in Vicuña. With the baptism of Hugo, the congregation consists of two members. This is how we do it. We start with one and go from there.
On the way back from Vicuña, Pedro and I traveled through rain the entire time. This is not the most pleasant experience in Chile, because when you are next to the ocean, as we were for at least three or four hours, fog rolls in with the rain, it is hard to see, and sometimes the rain comes down in sheets. On top of this, when you add the mountains to that mix, it can be stressful. This time, it was even more obnoxious in that the traffic came to a stop at 76 kilometers outside of Santiago. We had to wait for an hour. Later, we found out that there had been a landslide. With all the rain, rocks and mud came tumbling down from the side of a mountain, blocking the road, and evidently causing a wreck.
Jaime, a Christian, has taken responsibility in Chillan. He lives outside of the city of Chillan. He has been meeting in that city with a few other Christians. Somebody said that six people had been baptized there, but I do not think that all of them are meeting together, although Jaime has been working with them. Pedro and I visited him earlier this year. In May, Jaime came to Santiago with his wife, and participated with us in the National Meńs Meeting and in the mini-retreat we had afterward. Sergio Bustamante and the young people from Población Santiago have been visiting regularly and working with Claudio and the new congregation in Chillan.
In May, we had a National Meńs Meeting. The participation was about 80 men. We held the meeting in the building in Independencia. As is our practice, we had three presentations. Helmer Rosero, Pedro Sanchez and I gave them. The theme was spiritual growth. Another practice is that we eat lunch together. The ladies from the congregation in Independencia prepared the meal, and you have to give them credit. They do an excellent job. One of our visitors was Claudio from Puerto Montt. He is a young fellow, in his late twenties, that was baptized a couple of years ago. He was probably the visitor from the farther away.
After the Meńs Meeting, we had a mini-retreat on the Sunday afternoon and Monday following the Saturday of the Meńs meeting. Most of the participants are from the Monday ministeŕs class, but we started having this mini-retreat after the Nationwide Meńs Meeting so that out of towners could participate. These activities really help out. One reason is that the more active people are, the more they work with the church.
In spite of the rainy weather, we had a clear 4th of July. Since all the men come to my house on Mondays, we decided to celebrate the 4th in typical picnic fashion, and the weather cooperated. It was nice, even though it was cool. I put my barbecuing skills to the test. Two Bible Correspondence students were baptized in Punta Arenas.
In Población Santiago, a fellow, Jorge Hidalgo, has been suffering from gangrene. He had both of his legs amputated, unfortunately. This did not keep him from being baptized on the 2nd of July.
As you might have heard from the news, a good sized earthquake did considerable damage to several places in the north of Chile. In Arica, one of the neighborhoods where I had several Correspondence course students was leveled. Everybody in the church there in Arica escaped damages.
I have a printer here that was a gift several years ago from the brothers in Lexington, Kentucky. Since several of them worked for Lexmark or IBM, they sent me a Lexmark printer. I had it worked on last month. I bring this up because the technician remarked that I had about th of a million copies that I had printed. I thought that was a bundle of Correspondence courses. It has been a welcome tool.
One or perhaps more of the childreńs classes at Hidden Valley Church of Christ in Houston took up a collection for the Childreńs Lunch program here in Santiago. They raised 188 dollars which I though was excellent. It also helped us to meet the needs for the month.
We had a visit from two members of the congregation at Southside in Lexington, Kentucky, Steven Spear and Bryan Barrett. Steve worked here in Chile with the church for a year and a half. Bryan is the preacher for Southside. We had a good visit.
We also had a visit from Rex Morgan with the television program "Con La Biblia Abierta" and Steve Ridgell with the "Herald of Truth." We had some good discussions about running the television program and we are looking forward to this next year. I am already getting several things in motion so that we will be ready for this when it shows up. One television station that we are considering was added to the cable this month, so it will have broad exposure in the future. We will also have an increase in expenses next year, such as mailing costs, advertising, travel expenses, if this program brings in new contacts. Remember that ten years ago, we received a thousand contacts. Please pray that we receive even more next year.
We are giving the priority to the television program. This means that other projects such as a university will go on the back burner.
Thank you for your support.
In Christ,
Harry R. Hamilton

2005-07-09T10:12:00.000-04:00

The idea here is to give Pedro a bad reputation. You all are going to think that he does nothing but eat. Well, the church that eats together stays together.

2005-07-09T10:10:00.000-04:00

I do the hard work. Here I am saying a few words at Hugo�s baptism.

2005-07-09T10:09:00.000-04:00

Here Pedro and Rolando baptize Hugo.

2005-07-09T10:08:00.000-04:00

Here Pedro and I are putting the baptistry together in order to baptize Hugo.

Report for March and April 2005

2005-05-11T07:30:00.000-04:00

Report from Santiago, Chile for March and April, 2005
Greetings. Old Man Winter walked in the door last weekend. Now what we go through here in Santiago would be mild by most peoplés standards, but to hear people talk in Chile it is the end of the world. Since most people cannot afford to heat their homes, it is pretty hard to stay comfortably warm. However, you get used to being a bit colder than you would be in the States. At any rate, last weekend we had thunderstorms and rain and cold.
I may have mentioned before that the television ministry based in Miami, Con La Biblia Abierta, approached me about running a television program in Chile next year. I am all for that, because television has been our most successful mass media effort here in Chile. Through it, we were able to start up several congregations in Chile. We also baptized such wonderful people as Augusto Fuentes and his wife Berta in Arica and Jaime and Eliana in Iquique. Our success in bringing people to Christ is the reason why they want to start with us. In order to prepare for the program, I started up the class in evangelism. Right off the bat, I was disappointed on two levels. I had made arrangements to videotape the class, but the guy who was supposedly the expert in that did not show up, so we did not get to do that. The other thing that disappointed me is that we have had only about fifty people participating in the class, and I was hoping for twice that.
The classes that I have had so far on evangelism have been really good. The goal of the class is to teach the members how to evangelize, and to give them the knowledge necessary to evaluate their success in evangelizing. In other words, I give them the lessons that they need to evangelize, but I also explain what each lesson tries to accomplish. I also explain that each evangelist and each congregation must develop the spiritual environment necessary for evangelism to take place. For example, in the first lesson, I explained that evangelism is a teaching ministry. In Matt 28:18-20, Jesus gives a model for evangelism. Making disciples of all nations involves baptism and teaching. The two go hand in hand. In a very few words, our model for evangelism is that correct teaching produces correct practice, which is obedience. A person is not evangelized until he understands certain teachings and responds to them. In the Churches of Christ, we have always had difficulty getting people to study long enough to understand the concepts in order to act upon them. Thus, the church and the evangelist have to create an environment where people want to learn. I suggest that two factors help us do that. One is that the church must set the example in learning. If the church is not willing to be taught, then how can we expect others to be excited about it? This also suggests that those who are in charge of teaching classes or evangelizing need to teach interesting classes that actually make people want to learn more, which is the second factor. Our strategy in evangelizing is to ignite the imagination of people where they are thinking about the teachings of God. When they do this, they want to learn more. When I came here in 1991, I assumed that people wanted to know as much about the Bible as I did. So I determined that I needed to teach lessons that were spiritually profound for two reasons. Spiritual growth does not take place if people are not challenged to grow and they will never teach others if they are never challenged to learn themselves. One way that I challenge people to learn is that I ask questions and then I guide people to the answer. I never answer my own questions. Sometimes I have people really sweating as they try to figure out the answer, but then they always do, because I never ask questions that are too difficult. The result is that we have fine people here in Chile who are members of the church, including ministers such as Milton, Pedro, Sergio, and David. We also have lots of people that are eager to learn.
I am happy to inform you that we have begun the new congregation in Independencia. We rented a building on the street Independencia, which is a major thoroughfare in the north part of Santiago. This is really a good location where hundreds of people pass by our building every day. The rent is expensive for us at 300,000 pesos a month or about $530.00 US. I agreed to pay half of the rent from the work fund if the church pays the other half. Your support for this effort is needed. Already one couple has been baptized. About forty people are meeting with us. Most are members that live in the area who had been worshiping at the other congregations. We are going to try and maintain a program of activity in the location every day, which is difficult, considering the lessons and obligations that we have every day. Sunday we had three visitors. All had visited the previous Thursday.
In April, Fred and Esther from Austin Avenue in Brownwood came down for a visit. The Chileans really enjoyed their visit. I am sure that I walked them much more than they were used to. They had a chance to get around and see some of the congregations in action. During the weekend of April 15-18, we went to Arica, where they were able to see the work in Arica. I should point out that we had an earthquake while we were in Arica. This was Fred and Esther’s first. It was not much, but since we were about a half mile from the beach at the time, you cannot help but think about tsunamis. You probably cannot run fast enough to get away from them, so you have to trust in God that he will protect you from them.
I learned in a phone call to Arica prior to the trip that our brother Augusto Fuentes, whom I esteem a lot, suffered a heart attack. When we had a chance to see him, he was weak. It made me sad to see him in that condition. He can surely use our prayers. He will always be a spiritual hero for us for his faithfulness in beginning the work in Arica.
David Cisternas seems to be doing a good job in Arica with the help of the brothers. Augusto will have to slow down a lot, but everyone else seems to be doing a lot of hard work there. David’s brother Luis has married and settled down a lot, proving to be a more stable Christian. I appreciate him more than ever now, because he has gotten up at five a.m. twice now to take us to the airport. While in Arica, I was able to visit with Emilia Rabi who was a Bible Correspondence student who was baptized several years ago. I renewed my acquaintance with her daughter who is now about twelve years old (if I am not mistaken). I also met her niece, whom has been attending church regularly. This niece is also quite young, thirteen or fourteen or so. She rides the bus alone on Sunday mornings and was the first to arrive the Sunday we were there. Several new families have been participating evidently, with at least one married couple having been baptized.
A brother from Iquique, Carlos Segura, was at worship in Arica when I was there. He informed me that the church in Coihaique in the far southern part of Chile is worshiping together, as they should be. We have not been able to visit there for a while due to the cost of the travel. Carlos informed me that two people want to be baptized in Coihaique. Thanks to some additional help that we received with the work fund, Pedro Sanchez is going there tomorrow to work with that congregation.
Jaqueline informs me that a married couple was baptized. This couple has participated in the Marriage Enrichment meetings that Milton and Jaqueline do. Jaqueline also informs me that the lunch program for children is feeding about forty-two children every day. Currently the money that we have that goes to that is about 450.00 dollars a month, although we spend a little bit more than that on the food. You have to admit that feeding one child for a month for ten dollars is a pretty good bargain. What I especially like about this is that the congregation in Población Santiago is taking these kids into their hearts and is working with them. Let’s not forget the children. Even though it is not exciting news to say that forty-two children have been fed this last month, it is important for them. In this, the church is a blessing to the children. This is a necessary ministry, as much so as the Marriage Enrichment ministry or the prison ministry.
I made a few trips. I returned to Vicuña once again to visit with Rolando. We studied the Bible with him and Hugo. Rolando is following in the footsteps of Augusto Fuentes, in that he is being a force for the church in his community. I am working with him when I can. You can find a picture of Rolando and me here:http://harry1976.blogspot.com
On the last Monday that Fred and Esther were present, Rolando rang my doorbell. We shared a good visit. It was also good that he came over on that day, because he was able to visit with several of the ministers and get to know them.
I made a trip to Ecuador to visit with the church in Ibarra and Guayaquil. I held a conference in each city. These churches need a lot of work, but they are hanging in there. I am glad to be able to help. They seem to like my teaching quite a bit. In Ibarra, three people were baptized. I must be used to the mild climate in Chile, because Guayaquil is hot and humid to the extent that you are constantly aware of it. I also found out that the city is in the midst of a malaria and dengue fever epidemic. Since the mosquitoes were eating me alive, I figured I was a goner. This is one of those things where you just trust in God to take care of you.
A while back, in 2004, Helmer was leaving the home of one of the Christians when he met a lady and asked her if she would like to study the Bible. She agreed and studied to a point where Helmer was just about ready to start talking about obeying the gospel. Before he could begin that conversation, she decided that she would stop studying with him. Helmer told her that she was about to begin the most important study of her life. She agreed to continue studying and was baptized, along with two family members. In March, she passed away from cancer. While this is sad, we know that she is with the Lord.
The church that started up in Chillan last year is up to ten people meeting together. Our brother Jaime who lives in the country outside of Chillan is doing a good job, according to one of the brothers, Sergio Bustamente, that went there to visit.
I continue to hear good news about the good work in other places, such as Los Andes and Puerto Montt, to the extent that it is hard to keep up with everybody.
I want to thank all of you for your support. It is necessary since we need your help to continue doing what we do here. May God bless you.
In Christ,
Harry R. Hamilton

2005-05-11T07:06:00.000-04:00

Elizabeth had a birthday Monday. Note the size of her candle on her cake. We found out that we did not have any candles so we improvised.

2005-05-11T06:59:00.000-04:00

Baptisms in Ibarra

2005-05-11T06:58:00.000-04:00

I am teaching a class in Ibarra, Ecuador.

2005-05-11T06:56:00.000-04:00

The Church of Christ in Guayaquil, Ecuador

2005-02-15T10:38:00.000-03:00

Here I am with Reinaldo and his wife in Valdivia.

2005-02-15T10:36:00.000-03:00

Pedro does what missionaries do best.

Report for Dec and Jan

2005-02-14T14:32:00.000-03:00

Report from Santiago, Chile for December, 2004 and January 2005
Greetings from Santiago. We are in the middle of the summer here. Just as I thought it was fixing to get hot, a cool spell came through. I hate to brag, but Chile is really a pleasant place to live with regard to the weather. Of course, I will change my tune when winter gets here with its cold and rain.
I recently learned how to post folders of pictures to the Internet. If you would like to see pictures of the work in Chile and other related photos, then send me an email. It so happens that I have to authorize each person that wants to see them. I am trying to avoid bothering people that do not want to be bothered.
Here is a bit of good news. Rex Morgan who is with the television program, "Con La Biblia Abierta" recently contacted me about running the television program again in 2006. If you recall, we ran this program in 1995-6. I credit this program with taking us to the next level here in Chile. We were able to move from being a metropolitan church here in Santiago to having a presence nationwide. In 95 and 96, we received 1000 contacts, 200 from outside Santiago, and 800 inside Santiago. From those contacts, we have been able to baptize at least 100 people per year for eight of the last ten years. Although we are still in the planning stages, I am emphasizing the importance of this opportunity. I think it would be excellent for Chile if we could run this program for twenty years. An advantage that we have is that when we ran the program in 95 and 96, there were only three congregations outside of Santiago. Now the number is higher as twenty congregations exist throughout the length of Chile. We should be even more successful outside of Santiago than we were before. Also, the number of full time ministers is larger than it was at the previous time. I think we will have a good groundwork laid for success.
In 95 and 96, we had more success outside of Santiago than we did in the city. Several factors contributed to this. The churches were smaller. Many of the Christians were not trained to evangelize. Because of the number of contacts, we had to ask the churches to help with contacts in their area. Many did not follow up like they should. Also, people living in the city seem to be more jaded than those living outside of the city. It takes a lot of patience to reach people in Santiago.
With this in mind, I have already announced a class on evangelism. I intend to train people to be evangelists. We are going to spend the year 2005 preparing for 2006. We need a high level of participation from the congregations. I would like to see us come up with 200 prepared evangelists. Wouldn’t that be great? I can afford to be optimistic, because I have already received a good response from people about the classes. Also, it is quite likely that I will be able to film each class. I am still working on the details about that. Another plus is that this is where I spent my energies when I did my doctoral project/thesis at ACU. I learned a lot, and I expect that it will pay off handsomely.
Another area that we will have to work on is preparing the congregations to receive new people. Generally speaking, people will be gone if they cannot plug in within six months. One source says six weeks, but I think people will cut you some slack on this. This is a problem for us, because a lot of people are comfortable with their churches being like they are. Bringing in new people can often upset the cart.
So that this will be successful, we will need your prayers. Spend 2005 praying for the success of this effort. We need lots of workers. We need lots of preparation. We need lots of people to respond. We also need the television stations to allow us to show the program. Just so that you are aware of the situation, we already enjoy a good reputation. Marlene called several of the stations. One lady remembered our program and put us in contact with one station, who has since been after us, purely on the recommendation of this one woman. The opportunity is here.
During December, I gave a seminar to two congregations in Ecuador. The seminar was on Worship. I did not try to instruct on what worship is, since they all were members of the church. Rather I tried to focus on why we worship. In my mind, when we understand the reason why we do things the way we do them, we grow spiritually. For example, all members of the church know that we prefer a capella music, but do they know why? Do they know why God prefers it? Answering those questions helps us spiritually. In the seminar, I tried to stimulate the congregations. I also preached one of my favorite sermons from Eph. 4:17-20, talking about the "entendimiento entenebricido," the darkened understanding. Overall, the seminars went well. Another advantage of the trip is that I was able to work more with Henry Rosero. I hope to continue helping him be a better preacher.
When I returned to Santiago, it was a few days before Christmas. Several of the ladies prepared gifts for the children in Población Santiago, where we feed the children. You can see a picture of Lisa and Marlene preparing gifts for the kids here. http://harry1976.blogspot.com .
In January, Pedro and I went to visit a contact, Reinaldo, in the city of Valdivia. On the trip down, we visited in Chillan with a couple that had been recently baptized. We had some good Bible studies with this couple. I later had them in my house for grilled salmon during Roberto Miranda’s conferences.
After Chillan, Pedro and I drove down to Valdivia for our meeting with Reinaldo. This is the first time that we were able to visit him. It was also my first visit to Valdivia. Our studies went well with Reinaldo, although he later confessed to a certain amount of trepidation, since we were only known to him through the mail. He and his wife relaxed considerably though, after we had our studies. They admitted that they had a lot to learn. We felt like we were off to a good start with this couple, although only time will tell.
It appears that being a missionary is an impediment to losing weight. While we were in Valdivia, we visited the chocolate factory there. I tried some, and it was the best chocolate I have eaten in my life. I bought a box for several people, the secretaries, etc. On the day that we were to return to Santiago, I went to the pier and bought several pounds of salmon. We had grilled salmon for the next two weeks. I should point out that the price at the pier is much cheaper than what salmon costs in Santiago.
Buying the salmon was a good decision, because we used it to entertain several people for the next two weeks. Most of you do not realize this, but I am a chef when it comes to grilling salmon. I had several people beg for an invitation when they heard I was grilling it. Let me explain the circumstances for entertaining people during this time.
Roberto Miranda and two others came down to Santiago to give a seminar in Santiago. During that time, we had Bible studies every morning and every evening. Pictures are at the site I mentioned earlier. I invited the Americans to my house for lunch, where we had grilled salmon. Another day, I invited the Christians from Chillan. I also invited several of the ministers over. Lunch was great, but the seminars were better. The participation was outstanding. Roberto gave some good messages. One boy, Alvaro, who is about ten years old, listened to Roberto speaking about being a servant, and decided he would serve. He wound up serving in a lot of ways.
I am running out of space. God bless you, and thank you for your support.
Harry R. Hamilton

2005-02-03T08:56:00.000-03:00

We are having lunch in Viña del Mar, during the visit with Roberto Miranda, who preached a conference in Población Santiago.

2005-01-17T15:40:00.000-03:00

Here Lisa and Marlene prepare some gifts for the children that participate in the Children's program.

2005-01-11T17:30:00.000-03:00

Here I am with Rolando Suazo in the Valle del Elqui.

I found some time to write

2004-12-05T21:34:00.000-03:00

It has been a while since I have been able to sit down and write out anything. Bear with me. I am sure that this will work out fine as I get it going.

Pedro Sanchez and I went up to Vicuña this last week end. We visited Rolando Suazo, who was baptized this last month. We had a good time, even though our stay was short. Rolando had his results back from the doctor, and they were good for his pancreas, meaning that he was not getting worse. Whether he can get better or not I do not know. But we continue to pray for him.

His wife, who is a devout Catholic and has expressed on more than one occasion that she wants nothing to do with any Bible study, visited with us for a while during our short stay. I actually enjoyed her company.

Rolando took us up into the Valle de Elqui where he has a parcela. This is a nice little country house, but not in the sense of what Americans would think of. It is nothing fancy, but comfortable, small with a garden that Rolando has filled with every kind of fruit tree known to man. It is a regular garden of Eden. His house is just outside the village of Monte Negro which is where the Nobel Prize winner for Literature Gabriela Mistral is from. Chile has two Nobel prize winners in Literature, the other is Pablo Neruda. For those of you who are interested, I have read a little bit of both, but not much. I prefer other reading. I have read quite a bit of another Chilean poet that I know, but only because he obligated me to do it. He actually stood over me and made me read it, so I took my medicine and hurried it as quickly as I could. This is the price you pay for being a missionary.

Back to Rolando. He was an officer in the Caribineros de Chile, eventually reaching major, which is pretty good in the Chilean services, largely because they are small, and there is not much room for advancement. A lot of these guys like me pretty much, since I was in the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M University. Probably the most impressive thing about this is that in his neck of the woods, he knows everybody.

The Valle de Elqui is a pretty famous valley in Chile. Apart from being the home of Gabriela Mistral, it is also a famous agricultural producing region, with lots of avocado trees and vineyards. There are more vineyards than anything else. An interesting note is that the producers are beginning to plant grapevines and avocado trees on the sides of the mountains that form the walls of the valley. They are doing this at some pretty incredible slopes. I personally do not know how they plan to harvest off the side of the mountains. The grapes from this particular valley are not used as much in wines as they are in pisco and pisco sour.

Today in Santiago

2004-11-19T23:05:00.000-03:00

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.

Report

2004-11-18T16:51:00.000-03:00

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

On a more serious note.

2004-11-13T23:07:00.000-03:00

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.

Non Report Stuff, that is to say, stuff I would never put in my report.

2004-11-13T22:36:00.000-03:00

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.

Prayer requests

2004-11-13T22:25:00.000-03:00

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.