Report from Santiago for June 2011

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

Report December 2010 and January 2011

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

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

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

The Baptism of Ivan

Report for September and October, 2009

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

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

Here is a photo from my youth.

Report from Chile

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.

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

Baprisms in Curico.

Several of the Brothers studying the Bible

Abby is suffering a little bit here.

The Church in Villa Los Andes Del Sur

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

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?

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

I hope you enjoy this video.