Amundson Anthem September 2010

Dear Friends and Family,

As I sit down to write this letter I can hardly believe two months have passed since our last update. I’ve always hear the time goes faster the older you get, but I don’t think we are THAT old yet!! Nonetheless we are thankful for all that God has been doing down here in Chile. So many things have happened the last two months so we will do our best to update you on all that has happened.

On the church ministry side we continue to praise God for all that he is doing at Good News Baptist. We continue to see growth both spiritually and numerically and we pray that God continues to work. The ladies took a small break from meeting due to the very cold winter months and other activities, but have restarted their meetings this past month. Heather continues to lead the ladies but has also been busy working with pastor to transition some of the other ladies into this role. Heather also received a “facebook” surprise as one of the young teenage ladies from our church posted a very touching and public blog about what Heather has meant to her this past year. We praise God for the fruit in this girl’s life!!
I have been busy teaching a series on Philippians for the past two months, and hope to finish this series up during the month of September. I was also involved in planning another men’s outing into a local canyon outside of Santiago. These trips have been good to strengthen the relationships between the young men and older men in our church. We also have had several families visiting our church the past few weeks. About four weeks ago one single man visited the church, and the following week his entire family (grandfather, parents, and siblings) all visited. The family lives very close to the church and is actively searching for a new church home. This past week the entire family returned again, and we also had two other visitors, one of whom lives very close to the church. This has been a huge prayer request for the church, as the majority of the members do not live in the same community as the church, and we really want to be reaching the neighborhood where the church is located.

We have also begun, and almost finished, the construction project at our church to replace the roof over one area of the church. The roof was in terrible condition and the room badly needed repair, so we are turning this room into a multi-purpose / youth room. With the growth of the church this has been desperately needed as we currently do not have sufficient classroom space for the church. Thank you so much Washington Heights Baptist for your help in this project!!

Outside of the specific church ministries we have also been very busy with a litany of other events. The most important event was the celebration of our 13th wedding anniversary (August 9th)!! I praise God for Heather as she has been an incredible friend, wife, and loving mother for our kids!! Heather was also busy planning and coordinating an ABWE ladies retreat in which 19 ladies (including 2 ladies from Argentina) had a weekend away and Lynne Trout encouraged and challenged the ladies from God’s word.

I have also been “blessed” with some additional responsibilities with ABWE, as I am now treasurer, property manager, and asst. legal representative for ABWE - Chile. In the middle of this we have also completed all of our adoption appointments with “Fundación mi Casa” and now we are waiting to know if God will allow us to adopt here in Chile. We also welcomed another ABWE family, Steve & Leslie Schneider, with their daughter, Stephanie, to the field.

We want to give you an update on our financial situation as we have mentioned in the last couple prayer letters that we have been lacking monthly funds. Currently our monthly support is at 85.6% of full support, which means we lack $873 dollars each month. Several churches have given one time amounts for which we are so deeply grateful, but we continue to lack monthly support. This past week has been a good week as we have been able to talk with our South American field administrator, and as a field team, make some decisions regarding overlapping furlough issues in the coming 2 years. As such due to the coordination of furlough responsibilities and our support issue, we are planning to return to the states for furlough in mid to late July 2011. This is about 6 months earlier than normal, but allows us to address our support needs, and allows us to return, Lord willing, in June 2012 to assume financial and legal responsibilities before other families return to the states in mid 2012.

We praise God for the incredible team that we have here in Chile, and for you as prayer and financial supporters who are so vital to our ministry.

Gas Affects Update

PRAISE THE LORD!!! You all have been praying!!! I can tell because our pastor switched to a different gas company. This company uses less extra stuff in their gas tanks and therefore, the gas doesn't affect my eyes!! Praise the LORD!! Yesterday I got to worship the Lord on 3 different occasions in the church and I get to go back again on Thursday nights!!! YAHOOO!!

Just how cold is it down here??

Hot pads, or hot mits, aren't they for the heat??? Well Doug chose to use one so that his hand wouldn't get too cold touching his cereal bowl. Just one of the ways to "beat the cold" while many of you in the US are trying to "beat the heat!"

How can....

How can...
Such a "little" thing cause SOOO MUCH TROUBLE?!?!?!

Here in Chile, there is no such thing as insolation! Yeah the people are VERY smart, the hospitals are top notch, and we have all the modern conveniences that many in the US have, but when it comes to insolation, it just isn't something that really exsists down here.

When I say this you may think, no big deal, just use your central heat, right? Well, that is almost non-existant here too! So, in order to stay warm in the winter here, people have individual stoves around the house, church, store, or whatever structure to heat the area immediately around the stove. This is usually done with natural gas. Below is an example of one of these stoves. We purchased this one shortly after getting here last year.

So, here's my problem. When I'm in a room with the gas being used, my eyes start to HURT!! And I mean HURT! Then they water a little bit, but not too much. I'm fine here at home because we have a kerosene heater in the living area and of course the kitchen stove. However, when I'm out, especially at church, my eyes BURN! So, what do I do? Please pray that God would remove this reaction so that I can once again participate full time in the ministry at Good News Baptist Church!

June 2010 Praise Letter

Dear Friends and Family,

As I am sure you have heard from many other missionaries, the World Cup is amongst us. Everywhere we go here in Chile there are banners, flags, horns blaring, and groups of people screaming “Chi-Chi-Chi, le, le, le – VIVA CHILE!!!” It is an exciting time to live outside the U.S. and experience the insane fans of South America rooting for their team. That being said – the US is advancing to the second round, so we have our own little badge of pride as well!!

We are now in the depths of the cold and rainy winter months here in Santiago. We often see our breath in the house in the morning and wear four to five layers of clothing around the house and the office, and pray for warmer weather. Many people from the church and school have been fighting colds, the streets have been flooded due to the rains, and it just feels generally miserable. On the flip side Doug is very happy as the Andean mountains above our house have received over three feet of snow this past week – it is incredibly beautiful!!

However, no matter how bad we think it is here, the people still without houses in Concepcion, the epicenter of the earthquake in Feb, have it MUCH worse. Doug and another ABWE missionary (Scott Russell) had the privilege to visit the city at the epicenter of the earthquake this past week. ABWE has been working with a national pastor, Esteban Maldonado, in a small town of Chiguayante, which is just south of Concepcion. ABWE has been working with Esteban to restart a church (Missionary Baptist) that had almost completely died two years ago, and we praise God for the fruit we have seen in this church. Scott, as the leader of ABWE Chile, preached in two different churches while we were there, and we, along with several other members of Esteban’s church, got to watch Chile play in one of it’s world cup matches.
ABWE has been working with this church to help fix some post-quake damage, and also to reach out to the many people who have lost their homes in this area. Many of our ABWE churches (our church included – “Good News Baptist”) have been involved in taking food, clothes, jackets, etc. to this church to distribute to those in need. God had been working, and people are responding to God’s salvation message. In the past 3 weeks three more people have come to know Christ through this little, but growing, church in Chiguayante!!

The depressing part is that many people now live in “mediaguas” (or government shelter shacks being the better description) in large camps around the city. The majority of these people have no running water or toilets in their “house’, and the rain in this part of Chile is intense, cold, and non-stop. Imagine walking 5 minutes to the nearest outhouse in the blowing rain, the cold, and in the middle of the night! Many of these shacks are wrapped in plastic to keep out the rain, but this prohibits any air circulation so the germs never leave the house and make the people even sicker. Please, please continue to be in prayer for these people, and that we as ABWE would continue to have wisdom in how best to help the local churches meet the many needs in this part of Chile.

In our own church things continue to be going well, although it seems that due to the weather our attendance hasn’t moved much. Several of our older ladies have struggled with the cold, and one faithful lady, Leticia, had fallen and is still recuperating. That being said Heather has had some good meetings with the ladies, and Doug led the men of our church along with some men from another local church, out for a “leisurely” climb up part of the mountains that border Santiago. Doug was really hoping our neighbor, Nelson would come, as he said he was very interested, but unfortunately Nelson never came. Keep praying for Nelson and his (soon to be) wife Ines!!

You may remember from our last prayer letter that a couple (Juan Carlos & Nancy) had disappeared from our church after talking with them about getting married. Well on June 18th, we had the honor to go to their home for their official civic wedding!! We praise God for their response to God’s word, and look forward to them being back in the church with their son, Nicolas, and their very soon to be born baby boy!!

Caleb has started practicing with the worship team at our church as he now plays the triangle and chimes. This has allowed Daniel, one of the faithful men we’ve mentioned before, to play the bongos. We have really enjoyed watching Caleb grow into a young man and love this opportunity for Caleb to spread his ministry wings. He has also started guitar lessons with pastor’s son Alejandro. We continue to see great things happening. Unfortunately our teammates, Mark & Jen Rubin, will be leaving the church in the next two months to go help with another church that has greater needs. Please be praying for them in their new ministry, and for us as we will dearly miss their help, insight, and teaching.

Continue to pray for us regarding our financial situation. We received word of another church that has cancelled support of all their missionaries this past month so we are now lacking $831 of our required monthly support. Several churches has responded to our last prayer letter with some additional one-time donations for which we are VERY thankful. Please continue to pray that God will meet the needs we have.

Please also be in prayer as in the next couple months several ABWE missionaries will be starting new ministries or churches here in Santiago, and Steve & Leslie Schneider, our newest ABWE Chile missionaries, will be arriving on July 19th!! SCA will finish its school year on July 2nd so hopefully Heather will be able to refocus on ladies ministry and personal discipleship again, and Doug will be starting his Sunday school series on Philippians. Doug has also started a 28 week class on Biblical Counseling (all in Spanish) each Tuesday night. It takes Doug roughly 1.5 hours by metro to go to class, 2 hours of class, and then another 1.5 hours to get back – so please pray for safety, comprehension, and the family while he is gone at night.

Thank you so much for your prayers and sacrificial giving.

Doug & Heather

On the family front, the kids are doing well. Both Hannah and Caleb are
excelling at their Bible doctrines Sunday school class, (totally in Spanish) and Caleb loves the music ministry. We also have some adoption news to share. Many of you know that we’ve wanted to adopt for some time, well God is
opening that door. For more on this and the history of our journey please visit Heather’s adoption blog.

Our first Chilean Wedding

So, as we've asked you to pray for Juan Carlos and Nancy to get married, God has been answering your prayers!!! Last Friday night, after a LONG drive through the rain, in the dark, with a VERY FOGGED up windowshield, we made the trip to their home to witness their civil wedding. Here are just a few of the pictures of the night.

From left to right - 1. Our pastor who is one brother of the bride and stood up as her witness,

2. the bride Nancy who is due within the next 2 weeks with the couple's 2nd child,

3. the groom Juan Carlos and father to both of Nancy's children,

and 4. Juan Carlos' witness who is a childhood friend and is married to Juan Carlos' sister

The judge who married the couple in less than 15 minutes!

Nancy signing the marriage "contract" with 6 year old son looking on

The exchange of rings
The dinner afterward to celebrate was held out on their patio with 4 round tables to squeeze in all 35 or so people.

We truly were blessed to be invited to this BEAUTIFUL event. The couple plans to have a church wedding sometime this coming summer, which for us in South America means December through March. I can't wait to be a part of that ceremony, but in the mean time, God allowed me to visit one of the Christian bookstores today and I found a bunch of GREAT Bible study books on marriage. Since we will be counseling the newly weds and newly Christians, it was certainly NO ACCIDENT that God led me to the bookstore today.

Thank you for praying for Juan Carlos and Nancy! Please don't stop praying for them and for us, as we guide them.

God is Working

IN SPITE OF US! I know we all have those days, when we don´t feel even useful to scrub the floors or clean the bathrooms, but it is those days when God can use us the most.

In our last prayer letter, we wrote about 2 situations special to our hearts. We had asked people to pray for a young widow and her 2 sons. Her name is Cecilia. She grew up in the church, so lots of the people in the church have known her for a LONG time, but all of them say that they´ve never seen any change in her. When she came to the church, I noticed that she has a VERY STRONG personality, and I wasn´t sure what I would do with her in ladies´ meetings. Well, God is working. A week ago Saturday, during and after ladies´ meeting I had the chance to lovingly confront Cecilia. Since I´m new, I could actually question her salvation and begin to work with her. This Saturday at 11:00 am I´m taking her out for coffee. I´m excited, but hesitant. Please pray that she will be responsive. Pray that I WILL LISTEN TO THE HOLY SPIRIT as HE PROMPS MY WORDS!! I want to hear her testimony and just listen and then as God allows, build into her life.

The second special situation we asked you to pray for was for a couple that has their second child on the way, are living together, and the man was saved in the last 8 months. We have been praying that they will stop living in sin, and get married. WE ARE SOO SOOO SOOOOO EXCITED to tell you that they will be getting married THIS FRIDAY!!! We are praising God for HIS GUIDANCE and for allowing us to advise them in making this decision. Please pray for us, as now pastor has asked us mentor them as a couple. Because the woman is pastor´s sister, it would be difficult for him to counsel them.

GOD IS GOOD and we are humbled and remember that it truly is ONLY GOD who can change hearts and lives!!!