Amundson Anthem Prayer Letter Feb. 2010

Dear Friends and Supporters,

As I write this letter it is February 18, 2010, exactly one year from the date we landed to begin our service here in Chile. It has been an incredible year of praises, adjustments, learning, and growth. We PRAISE God for the great year that we have had. We have come to love our teammates here in Chile with ABWE, and more importantly we love the Chileans with which God has allowed us to meet and work with in the church. God is doing some great things here in Chile and we are more than privileged to be able to work with such a great team of co-workers (both missionaries and nationals).

This past year has flown by so rapidly, even the people tonight in prayer meeting at “Good News Baptist” said they could hardly believe it has been a year since we arrived. It has certainly been a great year as we have been able to be more than involved in our church from preaching and teaching adult Sunday school, to Heather teaching the teenage girls, leading ladies Bible Study, and being the director of kids Sunday school and junior church. I have also been able to speak in chapel at SCA (Santiago Christian Academy) and teach a self-study class, while Heather has taught two different classes now and continues to home-school our children. This schedule has been difficult at times, and both of us have felt like we were drowning various weeks, but God has given us the energy and coordination to survive . . . thus far!!

The past two months here in Chile have been vacation months so the attendance at our church has been down, but we have also had some new visitors at the same time. Please be praying for us as we continue to seek to grow both spiritually and numerically.

I have been really impressed this past year by our national pastor, Pastor Contreras, as he continues to preach and lead our church. The man has endless energy as he leads both our church and also the youth ministry “JUBAM.” The rough translation would be “Baptist Youth Missionaries.” In the very basic form the youth groups of roughly 5 churches get together once a month for mutual fellowship, and through this group two mission trips have developed this past year. The youth are currently on their second week long missionary trip this summer to a church down in southern Chile. While Pastor has been gone our co-worker, Mark Rubin preached last week, and this coming weekend I will be preaching (21-Feb). Tonight, during prayer meeting, one of the youth from our church (who did not go on the trip south) gave the devotional and will be starting in the ABWE Seminary in two weeks. His name is Pablo and he is a great kid with a desire to be a pastor in the future – please pray for him.

Last Saturday (13-Feb) we had movie night at our church and Heather and I invited just about every family on our street. Only one lady came, our neighbor Ines, and her two kids (Pablo & Almendra). Before the movie started (we watched Fireproof), Ines and I had a good conversation about her spiritual past. She grew up Catholic, and then during college she had a friend who was a Mormon pastor with whom she had many conversations. Later she attended an evangelical church for a little while, and now she is studying Buddhism and other eastern religions. She is a sweet lady who is obviously seeking spiritually. Please pray that Heather and I would continue to grow our friendship with her, and her husband Nelson, and that we would have many opportunities to continue to plant God’s truth in her life. Caleb & Hannah in many ways are our best missionaries to their family as they are constantly playing with Pablo & Almendra. Pray that their behavior and actions while playing with their kids would open up more doors to share the gospel.

As we start year number two here in Chile tomorrow morning, please be praying that God would continue to lead us. We have been blessed over and above our wildest expectations, but we are not unaware that Satan is always looking for ways to destroy our testimony, marriage, family, and to destroy the church in which we work. Please pray for us that we would be effective in the sharing of the gospel, that our marriage would remain strong, and that we would be able to prioritize our lives amongst the many different possibilities of ministry here in Chile.

In the short-term please be praying for Santiago Christian Academy as we are short teachers for the semester starting next week, as well as having a real need for teachers for next school year starting in August 2010. If you are at all interested in coming down to teach, please contact us as soon as possible—we have room for you!!! Pray for Heather as she teaches Biology this coming semester, and as we work with our teammates Mark & Jennifer Rubin who just returned from furlough ministry. Please also be praying for the Druckenmiller family as they have recently finished language school and will be the newest ABWE missionaries to the field here, arriving in mid-March. They have a heart to go to southern Chile and work with the Mapuche Indian tribes. Please also be praying for the Schneider family as they finish language school in Costa Rica and are praying to be here in July, they will both be teaching in the ABWE Seminary here in Santiago preparing the next generation of pastors and church leaders.

Thank you for your incredible support, love, and prayers this past year. We look forward to sharing with all the great things that God will do in the years to come.

Sincerely,
Doug, Heather, Caleb & Hannah

Weather Update: In early February—just for the fun of it—I placed my thermostat in the direct sun around 1:30 in the afternoon. After just a few minutes the temperature read 56 centigrade or about 133 degrees Fahrenheit!! Thank goodness my office was a cool 86 degrees!!

I was also told this month that roughly 200,000 Chileans die each year from skin cancer.

Political update: In January Chile had their presidential elections and a candidate from the “right” won the election. This is a big deal because historically the “right” has always been associated with the government dictatorship of General Pinochet and any presidential candidate with this group hasn’t won an election for nearly 30 years.