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.
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.
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