Therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.
The above verses from Philippians 2:1-2 have a special meaning for us this month, mainly because of what is possible when we partner with other Christians that we are united with in Christ, and all of us are of one mind and love and spirit. We experienced all of the above this U.S. summer in the four camps for children carried out by three supporting churches and a fourth group of camps in Texas. What if this kind of “divine synergy” between Christians were common throughout the whole world? We are SO GRATEFUL entering September for our partnership with you. The like-mindedness mentioned in Paul’s letter to the Philippian Church is woven into each of this month’s prayer points.
Speaking of gratitude, thank you Lord for your response to our two special prayer requests from last month. Cesar, Camila, & baby boy Santiago are all much better health-wise and Rachel Gallardo continues to make steady progress in re-covering her motor skills and speech after her surgery and her Chilean doctors are working to eliminate all remaining blood clots. Thank you for your continuing prayers for Rachel.
SEPTEMBER PRAYER POINTS
FIRSTLY, as a result of our U.S. trip together with Renata, we now have a better way to build a good approach to our own summer camps in Chile. Please pray for our camp leadership team that includes Renata and her sister Viky as we work together in looking at every facet of our approach to children’s camps. Our planning starts this first week of September. One of the key ingredients to the camps in Texas was their intensive training of their camp counselors and others in direct contact with the children. One love, one spirit, and of one mind was so evident throughout.
A special blessing resulting from our visits to camps near Tyler, Texas, was our introduction to “Camp in the City”. It was children’s church camp, held in schools or churches, but mobile in nature. They moved their camp equipment in a trailer to different churches and other settings in the city, and did “camp.” The Camp in the City staff arrived several days beforehand with their own nucleus counselor team to train older youth from that particular church to be counselors with them in the camp. As an extra blessing the children that attended the camp would still have those older youth with them afterwards. This type of camp will also work in Santiago. Please pray for this new future dimension of our camps.
SECONDLY, we received a call from our dentist’s assistant yesterday to confirm Jack’s up-coming appointment. She asked if we were still looking for land for our camps and retreat center and we responded, “YES!” A man in her church has land in the town next to where we have been doing our own camps in middle Chile and it is located on a river. He and his wife had purchased the land to develop a Christian camp for children and retreat center, but she subsequently died and he just doesn’t have the heart to do it himself. We will be down in that part of Chile this month to meet him, see the property, and hopefully talk purchase terms. It’s pretty incredible how God works, as he links together “like-minded Christians having the same love and being one in spirit”! Thank you for helping pray this opportunity forward!
THIRDLY, at the very end of August Jack attended the annual retreat for Chilean Christian Church/Church of Christ pastors (and gringo missionaries 😊). The theme verse for the retreat was 2 Timothy 2:2, where Paul reminds Timothy of the importance to equipping others to teach and carry on the work. The weekend truly was a “one in spirit and of one mind” time in the Lord. Please join us in giving God praise and in praying that this kind of unity between the pastors would grow and be strong.
Praising, praying, and fasting, to our perfectly joined and deeply loving Three-in-One God,
In his love and unity,
Chile Mission 