“ALL GLORY TO GOD”

²⁰ Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. ²¹ Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.  –Eph. 3:20,21

There are many instances in the gospels where Jesus refers to things happening (including his own words and actions) to the glory of his Father.  What would give God more glory than to have one more child, youth, or adult in real relationship with him through his son Jesus??!!  As the above verses say, we must remember that we DO have the mighty power of God’s Holy Spirit at work within and through us and also that we ARE Jesus’ body, the Church.  THANK YOU, churches and individuals, for helping send us as missionaries to countries including Chile and THANK YOU for continuing to pray for us and for God’s working here to HIS glory!!  It’s a matter of life or death for every person!

THE CAMP LAND

Our Chile summer (Dec. 21 to March 21 🙂 has been hot and dry.  Much like California, this means the much higher possibility of forest fires in areas surrounded by woods and grassland, such as the area our land is located in.  The very end of January and most of February have seen many forest and grasslands burned and devastated by fire.  Much of our surrounding area was included, with five families losing their homes and many more losing their other outer buildings and feed for their animals, along with many, many acres of trees and land lost in general.  In our case, we lost the upper third of our land to fire, and thank you Lord this did not include the bottom two-thirds of our property being developed into the camp, which includes Abraham’s and Catalina’s home!  All of the above hit our specific area on February 3^rd, the same day that Jack left in bus back to Santiago earlier that morning.

Abraham & family, along with the group of 20 young people from the church in Santiago that were sent to help us on our land for a week, all had to evacuate to the nearest town 30 minutes away for one night.  Abraham then went home to our land and he and our closest neighbors kept close track of the nearest fires, while at the same time began helping others clean up.  Pictured above, the very next week three men from the same Santiago church returned to help Abraham with area needs. TYL!! that the fires have since left our area entirely and have ceased to be a wide spread threat in that part of the country. Our property measures a bit more than 300 yards by 1200 yards, with a road dividing it near the middle.  The pine plantation to the east of us with about 1,000 acres totally burned, but the eucalyptus plantation to the west did not burn at all.

During that same time, the six young women (mentioned in last month’s letter) participating in the six-month-long “Ultra” mission program based in Columbia arrived to Santiago to help for eight full days.  Janine, in the meantime was still stuck in the public hospital for 10 days with her arm in a cast awaiting surgery, which never happened.  We’ll update her story later in this letter.  The girls helped with several tasks here on our Santiago mission site for 4 days, and then they and Jack went south for another 4 full days to the camp property to help Abraham with those in need.  Here below is a photo of the women with the newly liberated Janine right before the women returned to Columbia and also a photo of them helping to gather materials to rebuild the burned down storehouse and corral of Abraham’s closest neighbor Luís.  It was so good to help him, as he and Abraham are extremely good neighbors for each other!

Another specific need for prayer this month has to do with Rodolfo, with whom we have been involved in purchasing our excavator last month.  His 3-year-old son Dylan contracted a type of virus in February and although he is slowly improving he lost his ability to walk for a time.  Rodolfo and his live-in partner & mother of Dylan are quite concerned and we have been praying for their family.  At the same time, Rodolfo is not returning Abraham’s calls or messages.  We both are traveling to the camp land this Wednesday, March 1^st to hopefully also meet with Rodolfo, together with Abraham.  We have agreed with him that we can employ him fulltime to maintain and operate the excavator, which would be a financial blessing for his family as well. Please pray with us for all of these prayer points mentioned, giving God thanks for his touch and presence in it all. 

THE WORK IN SANTIAGO

—We had another very productive zoom video call with the lawyers associated with ProBono.  They are concentrating first on:

• Registering our Fundación Misión Chile statutes with the Chilean national government.
• Obtaining our Certificate to receive donations from within and from outside of Chile.
• Facilitating the naming of two new directors for our board.

Now that the summer month of February is over, almost all lawyers and doctors are back to work.  Thank you for continuing to pray with us about these legal steps.

—Our Santiago Casa de Acogida  (Refuge House) for men and women (mostly parents of sick children) has seen several changes in guests in February.

• Dina was released by her hip replacement doctor to go home—after 2 months of waiting for the replacement part to arrive and 40 days of post-surgery.
• 2-year-old Roberto was released to a hospital near his home to continue the treatment of his burns.
• The mother of a child being evaluated for muscular dystrophy was with us for one week.
• Three persons from northern-most Arica, Chile were here for two days with one companion each to be evaluated for and scheduled for stomach by-pass surgery. They are due back in May.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us about the current condition of children that are no longer in Santiago hospitals.  In all cases of those staying here, our team looks for opportunities to pray with and talk with our guests even after they have returned home.

—One special blessing here in Santiago was to get back together with Nallely, who was living here on our mission site together with her brother Jorshua (yes it’s spelled right) with seven other wards of the State children for over a year, ending in 2013.  Then she was 12-years-old and now she’s 22.  Her training is in being a chef and she is without work at the present time.  She also lives with her boyfriend’s family.  It was good to encourage her and spend time together.  Here’s a picture of all of us together for lunch. She’s on the left between Carolina and Jack.  We still pray for the circumstances and relationship with God of all nine of the children that spent time with us in 2012 and 2013.

Janine is also reviewing reports, good record-keeping technics, and inventory control with Carolina.  It’s so important to end up with workable solutions Carolina will be willing and able to use.  Carolina will also continue to contact and meet with Santiago area hospital social workers to make sure that they know about our Casa de Acogida .

JANINE’S WRIST  Regarding her mending broken left wrist, Janine is in position to move into final decisions that she will be making in the States with her doctor in California.  In mid-February she was released from the public hospital after her 10-day stay with no progress toward the surgery they suggested.  She knows God had a reason for her stay—definitely an interesting time interacting with other patients and staff!  They finally released her to be at home to await her surgery, which the surgeon promised would be on February 10^th at the latest.  Needless to say, no surgery was scheduled and it became a continual waiting game.  At home in the meantime she made an appointment at a private clinic she’s used in the past and they took another x-ray and gave her a new shorter, less heavy cast and recommended not having surgery at this time.  She now will get that cast removed on March 13^th, one day before we fly to California.  Supposedly also, casts aren’t allowed on international flights to prevent people from hiding drugs inside of them. 🙂

Praising, praying, fasting and GIVING ALL GLORY to OUR ONE, TRUE GOD,

Jack & Janine