“JOY WITH PURPOSE: Reconciled & Renewed Life”
Either way, Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them. –2 Cor. 5:14-15 NLT In verses 16 through 21 Paul goes on to identify us all as “new creations and as Christ’s ambassadors.
The above verses taken from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is a perfect way to enter April and commemorate and give REAL thanks for Jesus’ once-for-all time sacrifice of himself for all who believe in him to restore our relationship with God! He then conquered eternal death for us all with his resurrection back to life three days later. What an incredible achievement on both counts, and also what an incredible reason to give our lives back to him that he would reach and change others through us. Paul’s words thus resonate with our chief calling and purpose in this world.
In our case, God was already preparing us to be missionaries before we knew Jesus as Lord through a variety of experiences, people, and friendships and, thus, we give him thanks for these past 31 years of extending Jesus in Chile together with our Misión Chile Team. All of you who support Chile Mission in the States with your prayers and contributions and mission trips are Chile Teammates as well, and we are SUPER GRATEFUL!! Sharing our relationship with Jesus in the best way possible will always be the bottom-line calling of Misión Chile!!
—Speaking of mission trips, the 11-member team of First Christian Church of Wilmington have arrived! They’ll be here eight days, dividing their time between Santiago and the camp property in middle Chile. Their team t-shirts really “hit the nail on the head” for ALL CHURCHES, don’t you think?! On Sunday, their first full day here when they sang “Lord we lift your name on High” in the Chilean church we attended. They also didn’t waste any time helping on the camp property when we arrived. Thank you for praying for them and their trip!!
—Thank you for praying with us for some time for the best type of additional help to get projected buildings constructed on the camp property. We and Abraham are convinced that we will need outside competent help to be contracted to build our first building, a 2-story metal maintenance/storage/workshop structure with an apartment on the second floor. Unfortunately, none of us have any experience in building metal buildings. SOOOO–Abraham has been making contacts these past several months to find such a company without result. In Chile it is not nearly as possible as in the United States to find reasonably-priced, proven and competent construction companies. Two weeks ago Abraham contacted an acquaintance working in the electric company who, in turn, gave him a good reference on a construction company that had built several metal buildings for them.
Abraham and Jack met with that construction company owner two weeks ago at one of the structures that his company had built and he now has the plans for our planned 2-story metal building and will be getting back to us with a projected total cost in these next couple weeks after his engineer/architect looks at them. His company’s specialty is the construction of metal buildings and structures. Please join us in praying for this significant step forward!! And at a price we can afford!!
—Abraham’s neighbor Raquel is back in the hospital in her battle against liver cancer, and it appears that she is not eating and declining quickly. We continue to pray for both her and her family in this tough time and we are grateful that they are a close family. Abraham and Catalina are also close to the family and have shared Jesus and have prayed with them several times. The whole family has recently been regularly attending the church that Abraham and Catalina attend.
In Santiago
—Teresa, the wife of Carlos, one of our long-time maintenance workers at our Santiago site, has recovered from her surgery to remove her gall bladder. TYL!! and thank you for praying for her! She does continue to have doctor appointments for certain heart irregularities.
—Our Santiago site is currently hosting Marta and her daughter for a couple weeks. She came to Santiago for surgery to remove a tumor from her pituitary gland (Cushing’s syndrome) and is now staying at our ministry site with her daughter waiting to be released to return home. Her situation is very similar to that of Catalina’s mother Julia, who also had successful surgery several months ago. Both women were diagnosed with Cushing’s Syndrome. Julia has almost fully recovered from the effects of the syndrome. Like with Julia, we appreciate your prayers for Marta.
–Last month we were able to send you a photo of Nallely and her brother Jorshua, taken when Jorshua came with her to visit Janine here at our Santiago site. Please reread our March letter to reconnect with their visit.
One week ago, Juan, another of our past children came to visit. We called him Juanito, because he had just turned 7years old when Janine and Fabiola (a psychologist we hired to work full time with the children who came to live here) went to find Juan—the half-brother of Alberto, who already was living in our children’s residence. How cool that the brothers could live together! We are planning on having a get-together with several of the children this month.
Juan is now 20-years-old, is stable as a young person and has a good job working for an office supply company. When he saves enough money he would like to pursue studies in a university, and he’s even a ping pong champion. J Unfortunately, as with many of the other children, he has no good adult counsel. His mother has mental problems and his dad is an alcoholic. Our hearts break for all of the children with no good guidance for helping them with their futures. In addition, Juan’s and Alberto’s extended family is not healthy for them. We plan on helping him further in different ways and Fabiola wants to work with him “virtually” using the internet. During his visit Janine was able to fill in a lot of his background and time with us in answering many questions he had. As you can see from the photo, he’s as cute as a button, and we, along with Fabiola, hope to again be a good influence in his life. Thank you for joining us in praying for him!
We wish you an extra-special JESUS Easter!! Hard to believe we are already in April!!
Rejoicing, praying, and giving thanks to our “Reconciled, Renewed Life” One, True God,
Chile Mission 