“New Every Morning”
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.
They are NEW EVERY MORNING; GREAT IS YOUR FAITHFULNESS. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore, I will wait for him.” –Lamentations 3: 22-24
There are many references in the Bible to both how God/Jesus makes all things new and also how our own decision to die to our old person (through baptism) through Jesus’ crucifixion and raise up our new person as he was raised from the dead makes us a “NEW CREATION” with a new purpose in life. Both are equally important as we all enter 2025!
The prophet Jeremiah (also referred to as the “Weeping Prophet”) was charged by God to bring warnings to the kings of the Southern Kingdom of Judah. In fulfilling that charge he experienced countless hardships, including being thrown into a deep well and having a yoke put around his neck. The O.T. book of Lamentations recounts his constant laments, but even more God’s deep lament for the disobedience and fall of his Chosen People of Judah. As we read above in chapter 3, in spite of it all Jeremiah always looked to the Lord. With God the dawn always follows the dark night.
We and our Chile Mission team wish you all a “God making new every morning” 2025!! There are so many, many victories to celebrate and at the same time, God’s great love and compassion carry us all through so many challenges and hard circumstances to live through and recover from. Our mutual prayers are SO POWERFUL and IMPORTANT in all we would hope to realize in the Lord, as they draw on God’s faithfulness and limitless power. Thank you so much for your steady prayers for us and for Chile Mission in 2024, as we now enter 2025 together!!
Speaking of how dawn always follows the dark night, we have a great Chile story to share….
In May 2023 we posted a photo of Jordan & Laura holding their sick baby boy. Matías was 6 months old, but was the size of a 2-month-old baby. He was being seen in Santiago for a rare virus and then died shortly thereafter. It was a tragic loss for them to be sure. We now have received the good news that Laura recently gave birth to a healthy baby girl and we are excited for them. Here below is the original photo of them with baby Matthias and alongside is the new photo of their baby girl. Every life is valuable!
We continue to be grateful for our ministry to those staying at our Santiago mission site while they or their children are being treated for serious medical conditions. The opportunity to pray with them, make them welcome, and help them in other ways go a long way through the power and movement of the Holy Spirit.
In looking back at 2024 and those years before, we and our entire Chile Mission Team again thank you for helping take Chile Mission forward with your prayers!!
In middle Chile Abraham, Catalina, Abril, & Facundo are in the process of moving back to the camp property house, where they intend to stay instead of living in the nearest town (30 minutes away) for the winter as they did this past year. We really can’t say enough of Abraham’s capabilities in heading up the development of our large 90-acre land into a much needed Christian Camp & Retreat Center! He in turn will be CAMPO VIVO’S first director.
We so look forward to three church mission teams’ visits in January to April this new year to help with construction, but first we now have the blessing of having a yet another team of six helping through the Mennonite Mission headquartered in Columbia. WOW and TYL!!
Shown here on the left of Abraham are Josh, Chris, Leroy, Jack, Triston, & Rodney. They arrived on December 28th and plan to be with Abraham through the first week of January. Several of the team have had construction experience, so imagine the value of “18 more willing and able hands” to help get things done! J
For our part we travel to Chile on January 15th to spend three months divided between Santiago and the camp property. While we are able to stay up-to-date with our Chilean teammates through cell phone video calls, our physical time with them is so worth it in connecting to converse and pray and share in person.
We next look forward to the arrival of a team of 9 from Dover First Christian Church in Ohio. They are due to arrive in Santiago on January 22nd for 8 days and we give God another TYL!! for them. Our summer time in Chile will definitely be busy!!
Meanwhile, Abraham will be working with a small Chilean construction team these first weeks of January to put in place the footings and other technical preparations needed for the construction of our maintenance building that the Dover team will help work on.
We are praying all for all of the work teams, giving God thanks for them and praying for all preparations, travel, and time in Chile and we SO appreciate YOUR ACCOMPANYING PRAYERS as well!!
We asked last month for prayer for Raquel, diagnosed recently with liver cancer. She and her husband Pedro are good friends and neighbors of Abraham & Catalina living near our camp property. She just recently had an exploratory surgery and the surgeon decided not to take out her tumors, as they are in other parts of her body as well. Instead, she now in January starts chemotherapy treatments. That was hard news for Raquel & Pedro to end 2024 with. Please continue praying with us for a miracle through God’s touch.
God truly does make every morning new and GREAT is his faithfulness!!
Praying, fasting, and giving thanks to our “NEW EVERY MORNING” One, True God,

This year’s ICOM missions conference was excellent as always, as its purpose is focused on extending Jesus in a full way to the whole world. In addition to exhibitors and speakers, roughly 7,200 attended the 2 ½ day conference and our main blessing for participating with our Chile Mission booth came in the form of interactions with many special people we either saw at our booth or had meetings with. Our Chile-made marble products also sold well, which provides profits to use for Chile Mission’s ministries and camp property development project. As you can see, Janine’s broken arm/shoulder replacement didn’t dampen her participation and enthusiasm at all. 🙂
We had a very special family Thanksgiving week with all of our immediate family together, along with Janine’s brother and sister-in-law at their house in Flagstaff, AZ. We only get to be together once per year, so it’s quite a special gathering. In Chile, relationships and family gatherings are extremely important, especially during certain holidays such as Christmas. Families usually gather on Christmas Eve with a late evening dinner and the opening of gifts, etc. into the very early morning. Christmas morning is used for sleep and rest. Christians, making up a minority of Chilean families, have services on Christmas Eve and then gather in family like other Chileans. May God bless your family relationships as well.
Abraham & Catalina will be using December to prepare for moving back permanently to the camp property from Cabrero (30 minutes away). Their plan is to home school their children. In the meantime, we are grateful for Abraham’s ability to do more and more required maintenance on the excavator, as well as for his knowledge in redoing the reinforcement of the sides of the septic system for the house on the property. Your prayers are greatly appreciated for his preparations for the pouring of the cement footings for the construction of the maintenance/workshop/storage building to be built beginning in January. These preparations mostly include the placement of water, sewage, and electric lines for the building, and for capable persons to help him.
We are grateful for Julián’s ongoing coordination of legal steps and filings in opening up new opportunities for our Chile Mission Foundation as it operates in Chile. We are also grateful for medical test results for Julián, who has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, treatable with diet changes and medication. He was losing weight with no idea as to why, so these results are much better than being diagnosed with a more serious disease or condition.
We’ve had an unexpected medical challenge as of late to deal with, as on Wednesday, Oct. 23rd Janine tripped on a cord she didn’t see and broke the upper part of her right arm’s humerus bone where it enters her shoulder socket. (:
Our U.S. teammate Donn Urban and Jack loaded the mission van for ICOM with Janine supervising. 🙂
Jack’s Chilean coffee mug fits right in with this month’s encouragement to us all. “Quién conquista su mente conquista su vida” translates to “Whoever conquers their mind conquers their life”. It seems so easy to fit our life into the world instead of transforming our minds to God first and letting him lead us forward in the way he’s prepared our lives to best serve him. Add praying for each other to the mix and you get a SUPER POWERFULL JESUS IN MOTION!! Many thanks for your steady prayers for us and for CHILE MISSION!! Except for Romans 12:1-2 CHILE MISSION would not exist.

You also might remember the new-born boy, Dominíc, who was born at the end of August, 2022. At that time his parents were told to “say good-bye to him” as he would be dying shortly. That was over two years ago and as you can see from the photo, he is still “as cute as a button”! He was born with many of his internal organs mixed up in wrong places and the prognosis is that his malfunctioning heart will not keep up with his growth. At some point in his young life his heart will thus give out, and there is nothing that surgeries will be able to correct. That may be true, but these extra years have given them as a family more time to love each other and be together.
During a recent week on the camp property Eduardo was able to attend a meeting of those who live in the general area of our property. The police announced that they are adding police (including women of course J) on motorcycles to help patrol the area for the safety of the residents. We’re grateful!

We would like to end this letter with a “thanks to the Lord for the life of Millarai”. She and her twin sister Ana were among the several “Wards of the State” Chilean children who lived on our Santiago mission site from 2012 through 2019. She ended up contracting osteoporosis (bone cancer) and died on July 29, 2016. She was fifteen at the time, but in coming to know Jesus during her time with us in Santiago it was a believing, baptized Milla that went to her eternal, celebration life with God. PTL!! Janine accompanied her to many doctors’ visits while spending extended time in a Santiago hospital, and several others of us also regularly visited her. It was Milla’s life and circumstance that gave birth to the need to help and extend Jesus to the many parents of children also hospitalized for long periods of time in Santiago hospitals. This effort in turn led to our Casa de Acogida “Dulce Refugio” (special care house “Sweet Refuge”) housed on our mission site in Santiago. Most of those who come to stay in one of our houses do not know Jesus when they arrive, but we give God thanks for the prayer and care we’re able to share with them!
—We have been blessed that another “ULTRA” mission team of four young women is with us for the last two weeks of June, helping in both Santiago and on the camp property in rural Chile. This same mission based in Columbia sent us three different teams last year and we are very grateful! Some of their teams are just women or men and some are mixed, but they ALL come with youthful energy and serving hearts.
—Eduardo is now a full member of the Chile Mission team, having spent two weeks in May on the camp property with Abraham and one week in Santiago getting a handle on administrative and legal issues for the mission. PTL! As you can see from the photo with Abraham, he came to the camp property ready to work. 🙂



