Months of Honor

Sometimes it’s all too easy to take Mother’s Day and Father’s Day for granted. All too easy, that is, until you try to be one. At best, it is a very complicated undertaking. If that isn’t enough to challenge and dissuade, just think about the part that the child plays in living out his or her own decisions and mistakes. In the end, whether you have been good parents or bad parents, good children or bad children, God is the only true stabilizing force that we have to keep a family together. That means that He needs to be lifted up and focused on. It is He that makes today and tomorrow possible, no matter where the past has been. May we all be encouraged in this, as we honor our Mothers and Fathers!

Life At The Work Site

Construction is proceeding well. Please view our Recent Photos on our Photo Gallery Page - "Photo Gallery".

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One half of our first duplex is now almost totally completed. The multi-purpose building at the rear of our ministry site is completed, except for tiling the floor upstairs. PTL!! This unit, one of four houses being built, contains roughly 1,000 square feet, with four bedrooms and a full bath on the second floor and the kitchen, living room/dining room and half bath on the first floor.

For almost four years, Humberto’s family of four have lived in the small, one bedroom adobe house at the front of the site. They come from extremely humble circumstances in the south of Chile, so one can only imagine the appreciation and blessing they feel. With the upstairs bedrooms and bath of "Casa 3" (house 3) now completed, Humberto and his family were finally able to move in two weekends ago, with only the kitchen needing a little more work. We will now continue finishing the upstairs of the other half of the duplex ("Casa 4"). "Slow-but-steady" are probably the best-chosen words to describe construction in Chile. At that point, the office, which is currently located on the first floor of "Casa 4", will be moved upstairs. This will free up that space for completion and give us additional space for our activities.

In the meantime, the adobe house will be transformed into a workshop and storage space. It will be raining on and off for the next several months, so it will be useful to have this inside area available. The outer wall trenches will soon be dug for the next duplex, which will be built at the front of the site. Then, as we come to the end of 2005, we will be able to tear down that adobe house and start building the last duplex, getting it under roof before rains begin again in April/May of 2006. To be sure, we’ve been extremely blessed in our progress in every way, in spite of typical setbacks that make up life and construction. Ha ha!

God has provided funds necessary for that construction, as well as safety for our five excellent full-time workers and enough to put food on their tables. All of our workers start each week together with an early Monday morning devotion. Juan and Carlos, our two non-baptized workers, are surrounded by encouragement, love and teaching - the exact same type of encouragement, love and teaching that we ourselves received coming to the Christian Church in January, 1986. We were baptized that same March, embarking on a new walk filled with life and purpose, following an alive Jesus from that moment on. The local church is key! Its passion (or lack thereof) to see lost persons and "superficial" Christians (as we were) come to life and real relationship with our magnificent one true God in all of his glory makes the difference.

The New Church

God is blessing "Jesús Es EL CAMINO" tremendously in many ways. We are a church that teaches and follows the Bible and a church where people find love and encouragement. We have about thirty people regularly attending Sunday Bible School and services, in which God works through all of us to reach others in the neighborhood.

The church itself is responsible for the ministry outreaches begun earlier by DCCC Chile Mission. As you have been reading in our News Notes, different individuals are responsible for coordinating those ministries and the momentum continues to build. For example, the new teenage youth group began with four adult leaders (Janine, Katie, Luis and Gonzalo) in this March, with four youth in attendance. These included Jayme, Samuel (Humberto’s son) and Richard’s youngest sister, Nicole, all three of which were already in the church. There are now sixteen youth attending and the number seems to grow almost every week. It will also be out of this group that Katie will be developing a discipleship ministry of teenage girls.

When we see youth inviting other youth, we know that God is at work. Our accent is on building leaders within the group. It is a joy to see kids excited by the variety of things they do together, including life lessons to help them better find their way and sort out the problems they may face.

Included in on our web page under "Recent Photos" are pictures of another celebration held in the church on Sunday, June 5^th. Specifically, five people made decisions to be baptized, including Richard, Paula, Samuel, Nicole and Ignacio. Ignacio is an adult friend with whom Jack came into contact through his teaching at the live-in drug rehabilitation center for men in our community, La Cisterna.

Aside from the issue of salvation, biblical teaching on baptism is rich in significance (especially as found in Romans, chapter 6). It would be difficult to think of any decision more central to one’s future or relationship with God than the one to be baptized, following in the steps of all early Christians. In baptism, we (1) make the decision to follow Jesus’ example and teaching in how we live (repentance), (2) burying our past and "old selves" under water (the word ‘baptism’ in Greek means to immerse or submerge), connecting ourselves to Christ’s death, burial and victory over sin, to (3) raise up from that water as new persons, just as Jesus was resurrected from the dead. The act of baptism signifies taking on Jesus as our new identity, as well as our entrance into relationship with God through him. Christian growth and maturity thus have their roots and basis on which to be a permanent part of our lives. It’s a recognition of Jesus not only as Savior, but as Lord, which is the only way to really know him or God, the Father. That recognition carries with it eternal life. In all of its fullness, baptism, as taught in the Bible, is VERY meaningful!

Looking Ahead At The Next Two Months

In the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, Solomon talks about seasons and divinely-appointed times for everything on earth and the importance to find satisfaction and contentment by fully living within what we are given, accepting life as a gift from God (verses 12 and 13). In a slightly different context, seasons for us today also mark the beginnings and endings of many yearly activities, e.g., the beginning and end of the school year, vacation time, the Fall "kick off" of new Sunday School classes and youth groups and the time of year for certain types of sports, etc.

One such time of year for us that we very much look forward to, as missionaries, is our "Winter" season - specifically referring to the months of June and July. In case you are wondering, we are not referring to the weather, as June through August are colder and somewhat rainy. For one thing, June and July are the months of our yearly internship experience, offered to university-age Christian young people. They also are the months when church and youth groups are most likely to visit and experience (even if very briefly) God’s work in another culture.

This Year's Interns

This year’s interns, Rebecca Bomberger and Evi Dallman, are currently spending eight weeks with us learning, contributing and experiencing God’s outreach in Chile. Becky is due to graduate from Cincinnati Christian University this coming December, with majors in Biblical Studies and in Secondary Education and a minor in Spanish. Evi, a recent graduate of the University of San Diego in Business Administration, also has several years of Spanish classes in her background and is interested in sharing her faith and learning more about South American culture first-hand. They both arrived in early June and will be leaving just after the first of August. You can see some pictures of them in "Recent Photos"

This Year's Church and Youth Groups

We are also excited this year to receive three separate groups, beginning with a mixed group of youth and adults from the Church of Christ in St. Joseph, Illinois. Led by Tom Anders, their Senior Minister, they arrived June 17 and will be with us through June 28, in Chile for the first time to see and "experience" the work here. This included "scrap-booking" with kids, helping with construction tasks, meeting and spending time with neighborhood families and being involved in other ways. Are such trips worthwhile? You need only ask those churches that have already been here or wait and ask Tom and those from St. Joseph after their return home. Just over one week is a very short length of time, but even in the space of eight to ten days, God can make his mark for a lifetime - especially in the person whose world has just been broadened.

In mid July, a group of ten youth and adults from Grove Park Christian Church in Lakeland, Florida, will arrive, led by Wes Sewell, their youth minister. Amongst other things, they will concentrate on working with younger and older children in a VBS setting (the schools will be in the middle of their two-week mid-year vacation), along with doing some wall mural painting at our ministry site.

Lastly, on July 23 a large group of nineteen youth and adults will arrive from Deer Creek Christian Church in University Park, Illinois. This group, led by Josh Rutledge (the church’s youth minister) will spend eight days with us. They will bring puppets and also play some sports and share with our own growing group of adolescents. This will be the first such trip for many of the kids and is guaranteed to show another "face" of world life.

Please pray for each of these above individuals and groups - that God would richly bless them and watch over them in every way and that his good purposes for each of them would be enhanced many times over through this opportunity in Chile.

Missionary life is made up of a myriad of tasks, errands and details of daily living. Suffice it to say that such a life is both challenging and demanding, especially in bringing two cultures together. Likewise, the rewards are almost unmatched. What could be more fulfilling than introducing someone to the hope, healing, purpose and future that we have in Jesus??!! That’s a good question for all of us and, of course, the answer is that there is nothing more important. We will be posting more and more photos that show our construction progress, ministry action, people and places.

Thank you all for your prayers and partnership in a work that’s making a difference in Chile!!

Much love in a working, transforming Jesus,

Jack and Janine and the Chile Mission Team

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