Merry Jesusmas :)

Dear friends,

I write this with joy in my heart for some things God has done this last couple of weeks:

Finally I could place my mom in a nursing home paid by the medicare system here in Argentina.  This has been a major breakthrough for us.  I have no need to pay almost 2/3 of my income to have her in a private home where she was not well taken care of.  The she has doctors, psychiatrist, and many other specialists that see her often.  Of course she has to adapt there.  She told me that people already stole things from her and other things.  So I ask you please pray for her as she adapts there.  I have to get her to spend Christmas with us, please that we can have a good Christmas eve together.

I finished my Counseling career.  Now I'm a professional counselor.  I finished with great notes praise the Lord.  It has been not only my achievement but also of all my family and of course God helped me so much.  Without the wife I have, I would not have been able to do it.  I plan to do one more year to get a certificate on personal development.

Martín is already 10 years old and he is a big boy.  He likes soccer so much and get on my nerves since I don't care about it.  He used to beat me on the soccer Play Station game, now I beat him :)

Natasha is 8 years old and she passes to 3rd grade without problems this year.  If you recall, she had troubles last year, she did well this year.  She is sweet and lovable and very practical.

Lara is the princess of the family, she turned 5 last week and is very smart.  She is crazy about ice cream (who isn't) and she is very good at noticing the needs around her.

Claudia turned #$% the 13th of December but she looks very good.  I have enjoyed lately to be with her in the Couple's growth group.  I'm doing the "Dare to love" book and is not easy :)

I'm doing well, even though I worry about life and future.  I'm learning to have faith in God and not in my own abilities or resources.  You are in a huge sense an answer to many of my prayers.  Thanks for being there and praying and giving to the ministry here.

Merry Jesusmas and Happy New Year!

Clario Martin Bonandini Bs. As., Argentina Mobile: 11 6417 9676 Land Line: +54 11 4767 0842 Email: bonandini@gmail.com

Chat Google Talk: bonandini Skype: clariomb MSN: bonandini@yahoo.com

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A Christmas present for you

I really would like to give you this as a present for Christmas time.  Please watch this short film on HOPE only 20 minutes long.  You will enjoy it I'm sure and you will find ways to use it in your ministry and family.

The Butterfly Circus

We all are Butterflies if we are in God's hands, it is just a matter of believing the truth about ourselves in Christ.  Do not spend Christmas without watching this, maybe you want even to show it in the family reunion, and reflect on who we are in Christ.

God bless you all

Here is the link: http://www.thedoorpost.com/hope/film/?film=4dd298f102c77b625cf37a9e7744ac68

--
Clario Martin Bonandini

Los Navegantes de Argentina

Argentina Update

Dear Friends,

It is raining in Buenos Aires and I though after having lost 2 playstation "pro evolution soccer" games with my son that I should sent in my update. It still hurts to lose to a 10 year old ;(

Couples:

We finish our couples study, last Saturday.  It was awesome some small things that God did.

1. One of the couples came very hurt to the study.  According to their words "We have gone to many marriage things, however we had never talk so much and felt so comfortable as in this study, now we can talk to each other"
2. In this time of desert that I'm going through, they said some words that really lifted my spirit.  They witness much growth and maturity in me, they said.  I was in tears as they said that.  I keep thinking that to make a difference I have to have something big going on, traveling there and here, speaking to multitudes.  Here we are making a difference in the lives of few people, praying that they will have the vision to make a difference in the lives of others.
3. Claudia and I benefited of the Bible study as well as with the interaction with the other couples.
4. We renew our vows or promises to each other it was very moving and encouraging
5. We went to eat all together to "Follow the Cow" a stake restaurant that has nothing to do with any of us :)

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioWBmP7-q8seMu9rrllu7vXZMpD3d9JQT9vifdaV_rhxZCR_xKro-_c14MYtNYe_COYHFQkhyphenhyphenyoLcJAms-HrK1h2iwVIj1A39LcTvxDItYi6-X9Hrku1_x5KM5nZ4maOb_SRA3eKNnUtQ/
This is one of the couples in the group after reading the vows to each other.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje_Hx8Ghx6dlbfW8XiBkObQ7E7m8Km6CL3bEZLTEMu-Az46um3jHeIgcepGyT-ZTiwnMGF8dKSJ8jBVkdX6ELcCXVxZUSk65BqzaOUY-37A8IlIcKKTmz7vTTiPGsJEiPzZexJ5P_n4g0/
These are all the couples at "Siga la Vaca" (Follow the cow) restaurant.


School

I have been teaching at a christian school already for two full years.  It has been fantastic! Many of these teenagers are going to churches and following the Lord.  According to the school authorities I have made a difference in these two years.  They said that so far they never had a person who teaches Christian Orientation in a way that kids enjoy.  The other day I showed them the Movie "The way of the peaceful warrior" a movie to examine and keep the good stuff.  Even when the movie is "newageish" (sorry I'm starting to create new English words) it teaches some good concepts.  They enjoyed it a lot and made a written paper about the movie that in most cases resulted in a honest reviewing of their own life.

Another thing that I did with them is a thanksgiving class.  I started the class telling them how thankful I was for them and I tell them why.  They were very surprised they said "Profe (short for professor) no other professor ever told us that they are thankful" Then I had some blank "certificates of thanks" and they wrote on them the names of other professors, administrative and cleanning personnel working at the school and went out to give it to them.  Some people were in tears! It seems that giving thanks is not a very common thing. 

Thinking of this I want to give thanks to you all.  Thanksgiving day is tomorrow and because of you those, who pray and give I'm able to do what I do.  Thanks!

VAN

I'm waiting for classes to be over to send the van to the mechanic.  Otherwise I would spent a lot of money traveling to and there. I will try to sell it afterward.  Please pray for this.

My mom

My mom is doing well praise the Lord! (for me it has been a miracle that she is well for such a long time) I went to the Medicare system here in Argentina to see if they can put my mom in a state nursing home.  I'm doing the paper work and the social worker is really nice (you can pray for her, Eugenia Galano) If the state can help my mom we will be more release financially. So far my mom takes more than 1/3 of my income and I can't continue doing this for much longer as the economy in Argentina is more expensive everyday.  So pray that she can soon be in a good nursing home please!

House

Yesterday we call a christian company that helps people have their own home.  As many of you know some time or later we will need to move out the house we are.  So we are praying for a miracle.  We do not know what the Lord wants or wants to do in this regard.  If my mom can go to a state supported nursing home I can start using some money to pay for a house.  The way it works is through the buying of numbers that participate in a lottery. At first you buy the numbers that you can.  The more numbers you can buy, bigger are the chances I have to receive a loan to buy a house.  Once you got the money you have to pay a fixed amount of money.  I do not know how the Lord will provide but we are looking into this possibilities (there are not others, bank loans are nonexistent and houses are around the 70.000 and 100.000 U$D. The normal wage in Argentina doesn't reach the 1000 U$D a months.  Please pray for this, is one of our mayor concerns so far, pray for faith and trust in God's promises.

Career

I'm about to graduate fro my Counseling Career.   I have all my finals in less than two weeks pray for this as well.

Well too large update!

Thanks for being there one the other side, supporting and praying.

Clario Martin Bonandini
Los Navegantes de Argentina

Chat Google Talk: bonandini Skype: clariomb MSN: bonandini@yahoo.com

Contact Me

The Bonandini Family Holly Guacamole, what are you talking about?

--
Clario Martin Bonandini

Los Navegantes de Argentina

Holly Guacamole, what are you talking about?

Farewell party for the team at Pizza Libre (all you can eat pizza place)

The eyes of every team member were fix on me during the first day of the orientation week.  They could not believe what they were hearing from my mouth.  They had started to think that maybe they have made a big mistake coming to Argentina to be part of the summer program of the Navigators.  I told them: "We do not want that you speak about Christ" Holly guacamole! What are you talking about?

Argentina is a country were people do not believe the words that people speak.  Years of politicians promising much and doing little, priests and pastors having a good face and then been discovered that they were living a double life, have hardened Argentinians to believe any "truth" out there.  I told the team "show Christ and wait for Argentinians to ask you about Him" They were taken aback, they thought I was mistaken.
To their surprise the last two weeks of the trip many of the contacts were asking them about their faith.  "It worked" said one of them during debriefing.  The team helped us to get in touch with some families and many young people.  Many of them hear the gospel for the first time in their lives.  We praise God for what He's done through all of us.


People saying good bye, at the airport




The team singing at a nursing home for elderly people

Praise our God!

Praise the Lord that any in the Team catch the H1N1 flu, none of my children or family!
Praise the Lord that even when the team got robbed one night as they were waiting for the bus, no body got hurt.
Praise the Lord for all we could accomplished in His Name.
Praise the Lord for all the great people we could meet.
Praise the Lord that in some of their hearts the Kingdom of God is more present than before.
Praise the Lord for all the people that prayed for us.

The Family

The situation with the H1N1 flu provoked that schools needed to stopped classes for a month,  tomorrow  (3 of august 2009) will start again.  So this month (with the kids at home all day) wear down on Claudia.  We wanted to go on vacations, but we could not for different reasons.
I will continue the rest of this year to teach high-schoolers about Jesus as a living friend and God.  Also I teach English to a class of young seminarians at a Lutheran Seminary.  This gives me some extra money to meet our ends.  This two coming weeks I have all the finals that I should have had 2 weeks ago, but because of the flu I could not have.
We continue to meet with a couple to talk about our "miseries" challenging each other to grow in loving our spouse.  We plan to start a couple Bible study soon in August.

Helping a baby church

Some years ago, when I was part of the pastoral board of the Church I attend, God used me to help the church not to drop the project of planting a church in San Miguel.  God has used Claudia and me to help the actual pastors of the church in their marriage.  Today the church is a reality with an attendance of about 40 people half of whom a new believers.  I'm praying about helping the new congregation in discipleship and sharing Christ.  I'll keep you updated about this.

Finances

God has helped us in that the US dollar has gone up in price, almost in one Argentine peso.  This has helped us much.  The extra I'm making with some little jobs has help as well.  Also some money that "just appear" in our account have been a blessing.  We still need to raise our monthly support in about 500 U$D.  You can help giving through the Navigators or Paypal.  You have the info on the left of this page.  Thanks!

feedback from the prayer request

Hi there,

Thanks so much for the words of encouragement that some of you have sent.  They were well received and work in me in many ways.

1. My daughters are doing very well, no fever now but a lot of mucus, sorry.  This is amazing since the doctor said that Natasha was going to be very bad for few more days, but the next day that I sent the request she was doing 90% better.

2. The team members that were sick are doing great!

3. There are still some war going on in the relationship of some team members.  The problem is spiritual in its basis and Satan is taking profit of it.  We dodge other problems that we were going to have when we decided not to include some Argentines that were in a difficult spiritual situation.  Nevertheless our enemy is always looking for a crack to get in.  On the other side, I see this situation as a step forward to the development of the team and our lives, growth is painful though.

4. My van broke down :) different from other moments I reacted pretty well, It didn't occur to me to get a sledge hammer to total it or set it on fire! I quietly park it went to my class and waited 2 hours for the tow truck to get me. While there I continue reading the Shack and got into a conversation with God.  I started to ask him why it was so difficult to me to talk to him and be aware of his presence more often.  The insurance company sent a text message telling me that I had one more hour to wait.  I went to the back of the van to laid down; it was already midnight.  After 10 minutes the truck came, I was so happy.  I started to interact with the driver, and began to tell him my testimony.  I noticed that he would stop the truck just to listen to me :) When we got to my front door, he tells me his story, he had became a christian the very same year and with the same evangelist that I did.  He was for 20 years away from the Lord and just 3 years ago he returned to the Lord.  He said: "When I left home after working for the Lord, I asked the Lord if all the time I was investing for the Lord was worth it and through you God answer me yes it is worth it.  One person talk to you and through you now many are hearing about what God have done in your life!"
When he said that I realized that it is not difficult to relate to God, we just need to be in tune.  The Guy Gustavo was crying I was crying and we ended praying for each other and my spirit was lifted, it was a spiritual party :)
By the way I sent the van to be fixed and I had it the same day.  Some times God uses unexpected situations to show us that he is closer than we think!

God bless you and thanks for praying

Thanks Donald, Rhett, David W, David P, Joel, Raul for your words of encouragement I appreciate it a lot

--
Clario Martin Bonandini

Los Navegantes de Argentina

Getting old...not quite :)

April 11 1969 I was born, it makes me 40 years old of age.  Wow it is quite difficult for me to believe I'm actually 40 years old, I feel like being in my 20's, perhaps that is because of my spiritual age, I was born again when I was 16 years old :)
Just for you to have a glimpse of what I'm talking about here is a picture from 1994 I was 25 and I'm the guy with the blue ADIDAS jacket.  It was during my training just before going to Russia.  Who was my hairdresser?

Anyway, God has given me a lot of things to do and it seems that the older I am the more I have in my hands.  It seems that not many make it to this age and are still following the Lord or have lived in a way that give them something good to share with others.  So thanks to many of you who are reading this today I'm not in the many, I'm mostly enjoying my life and the things I do not enjoy (mostly sin and some craziness) is on the table before the Lord and others to change.

Well, after some vacations, I had a team of 17 people from the US to do practical work in churches.  It was a great week because I had my adopted family all together again here in Argentina.  The Clay Family was all in Argentina in March and it was a great time of ministering and working together for the Lord.  Those babies I used to babysit now are men and women of God it was another things that made me remember my age :(

Most of what I am I owe to this people, Wendy and Henry Clay.  Henry help me in my walk with God  with his godly example.  Wendy accepted me as I was (helping me to see God's love) By drinking Mate and her great cooking skills, her positive and gracious view of me helped me to change for God.

After this intense week working, Henry and I went to to Chile to visit some friends and give some talks. 

These are the Andes - view from the plane

Henry spoke about marriage and I about forgiveness which now I understand that the two are related. It was both a good and dificult time.  It was good to be with Henry and laugh and do stuff together.  It was difficult to see the situation of many believers who have not godly pastors to turn to.  So the group we visited led by a former disciple who was part of a discipleship group Henry had years ago, is trying to offer believers honest and godly
shepherding through Christian Fellowship Groups.

This is the group during one of the talks

The Navigators of Argentina held a 3 days conference about "Discipleship from the inside out" Navigators from Chile, the US, Brazil and Argentina were there to learn how to Listen to God and How his voice can heal our wounds.  It was a great time with God.

Here you can see some of the first fruits the Navigators had back in the 70's, Fernando Gonzalez is right in the middle of the Picture with light blue shirt he was one of the first Navigators stepping on Argentine soil in 1973.

What's going on NOW!

I have a team of young believers who will be dong Evangelism and Discipleship coming tomorrow morning.  They will be living here for two months.  Please pray for them that no one will be carrying the flu and that they will not get it here.
As part of the team coming we have opposition.  My mom just today called me saying that she doesn't feel well.  The same situation I had last year.  Please pray!
I have been feeling pretty week spiritually these last week.  I reading Nehemiah and I'm working at rebuilding my wall and doors spiritually speaking.  Can you sustain  me and my Family in prayer at this taks that always has the influence of the enemy saying that we will not succeed?  Remember Claudia, Martin Jr., Natasha and Lara is my family.
Please pray for our finances as well, even when I can see God's faithfulness with us I need to work towards being full supported, so pray and if you are no doing it, you also can give :)
You can do it via PayPal sending your donation to bonandini@gmail.com or you can contact the Navigators at:
(719) 598-1212 and tell them you'd like to give to Clario Martin Bonandini Acc. # 183673. They will guide you in the process.

In the Beginning God...

"Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep (there was chaos), and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."

We are living in a time of turmoil (I learned this word 15 years ago reading a book describing the turmoil Russia was going through during those years) There is no moral form and a huge emptiness is present in most hearts. Darkness is all over. All the things that were giving us security are collapsing, things that some people thought would never happen are happening.

We can stop here, get a bottle of something and get depressed (and drunk maybe) but there is a great second part of the verse of genesis 1.2,

"and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters"

the Spirit of God was present even when Chaos was all over. The Idea of the Hebrew word for "hovering" is of a bird flying around its pichons. It is like the spirit was waiting for something to happend and then we have verse 1.3

"And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light"

The spirit was waiting the proclamation of the Word of God and the very first thing God created was LIGHT and it was good!

So it got me thinking about proclaming God's promises in the midst of Chaos. I imaging the Spirit waiting for me to proclaim God's promises to act and create Light in the midst of darkness. Sometimes I get caught up in seeing just the chaos instead of proclaiming God's truth in the Chaos.

Well I just wanted to share it with you I have received encouragement from this 2 verses recently.


Summary of what We'll be involved this year:

1. We're lining up a team of people coming to do practical work in few weeks March 13-20 so will be doing cement mix, digging, cleaning, painting and many other things in poor areas of Buenos Aires with churches we have contact.
2. Time With Henry Clay 21-30 of March including a trip to Chile to visit Ariel Medina who used to be in on discipleship team Henry and I had many years ago.
3. In March I start as professor of Christian Ethics at a nearby Christian School. I taught there last year also and had many opportunities to share Christ with teens and some of their parents.
4. I'll also be teaching English in a Lutheran seminary where I'll also will have the opportunity to connect with young nominal Christians and help them in their walk with the Lord.
5. March 10th I will be taking my last year of my career of Counseling. I need to find some sponsors for this. I have some but need more.
6. I was offered the presidency of the Argentine Navigators in the place of Dan Travis who served us in this position over 20 years if I'm not mistaken. So please pray for me, it will not be easy to have the humility and love of this man of God.
7. We will continue with the Bible Studies and I'll focus on three men: Sebastian, Gustavo and Marcelo who were contacted through the summer teams we have every year.
8. In May we'll receive a fine young lady to help us in the ministry. Her name is Mary Claire and she will come for a survey time to seek God's will to pursue a longer time here in Argentina. Pray for Her.
   
9. June and July we have the summer team (summer in the US, here cold winter) we're planning and will lead the team into friendly evangelism and Discipleship.This is actually a lot of work but we can see how blessed we are through them. Pray for us.

It looks like a lot but if God helps me to organize myself will be not a big deal.


Some things that will need your prayers:

1. My daughter Natasha will most likely repeat the first grade. She has some learning problems and the professionals are all on vacations now and we do not know what is the problem. We contacted a pedagogical counselor but so far we have nothing. Please pray for Natasha.
2. I have to find a nursing home for my mom within the health care system in Argentina. Everybody tell me that that is almost impossible, So then it is up to God to solve it. I can't pay what I'm paying now much longer in the nursing home she is in. In Argentina we have suffered increments of 300% in some home services and the same in food, so I need faith and confidence that God is in control.
3. This year I want to be clear with the message of Christ. I'm concerned for some of the people we have in our groups. So I want to share during the Bible studies in a clear and honest way what Christianity is all about.
4. Pray for my family - as with any job family sometimes gets left behind :( I do not want that to happen - please pray.

Other Stuff





We had our 11th anniversary January 10th 2009 we went out to eat and have fun. We foresee an eternity being together.


So much for now. However I ask you to please pray for us; we need you and your prayer. Thanks so much for your support and company all these years.




Martin Bonandini