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!