December, January

December and January are always very active months. This year was no exception! Every Christmas the church has a potluck dinner. This year was wonderful. The food was great, and we capped it off with Lime Mousse made by Edson, one of our regular visitors, as well as homemade ice cream, made by myself. It was Mango Lime ice cream, a real exotic treat!

Marcia and some of the congregation

Sebastian serves Cokes with flair

For a change of scenery, we invited the whole congregation and their relatives who were in town to our home for New Year's Eve to stay the night. This is a great blessing, because driving home on New Year's here is a terrible experience. Besides the number of drunk drivers, the traffic is so bad (with 2 million tourists at the coast) that it takes about two hours to go ten miles. So we hole up with the brethren and have a great, peaceful time.

Carlos and Adriana at our house

The guys at the barbecue: Jorge, Carlos, Chris, and Eduardo

The food and fellowship are unequalled

The kids ready for dessert: cake and homemade ice cream!

New Year's Day was also very interesting, as many church members and visiting family stayed over. Traffic was still very bad, so we just hung out and continued to enjoy each other. It did rain, however, and our roof began leaking on our TV. So I got to get on the roof and put my roof tile skills to the test. Fortunately I am getting the hang of roof tiles, and was able to stop the leak. I took a beating in the process, though.

January brought the delivery of Francisco and Liduina's car, which has been a huge help in their ministry. It is a little Renault Clio, and they have been able to about double the number of studies each week because of this blessing. Francisco's leg also hurts far less now. Thanks to all of you who helped with this tool, especially Christ's Heritage in Lynnwood. It is really making a difference for the kingdom here!

The new owners

Look out, world!

Another exciting episode was the termite infestation at the church building. Francisco discovered them nesting in his books, and ripped out all the siding that had been infested. Both our offices were affected. It looks OK now, but at the time it got pretty ugly.

What a mess!

They were in the roof as well.

After recovering from the termite invasion, we had another invasion. The church building was robbed for the third time, and we lost our crackers and juice for the Lord's Supper again, as well as two fans, a small radio, and the wooden door in back was smashed and had to be replaced. We are thankful nobody was hurt and that our loss wasn't too severe, although it is pretty discouraging. We feel sometimes like all we do to keep things working here gets knocked down and we spend a lot of energy putting it back together. But God has protected us faithfully up until now, and for that we are grateful. This time it just confirmed our desire to look for a safer location in a better part of town. Please pray for that search.

January brought another wonderful opportunity for Alley and I. We were invited to speak at the youth camp in Argentina. So we packed up the kids and took a trip back to Buenos Aires. It took a few days for my Spanish to return, but seeing all our old friends and faithful brothers and sisters helped a lot. The church there is doing well. There are several new members, including some youth that we had reached out to but that never came while we were there. We spent a week visitng with old friends and church members, talking about our life, and sharing thier struggles. It was very good for us to see that so many of the people we worked with are still faithful and struggling to live out their faith with fear and trembling. There will always be struggles, but most of them are still struggling alongside the Lord, and for that we are very happy.

Jonathan loved the airplane trip

Stephanie too!

Rosa, Alley, and Walter

Alley, Hugo and Judit Fuente, and Juan and Nilda Fuente

Worship with the Villa Urquiza conregation

Alley and Priscilla Lorre

Alley and Jonathan with the Celis family: Daniel, Shirley, Lizbeth, and Kathy.

In preparation for camp, Jairo and I went to El Mana, the church's land in Tigre, where I had buried a time capsule three and a half years earlier. With a little effort, we dug it up and took it back to civilization to open it during camp.

Jairo Diaz digging up the time capsule in El Mana, Tigre

What satisfaction

My job at camp was to teach four lessons on apologetics, which I adapted from the book "I don't have enough faith to be an Athiest" I love apologetics, so it was a pleasure to present to the camp all the reasons we have to believe God's Word. I think God blessed our efforts during the week. I will always love youth ministry.

Chris's class on the evidence of a Designer

Alley led a group in the team sports activities

After camp, which was in Tandil, there were 2 baptisms. One was one fo the campers from Villa Urquiza, the older brother of one of the girls we reached out to while wer were in Argentina. Please pray for the ongoign work in Villa Urquiza and the other congregations in Buenos Aires as well. The Word truly is effective, and the church there continues to grow even after us Americans have all left. This is good, as the Church belongs to Christ and not to us.

Going home

We are very thankful for the opportunity to revisit the work in Buenos Aires. We know that wherever God takes us, He will carry on what He used us to begin in every place. The Church belongs to the Lord, and we trust Him to carry on after our role in a certain place has ended.
We know He has used all of you through prayer and support, and we are thankful that you were a part of the establishment of the congregation in Villa Urquiza and all that we did there. May He reward you richly for your faith and unselfish giving.

October

Chris and long-time missionary, David Ingram

In October, Chris had the blessing to participate in the first CCC (Continent Connection Conference) for Men. This was a tremendous spiritual renewal retreat for missionaries in South America, hosted by Continent of Great Cities. The speakers were highly-qualified former missionaries and missionary-support experts and targeted topics like missionary burnout and prayer. I am thankful that I was able to participate in this fantastic event. It renewed me and helped me focus on my own spirituality even as I try to help others. Thanks, CGC!

Chris and his small group at the CCC conference for Men

Repairing the front door after the second robbery

On returning from the conference, Sunday morning I discovered that the church building had again been broken into. Stolen items were the trash can, coffee pot, a few pots and pans, the new Lords' Supper trays and cups Liduina had brought from the US, grapejuice, and a fan. We were very discouraged, again. The most important loss was the folder with all the church documents and reciepts. The cost of the door repair was also hard to swallow: 250 reais. It is, however, stronger than ever.

The smiling thief, carrying our coffee pot, aluminum pan, and a folder with all our church reciepts, was caught by the camera of the supermarket across the street. He is still at large.
One of the ever-challenging aspects of mission life: long lines.

Carlos helping install new locks on the front doors on our workday.

Jorge also helped install locks and wire the new fans we bought to replace the stolen ones.

Installing the new fans

Francisco and Liduina returned from the US, which was a great relief to us. They had a wonderful trip, but we are very glad they are back!

The School of the Bible students took their final test in December, and did very well. I am proud of their commitment and dedication to learn the Word of God. They all committed to return in March to study the Old Testament as well, and return they did!

I have been studying martial arts, which I have always loved, in order to get some exercise and I have really enjoyed it. As I progressed, I began to experience pain in my right knee. It saddened me to discover recently that I have a bone fragment in my patellar tendon. I have had to quit, and I miss the exercise, but the good news is that the surgery to fix it is fairly simple. I am scheduled for the 9th of April to have the surgery, and the complete recovery time is 2 months or less.

Please keep us and the work in your regular prayers. We continue to work on security here, knowing that our true security is not in posessions bu tin Christ, and is therefore assured.