BLOG NEWS – MARCH/APRIL 2013

JAIRO LOPES – “CLEAR VISION” (Feb-Mar)

Ø  Jairo and his wife Lina come from Portugal. Both came to Christ as teenagers and felt the Lord calling them to ministry. Through a serious of decisions they arrived at the Bible Institute in Word of Life Argentina. We met them over the summer during the vacation Bible school when they were teaching our children. During the course of several weeks Breanna noticed that Jairo’s glasses had become broken in several places in the frame. Through work and accidents with their month old daughter, Jairo had seriously damaged them. He had super-glued them several times just to keep them functional but was now truly in need of some new ones. Breanna mentioned it to us as a prayer request and we began to pray. Jairo and Lina were unaware of the fact that we had noticed. Yet, as I was told later, Jairo had felt the Holy Spirit also prompt him to pray for something to be done about this issue. They were poor students with very little income and it was humanly beyond their power to fix the problem. For several weeks we prayed about the situation until the Lord gave our family peace about how to help. We had recently had a good support month, a month of blessing, and we decided that God was instructing us to pass that blessing forward.  I met with Jairo and told him that we wished to take him for an eye exam and purchase him a new pair of glasses. He was overjoyed and surprised. He shared with us his journey of prayer and seeking Gods wisdom for what to do.  He felt so blessed. Over a period of three weeks we went to eye exams, picked out lenses and frames and waited for his new glasses to arrive. Finally, one day in the first week of March just after camp season, the package arrived. Jairo was back seeing 20/20 and his faith was strengthened. Our family received the blessing of giving and obedience to the Holy Spirit. It was a wonderful reminder of God’s orchestration in the body of Christ.

I AM SECOND/ E-3 PARTNERS EVANGELISTIC SMALL GROUPS CONFERENCE (Mar)

Ø  In early March, our church was blessed to have Pastor John Williams of E-3 partners (http://www.e3partners.org/argentina; http://www.e3partners.org/iamsecond) visit our church and give a one day seminar on evangelistic small groups using the “I AM SECOND” approach. It is a simple small group paradigm that focuses on discussion Bible Study combined with actively sharing a personal testimony and the Gospel during the group every time it meets. It is not only a place to be cared for and care for others but provides a source of evangelism with every opportunity. Pastor John did a wonderful job and helped our church get ready to launch our small group ministry which we will begin this May/June. Also helpful was the resource of a book entitled “T-4-T: Training Trainers- a Discipleship RE-Revolution.”  Pastor John Williams is from Northeast Bible Church, San Antonio, Texas.

MENS RETREAT:  LELOIR CHURCH (Mar)

Ø  The weekend directly following the small groups conference was the Men’s Retreat.  Pastor John Williams shared once again about the power of evangelistic small group strategy. Pastor Eduardo Buldain, the Director of the Church Planting Movement of our church association and an invited Guest Pastor from Paraguay also did a wonderful job teaching.  It was a powerful day of prayer, worship, fellowship and revival. We were energized toward true holy living and the daily reminder to pray intentionally for the lost and the cause of the Gospel in the world. Evangelism was also a central focus for our area of Argentina which contains half the population of the entire country.

SKATERS CLUB: “DINNER-4-A-DOZEN” – I AM SECOND SMALL GROUP EVANGELISM (April)

Ø  From the encouragement received at the Small groups conference and the Men’s Retreat, we decided to put the concepts into practice right away. In April we opened our home for the first of our monthly “DINNER-4-A-DOZEN” skaters.  Our skate club that normally connects at the skate park or other plaza in the town was invited by invitation to join us in our home for a special night of pizza and fellowship. Following the evangelistic small groups strategy (modified for teen skaters) we showed an Evangelistic skateboarding movie recently released called “Hardflip.” (see http://www.skatebible.com/tag/god-jesus-christ-skateboarding-brian-sumner-christian-hosoi-hardflip-movie for more info)  We also showed the video testimony of Brian Sumner, a pro skater who received Christ and now uses skateboarding as his ministry to reach other skaters. (http://www.briansumner.net/testimony/)  His video testimony is one of the “I AM SECOND” featured videos (see it here: http://www.iamsecond.com/seconds/brian-sumner/)

James also shared his personal testimony of how skateboarding affected his life as a teenager and how God finally captured his attention and called him to youth ministry and eventually to Argentina. At the end of the night we passed out S.K.A.T.E. gospel tracts and invited them back in a month.  The feedback was very positive, although there were no professions of faith. Please pray for this month’s outreach that last month’s seeds would see some fruit.

CHURCH/PASTORS LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE IN CORDOBA (April)

Ø  April 12 – 14^th was a weekend of adventure for our whole family. It marked the first time we traveled outside our province of Buenos Aires to attend the ICR Leadership Seminar in San Francisco, Cordoba. It was an 8 hour drive that took us through lots of farmland in Santa Fe and eventually delivered us to the New Life Christian Church. There, Pastor Tim Anderson from Clements Baptist Church in Alabama along with national pastor Gerardo Ferrace, would be leading a Pastoral Leadership Conference to over 400 pastors, leaders and ministry volunteers from all over Northeast Argentina. The conference was a great place to meet new church leaders, create ministry contacts and open new doors for partnerships. It was also encouraging to see some friends of ours who had recently moved to that city to be missionaries. (Will Herndon and his family were formerly with Word of Life ministry before they felt Gods call to work more directly with the local church. Will did all the translation for the conference.)  The trip was a huge success. One special note was the opportunity to meet the mayor of the town and be invited to join in a skate tournament they will be hosting in May. Christian Skaters was offered the opportunity to co-sponsor the event and present our ministry at the end of the tournament. Please pray that this event at the end of May will be fruitful for the Gospel and the witness of Christ in that city. While we are there we will also equip several church leaders to begin a weekly skate ministry at their newly constructed skate park.

Ø  Financial stability during these tough economic times. Argentine inflation is rising at an unprecedented rate.

Ø  Blessing upon the next Skaters evangelistic small group, for salvations and discipleship. (May 31)

Ø  Souls to be saved and a new skate ministry to be established during this month’s trip to Cordoba for the skate tournament. (May 25-26)

Ø  Wisdom and patience for Homeschooling Breanna and planning next years school situation for Gaby. 

Ø  Healing for Tanya. She has really been suffering from many attacks of migraine headaches.

Ø  The planning of a discipleship conference for our group of churches in the coming 6 – 8 months.

Ø  Strength for James as he has recently returned part-time to teaching at the Christian Missionary School until they can bring in a teacher to finish the year. James was asked to fill in during an interim period when the previous teachers were unable to continue.