Hello family!
I hope you are enjoying the remainder of your summers in the United States, and we hope it was a very good time for you. In Chile we are ending the winter but very happy for very good news thanks to the Lord!
CHILE
Thanks to our Lord, the numbers of COVID contagion have decreased here in Chile this winter, which has allowed the government to allow greater openness and mobility during the week and this has allowed us to return to our face-to-face Sunday meetings!
In the city of Melipilla, we are working on the planting of a new church, Vida Real Iglesia in Melipilla, we rent a community center per three hours every Sunday, and after about 6 months without being able to meet in person God has surprised us with a great blessing ... the congregation had a growth of more than the double…praise the Lord!!!
We prepared for our return to the group that we had about 10 people with whom we have been working in Melipilla, and in our first face-to-face return service, about 3 weeks ago, we had 35 attendees and a couple of families who could not attend that day. We are very excited and grateful to the Lord for allowing us to see the harvest of what we have tried with great effort to plant for months, even with a very strict quarantine here in Chile. We thank the Lord very much for having your support of our missionary work.of our missionary work.
Pictures an video of our work in the city of Melipilla
In our Vida Real Iglesia congregation in Santiago, the capital of Chile, and after 1 year and 6 months, we have returned to face-to-face meetings, distributing the congregation into two groups, one that meets at 10:30 am and the other that meets at 11:50 am. Thank God we had both meetings with a capacity full of 25 people in total. We were prepared for a very slow return of the people but it has been the opposite, most of the members have returned to the services face to face with some energy and enthusiasm and thank God also new people who have come to the congregation through our online discipleship groups and our online services during the quarantine of several months that we had. We give glory to our great God!
Two of our Church Sunday Services in Santiago
Our congregation that is starting in the south of Chile, in the city of Puerto Varas, continues to work with children, we continue praying and hoping to have authorization from the government to be able to travel to the south of Chile and support them in person.
Thank God we continue with our LAWM Bible Institute in Chile with only online classes for now. We are in a second cycle of 2 classes: Christian Leadership 1 and Biblical Interpretation. I am in charge of teaching a class and we have the help of Marcelo Castro, a Chilean pastor, who today serves in Pennsylvania with his family in a Latino church. Thank the Lord we continue with students from Chile, Peru and Colombia.
We have been praying, investigating and considering planting a new church in Chile, please help us praying for the Lord's direction and His confirmation, we long for the Kingdom of our God to grow as He wants and reach more people with the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
COLOMBIA
Thank God our congregation in Barranquilla, in the north of Colombia, remains stable. After a long time of not meeting in face-to-face Sunday services, they have resumed, with a slow start but now with a very good participation of the people. Freddy Suarez and Katherine have been working hard in online and face-to-face discipleship groups.
We are planning to travel to Colombia at the end of this year, but the Chilean government does not allow minors to leave the country unless it is for a real emergency, therefore with my wife Adriana we are waiting for when the Chilean government will allow families with children to leave the country without any restriction to visit our Vida Real Iglesia congregation in Barranquilla.
Thanks to the support of all of you, LAWM has been able to have a regular salary for Pastor Freddy who is a national working full time in the Lord's work. Please continue to support us with his prayers for the good health and growth of the congregation in Barranquilla.
Part of our congregation in Barranquilla, Colombia
SHORT TERM MISSION TRIP
At LAWM we continue to pray and talk about a potential new short-term missionary trip of a group of friends from the USA coming to Chile in February 2021, we hope that the government of Chile will allow the entry of foreigners with the appropriate measures to be able to serve with our friends here on the mission field in Chile.
NEW DIRECTORS AT LAWM
The LAWM board continues to pray and look for our directors who can join our board of directors and participate in what God has put in our hands to do for now in Chile and Colombia. The LAWM board of directors has been a great support to us as a missionary family serving in Chile and Colombia, help us pray for the Lord's provision for new directors.
DONATIONS AND PARTNERSHIP
LAWM is a missionary ministry based in Lansing, MI. We are a non-profit organization under section 501 (c) (3) that exempts those who support us financially from tax. If you or the church where you participate would like to be part of our missionary ministry, do not hesitate to contact us through our website www.lawm.today or by contacting the president of our board of directors Tom Chamberlin tachamberlin@gmail.com
For God's glory!