Chile where we are living and serving as missionaries is struggling with social issues and demands that produced hard two weeks with a lot of violence.
Hello friends!
We are glad to have the chance to share with you an update of our ministry in Chile and Colombia.
As many of you knows, things in Chilean society are confused and challenged by a big social explosion. This social uprising was produced by many factors, the most important springing from the discontent of many people in Chile. Many are receiving a very low retirement plan ($200 monthly, and in some cases less, which is not enough to pay rent, food and transportation), a very low basic salary ($400), problems with the health system, and the concentration of the wealth in a small group of people. In Chile we have had democracy and a free market economy system. For around 30 years, Chile had great growth, taking the level of poverty from 30% to 10.7% (2019), but many people are discontent.
There are other factors which are political, people from different political preferences are participating on the protests, but it is true that the socialist ideals are influencing many people with the intention that Chile could change the economic system that we have and the constitution that was built during Pinochet dictatorial administration. There are many opinions on the streets, families and people; things have not been easy during the last 2 weeks, with an environment of hatred, even though between Christians who have different political opinions about the issues and the present administration. Next video was a week ago it in Melipilla down town, the city where we live.
Thank God that Adriana and the girls we are well; we had to stop our ministry for a week because the government declared a state of emergency a week ago and the army was called to support the police and stop the looting, violence and destruction. Last week we were able to could continue with our ministry, with our Online Classes at our Bible Institute (we suspended the present classes), we were able to do a Sunday service where we had a long meeting with our church in Santiago, having the opportunity to pray, talk and I shared a long sermon to answer questions and show through the Scriptures how we as Christians must react and act in crisis like we are having in Chile. In our congregation we have people that sympathize with the left and the right, so we asked wisdom from our Lord to lead each one of them to the Lord and His will described in the Scriptures. We know that our primary citizenship is in God’s Kingdom and we have a clear mission in this World to share the Gospel and lead people to be disciples of Christ.
Thank you so much for praying for us and supporting our ministry; we are not having good times in Chile, but we continue praying, working and hoping that all this will lead many people to commit their lives to God through our Lord Jesus.
We continue our work with the church in Santiago, with the discipleship group in Melipilla when it is possible during the day (we suspended for now discipleship groups that were lead during the night), and we continue with our classes at our Bible Institute. We have 5 people who made the decision to be baptized in Santiago and we praise the Lord that we can reach more people even in these times of social complexity as our God is in control!
Please help us praying for:
1.- The country of Chile, for authorities and people, that the Lord can show to the authorities and people what is best for this country.
2.- Peace for Chile, that people can respect each other.
3.- That Christians stay focused on our mission, stay focused on the Bible and to do what is right according our Lord.
4.- That the Lord take care of our family when we must to go out for ministry meetings and visiting people.
5.- For wisdom from our Lord to lead our brothers and sisters in Christ during the crisis in Chile.
6.- For more partners for our ministry in South America, we have some that communicated to us that they will not be able to continue supporting our ministry.
7.- For God’s provision to travel to Colombia to visit our church there.
For God's glory!
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