A New Family Picture

Dear everybody,

So today we just decided to DO IT. Do what? Get that dreaded family picture taken. We have been planning on doing this for a while now, but it never seems to be the right timing. Either one of the kids fell and has a huge scrape accross their face, or at least one of them is not in a smiling mood.

After church today, while we were all still looking put together and clean, we set up the camera and got that chore taken care of. I hope you like the result.

Liz

PS: We changed the color to black and white because we needed it that way for a mission annual report.

Dear everybody,

So it's been a month since I have posted on this blog of ours. I wish I had an excuse but I don't. If I were to claim some reasons for not writing, here would be some of them:

1) Our busy time has begun: We are hosting churches over the weekends while finishing up the last few projects on our "to-do" list before the summer rush starts in January.

2) I am half way through my pregnancy: which means I am either overly tired or trying to catch up on some rest. I have been enjoying a pregnancy where my kids are older and a little more independent. They have helped around the house but still there are many needs that only Mom can meet.

3) Teaching end of the year Bible studies: my ladies Bible study in Lican ended and thanks to God's working in hearts, it ended well. I am so pleased to have been His instrument in teaching these past few months. It took many hours of preparation and studying the Bible in Spanish! Not only did I teach the Lican Bible study but also the end of year retreat for the Liquine ladies. I don't know what is more nerve racking: teaching a group of ladies you have gotten to know over the course of a few months and think you should be doing better in Spanish or teaching a group of new ladies who don't know anything about you! But God is faithful and present in time of need. The words flowed and when they didn't, the ladies helped out! It was a blessing.

4) Work on camp and feeding extra people: Because we are attempting to finish projects, we have asked for more help. Victor and his son, Dan, have come to help. They are renovating a house that their family will live in during the summer on camp. While they worked on their kitchen, I fixed lunch and dinner for them. The last three months we have had very few days with just 5 people at the dinner table.

I could give many more reasons that would equaly fill you in on my lack of time lately to write but I did want to apologize to those who do follow the blog regularly.

Thank you for your prayers and interest in our family and ministry. We rely on every one of them!

Liz

A Camp Ministry Opportunity

Dear everybody,

At the beginning of the month of October, we received a phone call from one of our national pastors from the north of Chile. For a number of years, Pastor Guillermo Soto had pastored the Villarrica Bible Church located about 20 minutes from Camp Lican Ray, a church we attended for a year while living in Villarrica. His purpose for calling was to rent the camp for 5 days and bring a school group down from the town of Vallenar in north where he is currently pastoring. His son just graduated from a public high school and his class needed a place to go on their senior trip.

We were thrilled to welcome this school group of 40 to the camp on November 13th. Some of the teens attend the Bible Church in Vallenar but the majority were unsaved. They came with some parents who helped with food preparation and crowd control.

Each morning, Pastor Guillermo gave a devotional from God's Word. He also had the opportunity to pray before each meal and spend one-on-one time with each teen.

They LOVED camp!

The city they are from is 24 hours north and is located in a desert part of Chile, where everything is dry and dusty. What a shock it was for these teens to see our beautiful green and lush camp! They enjoyed the view of the lake and even took a brave dip in its cold waters during their stay. Most did not want to go home after their five days in the south.

What was most exciting about their time with us? A young teenage girl accepted the Lord as her savior! In addition, each teen accepted a Gospel of John Bible track. We were also able to give a Bible to the young lady. Seeing this, another teenage boy asked if we might have an extra one for him. He had been reading the pastor's Bible during the five days on camp but didn't have a Bible of his own! Of course we jumped at the chance to give him a Bible also.

Our new sister in Christ, Valesca is seated second from the right, next to Micah.

As they left we started praying that God's Word would change lives, that these teens would take the time to read the gospel tracks and reflect on their condition before an Almighty and Holy God, and make a decision. We are looking forward to staying in contact with Pastor Soto and asking him in the next few months if there was any more fruit from the ministry of the camp here in Lican Ray.

Liz

An Updated Family Picture

Dear Everybody,

Have you forgotten what we look like? This is an attempt at getting a new family picture taken on a Sunday morning a few weeks ago. We are hoping to try again soon and maybe getting a new prayer card made and sent out to you.

Dan and Elizabeth

Micah (7yrs. old), Morgan (3yrs old) and Matthias (5yrs old)

Thanks again for your prayers for our family. We depend on the work of God in our personal lives and also on His working in our ministry here in Chile.

You are an integral part of our ministry through your prayers. Thank you!

Liz

It's been too long!!!!

Dear everybody,

Posting on the blog is so easy and I don't really have any good excuse for not having written. So, my apologies for the great lapse of time between posts for all of you who faithfuly come on the blog. Thanks for not giving up on us! We do appreciate your prayers.

Our biggest news as of late is not concerning camp. It isn't about Chile or Lican Ray either.

It really is important to us though as a family and that is that we will be welcoming a new member of the family in May 2010.

YES! I am expecting again. I have just finished my third month of pregnancy and I am feeling ok. Some of you might know this and some of you might not, but I was very sick during my other three pregnancies. We are thankful that this one has been milder. I do covet your prayers concerning my health and the baby's for the remaining 6 months. We will be extremely busy with camps and ministry responsibilities for the summer, but are so excited about this new gift from God.

Liz

The Makings of a Greenhouse

Dear everybody,

Dan loves to plant... anything really, but especially things that later he can harvest and eat! We have miscellaneous pots in the house right now with herbs and flowers that he likes to grow from seed. He keep many different seeds from fruit he eats, or from plants he has liked along the road. So the idea came to transfer these plants growing out of yogurt containers on my window sill to a greenhouse where Dan can grow vegetables of all kinds for our eating pleasure.


The kids of course took a liking to the idea. Dan let them each pick one packet of seeds to plant indoors first. Morgan picked out the yummy cherry tomatoes. Peanut's mouth watered just thinking about his watermelon seeds producing and Micah picked out the green pepper packet... must have liked the picture on the front... So they planted their seeds and had a blast doing it.


But then the work started for Dan. He had to get the backyard ready first. There were trees to remove to make room for some sunlight and then some stumps to take out.


Then, Dan plowed the soil up with a pick, throwing out any unwanted roots. He set up a sturdy 2x4 base and then used PVC for the rest of the frame.


I helped him on the stickier part of getting the plastic up and over the frame and tacking it down.


This evening, Matthias and Dan planted the first few rows of radishes. Peanut just sat himself down in the dirt afterward just waiting for these radishes to pop right out, ready to eat... What a disappointment to find out he would have to wait a little while longer!

Tomorrow, the rest of the seeds get planted. And then my job will begin.... WEEDING!!!!

Liz

A New Ministry Opportunity

Dear everybody,

Last Sunday was a special day for us. After attending a regular morning service at our church in Conaripe, and eating a quick lunch, we packed ourselves in a van and headed into the mountains.


Dan was asked at the latest district meeting to help with the preaching and teaching in the UCB Church of Liquine and our new Conaripe church family decided to go with us for the first Sunday up there.


The church in Liquine was started by Gospel Mission of South America missionaries 50 years ago, but just recently has found itself without a pastor. Dan and I will be traveling up at least twice a month to go and minister to the congregation.

The trip was an interesting one! Leaving Conaripe, it's over an hour long drive on gravel roads, going straight up and down switch backs and curves. We saw breathtaking rivers, gorges and valleys surrounded by lush vegetation and towering snowcapped mountains.

I know it's small!!! On the top left is where we live in Lican Ray, then to the right in the middle is where the Conaripe church is located. Finally on the bottom right, close to the Argentine border is the location of the Liquine Church.

We arrived at the church in time for the service... our first stop? the wood stove. We were pretty frozen when we got there. We enjoyed the wonderful time of worship with guitares and accordion accompanying the singing.


Then Dan got up to share his salvation testimony and message from God's Word. It was neat for us and for the few that accompanied us from the Conaripe church, to see the thirst the Liquine people had for sound Bible teaching. They were on the edge of their seats and the message went long! Many of the people had walked 2 to 3 miles to be at the service and we were having record low temperatures and rain that night.

We would appreciate your prayers for the Liquine church.

We are praying that God would also touch the heart of a young man or couple and call them to this needy ministry of visiting and pastoring the many country churches still without fulltime pastors.

Liz

Anthony and Heather

Dear everybody,

We had the privilege of hosting two short-termers for a couple weeks. Anthony and Heather are from Pennsylvania and came to Lican Ray Bible Camp to WORK and that's exactly what they did!

We had a few projects planned out for them and they saw them through to the end.

Here is a sampling of the work they did:

1) Clean and paint the camp bathrooms - Heather did the majority of the painting and on her own for that matter. She got a little tired of that periwinkle color in the girl's bathroom!



2) Take out the rotten wood flooring in the camp kitchen pantry and replace it with a cement floor - Anthony helped with this project which entailed taking out a block wall dividing the kitchen from the pantry.


3) Framing up and pouring sidewalks in front of the main meeting hall and bathrooms.


5) Painting the kitchen walls and cupboards - Once again this job fell to Heather.


4) Raking leaves and burning brush on camp.


6) Build a covered porch in front of the administrator's house - Anthony works in carpentry so this was a fun project for him.




We worked hard but we also took some time off to relax. Sundays, they accompanied us to church in Conaripe and got to taste first hand some Chilean cooking and hospitality. We also took them for a trip up into the mountains to the hot springs for a dip.





May God watch and care over Anthony and Heather as they return home and may He guide them in their walk with Him.

Liz

GOATS !!!

Dear Everybody,

The past few weeks have been full of activities for us, not only camp activities but personal family ones as well. I would like in the next few blog posts catch you up on these activities but I will start with the most interesting and fun for our family: Purchasing goats!

One of the young couples in our church in Conaripe was selling some of their goats. This gave Dan an idea. Goats are relatively easy to care for and reproduce like rabbits, which is to say, very quickly. We thought long and hard about it and decided to buy a few goats.

Here are a few of our reasons:

- Meat producers for our family= Goats can have up to 2 kids a year (and most of the time they have twins)

- Brush clearers= Goats can eat just about anything and are great brush clearers. We are overwhelmed with brush on camp.

- Easy to care for= Our kids can lead the goats out on a leash to pasture during the day. they are very docile animals.

- The start of a petting zoo = we would like to have a mini petting zoo for the kids who come during family camp to enjoy.

- New responsibilities for Micah, Matthias and Morgan= they are learning what it means to care for our new "pets".

Dan, with the help of another young man, built a nice pen and shed for the goats and last week, we went and picked them up.

It was out in the country, about an hour away from our house. It was pouring down rain that day and the goats were nowhere to be found when we got there. Dan and the boys climbed the hills all over the property looking for them. They got soaked in the process and enjoyed getting warmed up by the stove for a bit.

Finally, in the afternoon, the goats came down the hill and we were able to take four of them home with us. That was a fun process.

The goats are enjoying their new pen, and today we were took them to pasture. They are getting used to their new surroundings very quickly. We are discovering each one of their personalities and qwirks.

Liz

Raking on Camp

Dear everybody,

We love our beautiful Lican Ray Bible Camp. The property is covered with beautiful trees of all different species.

What results from having lots on trees on camp is lots of branches and leaves to rake up in the winter!

What a job! This time around we started a little earlier in the year since we are actually living on camp now. We've been at it with the kids for the past few weeks, working most afternoons after they get done with their schooling.


Yesterday, we had Teresa, a young lady from the El Tume church, call and ask if she could come to camp and work wherever needed. We never turn anyone down that wants to work!


She worked really hard and got the main part of camp cleaned of all leaves and branches.

Dan used the pitchfork to pick up the piles and throw them in the bed of the pickup.

Even Morgan helped!

Then we would drive to another part of camp to dump the leaves.

This was our kids' favorite part of the job! They helped push on the tarp to dump the leaves out and then got to jump in the piles.

We appreciate all who sacrifice of their time to come and work on camp.

The work is never ending but it is gratifying at the end of a day's work to see progress.

Liz

Where have we been?

Dear everybody,

It has been so long since I have posted on the blog that I don't really know where to begin. I am hoping in the next few days to make the time to update all of you who have been following the blog faithfully.

The latest thing on our agenda was a trip to the capital city of Santiago last week. Dan and I were asked by the admnistrator of Pirque Bible Camp to come and give some work shops on counseling to their prospective counselors and helpers.

We droppped the kids off with Uncle David and Auntie Kristi in Temuco, and drove up to the BIG city. What a difference from our little town of Lican Ray!

Pirque Bible Camp at the foot of the Andes Mountains

We enjoyed the beautiful day God gave us and ended up teaching in the great outdoors on camp Pirque. It was a very profitable time for both the counselors and for us.

We realized after the sessions with the counselors and also a session with the current administrator and his assistant that this part of our ministry was vital for the camps.

We need to be doing much more training and capacitating of camp staff.

Pray with us that we could organize and clear our schedules to make room for more training opportunities in the south, central and northern camps.

Liz

Anniversary of the Conaripe Church

Dear everybody,

May 21st in Chile is a national holiday. It was a special day for our family for two different reasons. First of all it was Morgan's 3rd birthday. Second, it was the anniversary of our new church in Conaripe. The congregation held an all-day get together and special meals at the church. We celebrated Morgan's birthday the day before knowing that we would not be around to celebrate it on the day of.

Yesterday was a stormy, rainy day. The church in Conaripe is located around lake Calafquen, about a fifteen minute drive from the camp. It is much closer to the mountains and therefore usually has cooler temperatures.



The church celebrated 16 years of worshiping in their current building. The congregation used to count 70 to 80 people in attendance but now, only a handful come to the services. They had been without a pastor for 2 years and are starved for good teaching from the Word of God.


Yesterday, however, was a day of remembering the past and looking toward the future.

How do Chileans celebrate?

Well, they celebrate by eating together, drinking mate together and laughing together!

We were served a typical Chilean soup called Casuela, along with different salads and home-baked pastries. Delicious!

We drank enormous quantities of sweet Mate (loose leaf special tea).

After lunch, the ladies cleaned up the dishes and got ready for the service. Many people shared testimonies of years past and then Danny gave a message from God's Word, sharing about the two fold purpose of the believers on earth, namely to be salt and light in this world.

He admonished the congregation to also look toward the future and not dwell on the past!

Nehemias (Nehemiah)

We are praying for the church in Conaripe to bear fruit. We want to invest our lives, not only in the current generation but also in the next.

Belen (Bethlehem)

After the service, we sat down once again for a meal! This time it was an "asado" (barbecue).

It was pouring down rain and the storm was raging outside but that didn't dampen spirits any. They built their fire and put the "disco" (metal disc)on the hot coals ready to grill.

The meat ends up being stir-fried with onions, bell peppers and carrots and cooks in its own juices.

YUM!!!!!

God opened up this opportunity for us to minister in this church. We are getting to know our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

Pray with us that we can be a blessing to the church and that God would do a work in hearts and transform lives for His glory.

Liz