June 2015 COMBINATION Newsletter/Praise & Prayer Letter

Welcome to CHILE MISSION At MID-YEAR!  We so appreciate your steady prayer and financial support month after month and always look forward to sharing our Praises and Prayer needs with you monthly as well.  Please use this mid-year report for your June Chile Praises and Prayers, and thanks once again for keeping them flowing!!

At the beginning of each month you receive our Chile Praise & Prayer Letter link which takes you to our website to read it.  We’d like to encourage you to go to different sections of our website to become better acquainted with the current status of God’s work through us.  It’s well-organized and easy to follow and we do strive to keep it up-to-date.  We also periodically add photos.  We’d like to call your attention to…

Our updated Mission Statement  Our Mission statement needed to better reflect our emphasis on working with children.  We also noticed that it did not reflect that fact that missionaries are “sent out” by their churches to other places (good example is Paul with Barnabas).  Our re-worded Mission statement is:

               Sent out by the Church to…  reach people, and especially children, with the love of                                                                        Jesus, so they might know and follow him.

Janine’s up-coming trip to the States   We continue to work to open more U.S. venues to market our Chile-made marble people and sets.  They’re reasonably priced, super cute, and make great collectibles.  The website for them is www.marblepeople.com  The reason for selling them is to help support our work with children—abandoned and otherwise—with a source of income that might continue well into the future, supplementing sources of support within Chile itself in the coming years.

We’ve been selling the figures at the ICOM (Int’l Conference on Missions) for years and the last two years have also had a booth at the NACC (North American Christian Convention).  Janine will be flying to the States now in June to help attend our booth at this year’s NACC in Cincinnati, June 23-26.  She will then fly to Orlando the very next week to attend the Christian Retailers Show, seeking contacts to sell our figures for wholesale purchase.

We have an urgent housing need, however.  Donn Urban (Donn & Cindy have been our forwarding agent mission partners in the States for years) will bring our marble products from Indiana to the NACC.  Donn and Janine will both be representing us, setting up our booth on Monday, June 22, and taking down it on Thursday evening, June 24.  We had contacted Cincinnati Christian University about housing for them both, but after an initial response of possibilities, it took the university over 2 months to finally decide that with summer re-modeling and refurbishing of their dorms, they couldn’t provide housing of any kind.  IF ANYONE MIGHT HAVE FRIENDS OR RELATIVES IN CINCINNATI, PLEASE LET US KNOW AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, as at this time, Donn and Janine still need affordable housing.  Donn’s E-mail is donnurban@gmail.com and ours is chilemission@hotmail.com  

Again, they’ll need housing for 3 nights, June 22-24.  Thanks so much!!

Family Christian Residence for abandoned children   We will be ECSTATIC!! when it becomes possible to notify our supporters (and the whole world J) that our Foundation has been formally approved.  We are awaiting this step to begin operating once again.  Our attorney does expect final approval within the coming weeks and we, of course, keep praying that will be the case.  In the meantime we have continued with different projects of organizing in different ways and doing inventory, as well as needed improvements and repairs and painting, including the re-varnishing and repair of chairs and the re-upholstering of well-worn couches.

Two other important steps in re-opening will be the finding and contracting of both the Chilean person who will oversee the work as its director, and the Chilean Christian couple who will work as substitute parents in one of the houses, so that we can begin receiving children (target ages of between 4 and 7 years of age).  Up to six children can live in each house.  Our mission residence (houses built on our mission property) represents a major focus of our work with children.  Janine has already been in contact with an experienced, Christian social worker who will be able to help with the re-initiation of the residence’s functioning.  We plan to continue with the profile of abandoned children, with adoption of each child in mind.

Christian Camp/Center in rural Chile outside of Concepción   We are pleased and excited to announce that on May 21 through May 24, we and a team of people met at the new property to be developed into a Christian camp for children/Christian center.  It was especially good that Millarai got to go with us to experience new things and time with other special people.

Included with us in the team were Domingo & Sandra (donating the land and part of the directing board of the work), Marcelo & Cecily (Marcelo to finish the filming and interviewing needed to create a 5-minute dvd, and Cecily for her experience as a camp counselor and employee for several summers at a Christian camp in Texas), and Manuel & María Elena (as an architect, he was able to walk the property and think “first steps” such as water accessibility, sewage processing and building phases and placement).  First steps of Stage One include:

• Reviewing the property’s site map to delineate the exact land to be used for the Christian camp/outreach center. We all met on Sunday, May 31, to begin this process.
• Determine placement of areas within the land, starting with a shelter with enclosed kitchen and baths, as well as designating locations for tent camping, multi-purpose building, and cabins, along with associated costs.
• Designate the initial board members that will be making all decisions, including the camp/center name.
• Make contacts to determine the dimensions and cost of the well to be drilled.
• Meet with the notary/attorney who will be both deeding the land toward its new purpose and setting up the legal board to direct the work forward.
• Locate an administrator/overseer who can live on the property help supervise the work and initiate contacts with neighbors, municipalities, and local churches.

Marcelo estimates that the presentation dvd should be ready by the end of June.  The initial feeling of Domingo & Sandra and us is that we would like to have the property ready for one-day events with area children beginning in January of 2016 (the beginning of summer in Chile).

A main ingredient in it all, as mentioned above, is the forming and developing of relationships in the area.  Toward that end, our group attended the local Pentecostal church the weekend we were there.  Everyone in the group shared their particular role with the congregation.  Jack, as a fellow pastor, was called upon to preach—talk about having “a moment’s notice”!!  We were the only people in the church dressed casually—contrasting with the ladies in long skirts and all of the men with suits and ties!  Healthy, active, working relationships in the immediate area will be crucial if we are to have their support and participation.

We’d like to take this opportunity to again recognize and thank the Macomb Christian Church in Michigan for designating the proceeds from their yearly “Fall Harvest of Talents” event as seed money for this good outreach.  In all of our searching for property it’s taken time (inside of God’s plan, to be sure) for us to be put in contact with Domingo & Sandra who are donating the land, so we are all too grateful to finally be under way.  These are some of the photos taken during our recent trip:

            

Swanson housing situation   We have been looking in nearby communities for some time for housing to rent.  In order to better facilitate the first house parents’ move-in process at the mission property we have decided to wait on a separate house for us.  We sincerely hope that the first house parents will be selected and able to move in within the coming months, as that will mean that we are ready to begin anew with children.  Thank you for your prayers on these steps.

Millarai’s health   Thank you to all praying for Millarai, the 14-year-old girl with bone cancer under our care periodically!  She had an MRI May 25 to discern the exact nature of two new spots–one on her spine and the other on her pelvis–that showed up in a full-body x-ray.  The results showed that they were NOT cancer, so she was released to go back to northern Chile and not return to Santiago for further medical appointments until late July.  Her other doctors noted continued growing strength of her heart and continued healing of her kidneys, both damaged in past months from the affect of Milla’s treatments.  All totaled, ALL OF THESE ASSESSMENTS represent great news and she’s very happy.  So are we.

While we never know how God will respond in answer to the fervent prayer of his children, but we know that he will and we know that we can always trust that response.  We owe him all the praise and gratitude.

BIGGEST event of May!!!   We are all too happy that Milla made a decision to be baptized prior to flying to northern Chile the first week of June.  She was thus baptized, with the church and others present, on Sunday, May 31.  A great explanation of biblical baptism can be found in Romans 6: 1-14.  Congratulations, Milla, for wanting Jesus as both Savior & Lord of your life!

          

Praising, praying, and fasting with you in our MINISTRY-COORDINATING, LIFE-TRANSFORMING GOD,

Jack & Janine