Begun in Faith

If work were a beach, teaching would be a beach covered with a million stones. You have nine months to move all the stones. Most of the time you feel like you’re behind schedule and the job will never be done. Starting a church is a beach with one stone that weighs a million pounds. We have two years to move the stone. We know that God called us to this task, so we go out everyday and pray for the stone. We look at it, walk around it, dream up and carry out ways to move it, push it, pull it, chip away a bit each day. And pray a lot. Teaching is harder because it’s labor intensive and constant. Being a missionary is harder because it’s just impossible. In my years of teaching I moved emotional and spiritual stones and built emotional and spiritual muscles: perseverance, faith, determination, hope, integrity, muscles that now help me chip away at the rock and, more than anything, stay on the beach. Because people have walked away. One of our teammates chose to leave the project in Novem

One of our first committed disciples was Laura. I don’t know why it took me so long to write her story, but I want to have it here. Junior and Jaci (our pastors) met her at an ice cream shop. She’s a single mom and was there with her four-year-old Sofi. While Sofi and Hadassa played, Jaci and Laura chatted about life and the church. Jaci told me about her the next day, and we tried for weeks to get ahold of her. We exchanged texts a couple times, but I was fairly convinced I would never see her in person. Then she showed up at a house of prayer (Bible study). She talked really fast, and I still didn’t understand Spanish very well. All I kept thinking was how much she looked like an angry kitten. She’s a small person, and she sat back a little ways from the table with her arms crossed. She spoke barely above a whisper which made it sound like she was spitting—spitting fire. I didn’t understand what it was that had evoked such wrath, but I knew I didn’t want to be on the receiving end o

What do people tell you when life isn’t working out how you want it to? Wait on God’s perfect timing? You are being prepared for something bigger? These last couple weeks I’ve felt torn between these two responses; between the examples of Noah and Jonah. Our church and ministry is growing slower than we would like. My mom recently reminded me of the story of Noah. If God had sent the animals to Noah while he was still building the ark… can you imagine? A zoo of creation with nowhere to put it and an ark still to finish. God’s timing is perfect. Do not fear. Obey. Do the work you’ve been given and trust. I’ve been reading Old Testament books of history and stopping when a prophet is mentioned to read their prophecy in context of the history. I read Haggai and Zechariah in context of Ezra and Nehemiah. I started 2 Kings and then stopped to read Isaiah. I got to Isaiah 30 the other day, and I’ve read it every day since. I can’t get enough of it. Israel had fallen and the Assyrians

The missionaries: From top down: Dani, me, Rachel, Ashley Celeste, Damaris, Juan Well, while you are preparing for Halloween next week, Argentina is slowly slipping into spring. Celebrating Halloween is a big no-no in South American Christianity, so we North Americans have by-passed it completely and have been blasting the Christmas music all week. Some of us may be a little homesick. The Stringers, the pastors, Juan, Dani, and I will be here in Cordoba through the holiday season, so we have been discussing how to combine all our favorite traditions into the most epic American/Argentine/Brazilian Christmas ever. I’m sure it won’t compare with seeing the lights in Locomotive Park. Juan, Dani, me Unlike many missions organizations, Extreme Nazarene has a full time wellness team of counselors to help keep us going. Last week Sheli and Trevor came from Boise to do a two day team building seminar. It was fun and helpful. My favorite part was one exercise

After growing up with brothers, since college I have lived with several different groups of wonderful women. A few months in to each new living situation, my mom gets a text along the lines of “These girls and their emotions are making a mess. I know I have the emotional range of a toaster, but really they just need to get their act together.” (Yes-she got one of these texts tonight.) This strange quality of being distant and cold hearted is also what makes me stable, strong, and persevering. I’m not driven by passing passions or bursts of emotion. When I get knocked down, I allow myself to be picked back up because at the end of the most horrible of days my hope rests in the all-powerful, eternally faithful God. Amen. But most humans are not like me. The Old Testament describes the people of Israel crying out to God, raising a clamor to His ear. We sometimes have prayer sessions like this as a team. We all pray out loud at the same time. Some people cry or sing. I talk. I talk ou

This is a 100 peso bill. It's the largest bill in Argentine pesos. Today it is worth $6.50. Tomorrow it will probably be worth less. Pray for Argentina's economy. Before I left for vacation a month ago, I was asked if I was interested in being the church treasurer. I said, “No.” without hesitation, which got me a look that said, “I actually wasn’t asking your opinion.” This was followed by a, “Well…” that meant, “You and I both know you have to do this.” I sighed in agreement and puzzled over my situation. I’m pretty good at math, but I have no experience or knowledge of finance. Being treasurer sounds like getting to hold onto the money in some club, but it’s actually a lot of bugging people and reading receipts and feeling responsible for too many things. However, we have a limited number of personnel options. I have no desire to learn this job, but my math skills set me above the rest of my team. (This statement should speak volumes considering I have no qualms putting

Our life recently has felt like a chaos smoothie with some transition and culture shock thrown in for good measure. Our “parent couple” recently had to go back to the states, and we’ve struggled to get a replacement family down to Argentina. We had some substitute leaders for a while, and the pastors have been living with us for the past three weeks. The pastors are excellent leaders, but we’ve definitely felt short-handed with a job that already felt too big. We are now coming through to the other side a little worse for wear, and praying fervently for help as we face the transition of new leadership and changing job responsibilities with the official inauguration of our church. Through all the feelings of loss, stress, and frustration, God has been working miracle after miracle in front of our eyes, just as we would have prayed for Him to do in the best of circumstances. Here’s one: Two Saturdays ago, we performed an evangelistic skit in the main plaza of Cordoba. It was our

The focus of our work right now is making contacts. Contacts are people in the city who we know. In order to “know” them, we need to know their name and how to contact them. In order for them to be a “contact” they can’t be a Christian who attends a different church. We have to be able to get to know them better, and we can’t steal them from another Christian church. We work to make new contacts and build our relationships with the contacts we already have. The magnet I designed for the event. I think it has a bit of a Steve Thomas feel to it. The verse is John 4:13-14. While the short term team was here, we had several events that focused on making new contacts. One day, we passed out magnets with the church’s information to people in a plaza. It worked really well, but we talked to everyone in the plaza in the first half hour of a two hour event. One of the contacts I met was a man named Fausto who was with his two small children playing at the playground. Juan and I chatte

A few weeks ago, I got to visit Austin while he was on a short term mission trip a few hours away. He brought some of my things from the States-favorite movies, piano music, clothes, and a note from my mom. She wrote that I am very brave to be doing this work. I don’t feel brave. I feel brave when I kill spiders and walk through a dark house. I don’t feel brave leaving my life in the States and moving to Argentina. That’s not scary-it’s God’s desire for my life. This is what He wants me to do, and He’s with me in every moment that I’m here. I praise God for the life and job experience that I’m able to bring to my work here. I feel more confident because of the failings and mistakes I’ve made and struggled through. If I had come here right after college, I would have still thought I had to do everything perfectly. I am so grateful that I have learned time and again that God continues to work after failure. I was talking with God specifically about one class of students I had who