Begun in Faith

An Encounter is a weekend retreat that we encourage all church members to participate in. It’s two full days of classes with topics ranging from the sacrifice of Jesus and repentance to family and sexuality. Normally, an Encounter takes place in a hotel conference room with five to fifteen participants. We have a normal Encounter planned for February 13-14, but in December we realized that two families had significant schedule conflicts. Emilse is due to have her baby boy on February 3rd, and Esteban and Jessica work weekends except for their two weeks of vacation in January. So, with two weeks’ notice, we decided to plan a low key Encounter for January. We booked a one night stay in a hotel, but did all the classes and meals in the church on our own. The week of the Encounter, Emilse experienced difficulties with her pregnancy and couldn’t come, so we got to love on Esteban and Jessica and their two kids for the entire weekend. We met this family through Hadassa's school-Hadassa ...

“Christmas in July” now has a new meaning for me after celebrating my first summer Christmas. It’s weird, but in many ways it’s the best of both worlds. It’s Christmas traditions plus lemonade and ice cream and sunshine and flowers. I actually got sunburned while doing my last minute shopping on Christmas Eve! Argentines don’t really celebrate Christmas all month long like we do, but with so many North Americans in one house we couldn’t help making a couple hundred dozen cookies. We made up some plates of cookies to deliver to businesses in the neighborhood. Our recipients were either over-joyed or completely confused. Americans have a reputation of having an overabundance of Christmas cheer, thanks to our pervasive Christmas movies. We were happy to confirm the reputation. Argentines celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve and then all night long. We started with a potluck dinner at the church at 9:00. We had Brazilian chicken cordon bleu, American green bean casserole, and Arge...

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...