Ministry at Iglesia del Salvador

November 2011: The people of Iglesia del Salvador recently formulated a church vision for growth: the “2020” plan. The intention is: to expand the church to 200 (or more) adults; to be financially autonomous; to fully support the Pastor and an associate Pastor; and to have two worship services every Sunday, all to be achieved by the year 2020. It is a very ambitious plan, and the people of the church are trusting the Lord for its fulfillment, and the preaching, teaching and outreach activities of the church are being directed towards its accomplishment.

Iglesia del Salvador recently participated in a short-term mission outreach in the south of Chile, to the region of Alto Bio-Bio, which is a rural mountainous area, where many of the inhabitants are of the indigenous Mapuche people. There was a prolonged time of prayer in the church to commission those who were being sent. After their return, the church was blessed by the testimonies they gave of how the Lord had worked through this ministry time.

Next door to the church building, the parish owns a property which was formerly a family house with an attached butcher’s shop. Thanks to the efforts of Tim and Peti Webster (who were previously the pastors of Iglesia del Salvador), and short-term mission teams from Canada under their direction, this property has been converted into purpose-built Youth and Children’s center, called the Yachal Center.

There has recently been a significant development in the ministry provided by the Yachal Center. A ministry team called “Manos de Cristo” (Hands of Christ) based in Iglesia la Trinidad, a large Anglican church in Las Condes, Santiago, is developing a joint outreach program at the Center, with our church, to minister to the children of San Joaquin (which is a relatively poor working-class area), and to their families. Their intention is to involve professional people, e.g., teachers, psychologists, doctors, business people, etc., to give classes, workshops, and provide various services, together with a strong evangelistic component.

Youth Centre Shines Following Albertan Team Visit

Submitted by Peti Webster, a summary of a recent return visit to Santiago with a team from Southern Alberta.

Finally…the day of our departure had arrived. After six months of team preparation, Tim and I were boarding the long flight to return to our home of 11 years, Santiago, Chile. We were so very much looking forward to seeing our Chilean family once more.

Over the past months we had various meetings to prepare a team from southern Alberta to return to Chile with us in order to do some work on the "Centro Yachal" (Centre of Hope). We had a GREAT team, with MaryEtta Tutty, Mike White, Jackie Sharpe and Glenda Read going on their first trip to Chile and Andy Read, Sheila O'Shea, Doug Bain, Ross Sargent and ourselves returning for more of what had been experienced before.

How delighted we were to find the folks in the parish of San Joaquin eagerly awaiting our arrival! Oh and the surprises that awaited us! How can children change so much in such a short time…? And what about some of our young teens who grew up into such beautiful young adults? Truly incredible were some of the obvious changes we saw.

But of course there were many other changes too. The Centro Yachal is flourishing under the guidance of Lucila and Juan. An average of 12 children find their way to the house every day after school. They are welcomed with open arms and various activities are waiting for them. Homework assistance is at hand, food to be shared and a great deal of fun as well. It was wonderful to see how this ministry has become an important part of the neighborhood.

Lucila has done a remarkable job of putting things together and has taken the opportunity to share the gospel with some of the parents involved as well. One of her new helpmates in the work at the Centro was brought to Jesus through Lucila's gentle sharing of the gospel. New members are in the parish, and last but not least, they finally have a pastor again.

This happened just two weeks prior to our arrival, when Bishop Abelino Apeleo arrived to shepherd this flock in San Joaquin. We were thrilled to see him and his wife Patricia already becoming very much a part of the parish. How wonderful to see that God has been faithful yet again by bringing them to San Joaquin. When our Lord called us to leave San Joaquin, Abelino came to our minds more than once as the perfect candidate to take this parish into the next phase of growth, never thinking that it would actually happen. God is good, all the time!!

The team had various projects on their plate. It was decided that the women would concentrate their efforts on the first floor of the house where the children meet every day after school. Pretty soon the dark brown wooden ceiling turned into a bright white one, the walls turned from a dull and dirty light green (like the hospitals used to have, remember?) to various shades of pink, mauve and blue. The doors and window frames were finished in a very bright, loud green. The whole effect is that of a very child-friendly environment that spells out "this is OUR place!" The staircase which had been quite rickety and dangerous was fitted with new railings offering much more security. Everyone was thrilled with the way it all turned out.

Our men focused on what used to be a butcher shop, the second building on the site. It had sat empty for several months after the butcher moved out. This is where we saw another wonderful transformation take place. With the help of Arturo (our handyman for years and later project leader during the church construction) and some of his workmen, the guys gutted the butcher shop of everything except the outside walls and roof trusses. Now the Centro has a second and third, beautiful meeting room with the same lovely colors mentioned before, along with a new ceramic tiled floor, new ceilings and roof. Absolutely wonderful! You can imagine that our two weeks of work time in Chile flew by and when we were ready to come home there were still quite a number of projects yet to be finished.

Thanks to the generosity of many of you, we were able to keep Arturo and his crew on site to redo and finish all the bathrooms, tile the walls of the kitchen, do all the finishing work as well as some new siding, eaves, gutters and a new roof on the House. This truly was another of our Lord's miracles. We were looking for about $5,000 for the project as we saw it, and ended up with enough funds to see all of the above finished.

All that remains to be shared is how truly blessed this whole process has been. We remember back to the birth of the idea of building a new church back in 2000, to the arrival of the first team in 2002, and how God saw that there were enough funds to get a great start. Every time funds ran out, He saw to it that more were raised and the amounts were always exactly what was needed for the next phase until the church building was finally done, including new Sunday school rooms. Then the vision of eventually buying a second property to house a Centre for children/youth of the neighbourhood and a safe place to come after school. The frustrating process of trying to come to terms with our neighbour (the owner of the house and butcher-shop). And how a couple of visiting short-termers prayed over that property and the next day the owner was ready to finally sell. Then "how to raise the funds to make this happen?" We were still short a lot of funds. The miracle of the loan extended through some very generous souls from southern Alberta and how within a year that loan was able to be repaid. And this last trip when more funds than targeted came in and hence the Centro will be in really good shape for many years to come.

From the bottom of the hearts of all our brothers and sisters and the children of San Joaquin a HUGE THANK YOU comes your way along with the open invitation to come and visit them anytime. The team and I would like to echo that THANK YOU, as you made it possible for us to be first-hand witnesses of the fabulous transformation of this so vital and important ministry in San Joaquin, Chile.

We serve a great God and it is truly AWESOME to watch Him at work! Praise the Lord!