Prayer Line

Please remember in your prayers Pat Blanchard and her mother.  Pat is currently over in the UK from her Lima parish accompanying her mother who has suffered a stroke.

 

Although it’s still mid-summer in South America, the administrative staff of FEISA teacher training college in Asunción, Paraguay, will be back at work on Thursday 15th.  Please keep them in prayer as they begin another challenging year of work helping to meet the diversity of Early Years needs in the country’s education system.

 

On Saturday the week-long Youth Camp begins at La Caldera, near Salta, in Northern Argentina.  Pray for René Pereira and the leadership team, as well as all the young people coming from different parts of the diocese.

 

One of the churches planted by Alf Cooper’s congregation in Santiago, Chile, is in the neighbourhood of Vitacura.  This Saturday Guillermo Martínez is ordained as deacon to be its new minister.  Pray for Guillermo, and also for retired SAMS mission partner John Cobb who will continue to coach him for the next few months.

 

There’s a mission exodus from the UK on Monday 19th with Efraim Vilella and the Kirk family leaving these shores.  Efraim returns to Brazil after a month here, leaving his wife Ruth to continue UK ministry before joining him a month from now.  Daniel & Ellelein Kirk, along with young sons David and Joshua, fly off to spend a month in Ellelein’s native Mexico before taking up their ministry in Chile.  Please remember all these friends as they prepare, travel and readjust to Latin America.

 

Finally, next Tuesday 20th members of CMS GB vote on whether to merge with SAMS GB.  Please pray for this meeting in Oxford.

2009 Prayer

2009 Blessing

 

May you be blessed, as you consider the challenges that lie ahead.

May you be blessed as you engage with others, as you find the time to participate and give others the chance to do the same.

May you have the courage to create and take risks, and may you find your rest in God.

 

May you be blessed, as you acknowledge your weaknesses and accept God’s grace in 2009.

May others see that you are fragile and may your fragility bless them.

May you understand the importance of being broken, as it enables wholeness.

May you understand the value of brokenness.

 

May you go to the places that scare you.

May you deal with anger and with sadness.

 

May you be blessed because you are perfect in your imperfections, as you are forgiven.

May you be blessed, as you accept yourself as you are, at times broken, wounded, and hurt.

May you be aware at all times that you are loved, but especially in this coming year.

Amen.

Prayer Update

Thank you for your prayers for the appeal made to the Supreme Court of Argentina by representatives of the Wichi people and settlers calling for a halt to deforestation in the Chaco area of the Province of Salta.  Last Monday the Court upheld the appeal, pending a public hearing on 18 February.  The ruling applies to permissions to deforest given by the Province of Salta from the last quarter of 2007.  Chris Wallis of ASOCIANA thanks us for our prayers and for this sign of God’s kingdom and his justice.  Please continue to pray.

 

Next week SAMS GB holds its annual conference for overseas and home staff at Dalesdown in Sussex from 5-8 January.  Pray for these days of Bible study, presentations, discussion and fellowship.  Remember especially Interim Executive Director Bill Lattimer who completes his service with SAMS on Friday and his replacement, Bishop Henry Scriven, who has just taken on his new post of Mission Director of SAMS GB.  Among others present will be Peter & Sally Bartlett as they prepare to serve in Paraguay; Peter’s consecration as diocesan bishop takes place on 29 March.

 

In Chile Pablo & Pamela Zavala ask prayer for the first Sunday School camp for the children of La Serena church, held the week beginning Monday 12 January.  This reminds us that it’s the holiday season in South America and a number of summer camps for children and young people are taking place.  Please keep the participants and their leaders in your prayers.

Greetings from Helen King – Red Box Project!

25th December 2008

To my very wonderful family and friends….

Hola from sunny (and slightly thundery) Salta!! This is my very first time bein in the southern hemisphere for Christmas and also I think the 1st time I’ve ever written a Christmas letter. (apart from those to Santa Claus)

Well as the muppets would say, there’s only one more sleep til Christmas. Although this year for me it’ll be quite different…no turkey dinner, no freezing/rainy weather, not bein with the familia , bein in a different hemisphere, there’s one thing that’s the same!!The reason we celebrate…the amazin fact that Jesus came to earth as a baby FOR US!! ‘She will have a son, and they will name him “Immanuel” which means ‘God is with us’! How excitin!!!!

They actually do most of the celebrating here on Christmas eve…today!!woohooo! In true Argentina style they start late at night and finish early in the morning!! Thats my favourite kind!! Although they don’t have church here on Christmas day, I’ve been part of a Nativity play as Mary and the other night a load of our church ones were playing CHRISTMAS CAROLS in the main plaze in town!beautiful!!

It’s going to be strange not being able to see you all and wish you Merry Christmas in person but know that I’ll be thinking of you and even if I’m enjoying Christmas here (which I’m sure I will be!) there’ll be a big part of me missing you and wondering whats goin on with each of you on Christmas day!Make sure you all enjoy some extra mince pies or roses chocolates or M&S Christmas food on my behalf!!(mmmmmm) I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas and really feel God’s love and peace all around you! Don’t fofget that He is the reason we have this amazin season!!

HAPPY CHRSTMAS!!!!!!!!!

FELIZ NAVIDAD!!!!!!

I LOVE YOU!! GOD BLESS!!!!

Lots of Christmas love and hugs!

Helen xxx

Thank-You!

Happy Christmas to all who visit the SAMS Ireland web site. Your partnership in mission is valued.

Northern Argentina

Hugo Vergara has had many varied journeys of late. “My last and very complicated trip was to a church 120 kilometers from Juárez, deep in the Chaco, in the community of El Quemado. It took 3 hours on a very dusty road and at three o’clock in the afternoon it was 45°C. We arrived at 7am when the sun was already burning in a very blue sky. It is a town of roughly 300 people where no one knows about a global crisis. The service started two hours later and the small room was crowded with about 30 people; we sang for about half an hour and Pastor Juan from Juárez introduced me, saying Hugo is ready to preach and share about the Bible – just when I was about to faint through the terrible temperature inside the room! Pray for us this Christmas in Northern Argentina as we travel and resource the Church in various places.

Teaching Opportunities

Teachers needed in Paraguay

Head Teacher Gwen Carlisle writes from St Andrew’s School in Asunción, Paraguay:“We are going to be desperate for teachers by February [the start of the 2009 academic year], especially secondary English teachers and a secondary maths teacher wouldn’t come amiss either!”
Is God calling you or someone you know to serve in this Anglican school with its firm Christian ethos? Please make a special effort to share this request. SAMS Ireland can send you a DVD of the school which gives a good overview. Why not chat to one of several teachers from Ireland who have worked in the school over this past decade. 

Gerry, Suyai & Tommy in Chile

 

Dear SAMS Ireland,

Time runs so fast that I was convinced of having written just a few weeks ago but then I realized that the only way it could be like that… would be if weeks were 30 days each. Not that I have forgotten you but I was running late.

 

Finally I have finished my studies at the CEP and I have reached the end exhausted, carried by the Lord (well, for sure I was carried the whole race), my soul having aged centuries, older (so, grumpier too, hahaha)… but joyful and grateful, free at last! I tell you, I had a great respect for all those who had gone through Bible College, but now that respect has grown. What a war in every field… and it is not that it has ended now. It is strange to be out and I beg the Lord for wisdom, humbleness, tenderness and grace to serve Him… but He is a generous, rich and faithful Lord.

 

I have to pay homage to my beautiful wife for her support and company and love across these years… so I tip my hat to her with my hand on my heart. And my son? Many told me: “oh, wait for a few weeks to see if you keep that smile”… but the smile has been put as a seal on me. He started to walk a month ago and still has that drunken sailor balance. Such a blessing he is, that if there was no God (but there is ONE!) I would have to become a believer anyways in order to thank Him… but there is another Son who is a bigger blessing. There was a day when the Saviour was born among us… and His message of hope and salvation has shone in the world and changed the lives of many.

 

Mostly for sure, we’ll be moving to Antofagasta in February to work at the Church there. It is a city located in the north of Chile (approx. 1300 kms from Santiago, where we currently live), in the driest desert of the world. Vultures instead of doves at the parks. Water is like gold, a treasure not to waste. Majestic mountains. Rain is welcome as a miracle, if it rains at all.

 

There are two loving congregations up there… and as the rector will be in Australia for the next six months, please pray for us: that we will be good servants for these congregations.

 

We love you and miss you. This is just a “wee” greeting for Christmas and I am attaching two pictures (Tommy was in a “mood”, but who could blame him when it’s quite hot and the red hat is put on him!). May God bless you all.

 

So, Merry Christmas from the three of us.

 

Maybe there is more to Christmas …

Christmas Reflections

Andy Roberts, a SAMS volunteer in Olinda, Brazil, reflects on a very different kind of Christmas. In Brazil 25 million children live in extremely deprived conditions. 8 million of these live on the streets, forming gangs to survive, and many will be killed before they reach the age of 18. ‘My Father’s House’ is a project linked to the Anglican Church of Living Waters which seeks to help and reach out to these boys. Living Waters Church is situated on a favela (shanty town) at the side of the city’s open air rubbish dump and together we reach out to over 250 children a day through a school at the church and ‘My Father’s House’, a safe house for boys in high risk: their lives are in danger. Statistics show, just from our own favela where we work, that on average 4 young people are killed each week due to gang violence.

 

Many of the boys in My Father’s House have run away from home due to

physical/sexual abuse from their families or because their parents are addicted to drugs or alcohol. Our youngest boy came to the project at the age of 4; he was found abandoned on the rubbish dump and covered in marks from where his mother had been biting him. Two of our boys have witnessed one of their parents being murdered: one boy’s mother held his father down whilst her boyfriend stabbed him and the other boy has to live with the fact that his own dad murdered his mum.

 

Christmas is a time to be with family and loved ones. Unfortunately, as you’ve just read, many of our boys don’t have any family or have no family suitable to take care of them. Parental love is something many of our boys have never felt. We work closely with whatever family the boy has to try to restore them both and this Christmas we hope that most of our boys will be able to pass a few days with some sort of family – their own or a substitute family. On the favela many of the children work on the rubbish dump picking through the rubbish to find recyclables, the majority of them supporting entire families from the little money they manage to earn.

 

For many children Christmas Day will be spent just like any other day, up on the dump picking through the rubbish, and Christmas lunch will be whatever they find there.Christmas is also when we remember the birth of Jesus Christ, who said in John’s Gospel that he came to give us life – and life to the full. It’s only through Jesus Christ and the new life that he brings that these boys and these children will change their lives.

 

So during this busy Christmas time please give a thought to these children who won’t be spending Christmas with loving families but rather on the streets and rubbish dump of Olinda. And we’ll be praying for all of you that this Christmas you might remember that Jesus Christ came to save and give life… and not just to street kids.

 

 

 

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