Prayer for July

Dear Friends,

Thank you for your prayers this past month! It was very busy and very productive! The Projects in Melipeuco, Los Ángeles and Ralco are all moving forward well, as all three locations had short-term teams visiting and special workshops in June:

(Amador & Gus working with a team in Ralco)

(Women's Bible Study in Melipeuco)

(Working with a short-term team in Melipeuco)

(teaching a worship workshop in Los Angeles)

July Prayer Requests:

• On Saturday the 6th, we'll go to Ralco as a family. Gus needs to meet with Amador to fine-tune plans for a team coming the next week, and I (Karissa) will meet with ladies there to continue a Bible study we've been doing together. We will stay that night in Ralco and visit the Los Ángeles church as a family on Sunday the 7th.

• On Sunday the 14th, Gus will be preaching in Los Ángeles and then driving that same day to Ralco, to be there when the team from the Oriente church (in Santiago) arrives on the 15th! That team will be there for 10 days, so please pray that they’ll be able to get lots of good work accomplished!

• On Saturday the 27th, we'll be going to Melipeuco so Gus can continue with ministry planning meetings and I can teach Part 2 of the women’s Bible class we started a couple weeks ago. Prayers for that day trip and the meetings involved!

• This past month, for various reasons I was not able to visit the three women mentioned last update, who all live within a few miles of our home... Please pray that if it’s God’s will, those visits would work out now in July! He knows when the timing will be right.

• We absolutely LOVE hosting but unfortunately have been very short on water these past couple of months. A good friend has graciously financed our well being dug, and we had been moving forward with each step as time and weather has permitted (photo of the kids helping to dig the trench).... Right when the plumbers were here last week to get the tubing installed, a rainstorm started that lasted 5 days straight with no breaks at all. We don’t have the protective walls built yet on the well (we're waiting for the connection to be done and functioning properly before raising up and covering everything), so now the whole well is completely overflowed with flood water... It’s not the end of the world, but we do appreciate prayers for a relatively simple draining solution, that the weather would cooperate for a few days to get it all finished and that we'd have a functioning well soon! It would be nice to actually be able to shower regularly again and wash more than one load of laundry a week... 😉

(flooded well and trench)

• A couple weeks ago while we were in Melipeuco for the day, we came home to one of our puppies dying, apparently severely injured in a fight with a bigger, wild dog who had been coming onto our land regularly. It was of course very sad for the kids, as this was the first pet we’ve had to bury... It also showed us that it is imperative that we build the fence around our land asap. Finances have been holding us back from doing that sooner, but we’re going to have to bite the bullet and get that built this month. There have been plenty of fun animals to have on our land (like horses & sheep), but others have been more dangerous or destructive. So, prayers appreciated for the finances, logistics and weather necessary to get the stakes in and a simple fence secured! (Photo of Cristina with the two puppies we still have)

Besides the busyness of ministry in June, we were also able to squeeze in our first date in 6 months, as well as some fun family activities: Gus and I went out for lunch and to see Aladdin for our anniversary (he got a free movie pass for his birthday!), and then the next week we saw Toy Story 4 as a family! What great movies!! Thank you for your prayers for special couple and family time!

(anniversary lunch date!)

(that was a fun family movie!)

Thank you so much for your prayers and financial support! We continue to be blown away by the generosity of so many of you, which allowed us again in June to visit each ministry location a few different times, not needing to worry about the funds for gas. We are honored to be representatives here in the south of Chile of God’s worldwide family, in partnership with you. Thank you for being a blessing to others! And if you haven't been to this part of the world before, please come visit us sometime!

In Him,

Gustavo, Karissa, Jeremy, Elizabeth, Cristina & Diego

Big Answer to Prayer, and June Requests

Dear Friends,

First off: Please Rejoice with us! Enough gifts have come in to cover our family’s tickets and related expenses to go to Ecuador for the conference in August! Praise God!! We are so incredibly grateful for the generosity of so many of you, giving toward this missions trip... It is a blessing in so many ways to have received this huge answer to prayer! We are now looking forward to preparing the marriage workshop we will be teaching there, as well as Gus helping with sound tech, and other ways we will be able to serve our Ecuadorian brothers and sisters!

We have several prayer requests for June, and we would greatly appreciate if you could join us in lifting up these specific needs:

• Gus is currently in Ralco with the short-term team from Yuma, AZ! They are doing work in the church building and will have opportunities to reach out to the community as well. Pray for God to bless, protect and guide these few days there in Ralco!

• This Saturday (after the team heads back up to Santiago) Gus will be going to Los Ángeles to teach a worship workshop to the small church group there and have some community-building time. He will also stay the night there and preach at their Sunday service. Pray for this group of very motivated young people who are passionate and desire to receive training to better serve & reach out to their community!

• On Saturday the 15th, we will be going as a family to Melipeuco for the day, so that Gus can have a strategic meeting with the church-planting team there in the morning, and I (Karissa) can have an outreach/discipleship meeting with the women in the afternoon. Please pray that it would be a productive & blessed day!

• Then, it looks like on the 20th we’ll be heading back to Melipeuco for a couple days to help a short-term team doing some work on the church and outreach! Pray for the details for that trip (it’s a really big team!) and that the work we’ll all be doing would be a blessing to the community there!

• Also in the next couple weeks, I should visit three different friends out here in the countryside who have been asking me to visit for a while, but schedules just haven’t worked out. One is a believer who needs encouraging, one is a young woman who has recently made some very poor life choices but says she wants counseling, and one is not a believer nor is anyone else in her immediate family, but she is feeling very lonely right now. Pray that God would work out the timing for those visits according to His will (and not just human logic), and that I could be a blessing to these women who all live within a few miles of our new home.

• Please pray for our children in the midst of the busy-ness of trips, visits, schoolwork and colder weather (winter is almost here!): that they would stay healthy, be grateful for the blessings we have and enjoy this season too, even if they feel cooped up some of the time! Also, for us to not overlook the need to connect with them each individually, outside of schooling or ministry interactions...

• Lastly, June 17th will be Gus’ birthday and our 13th wedding anniversary! We would love to get some time to go out on a date that week to celebrate, not that it’s an urgent prayer request by any means, but it would be fun if it could fit into the schedule somehow. 😉  

Thank you so much for your prayers, financial support and encouragement!! We are genuinely privileged to partner in this Kingdom work with you...

“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” (1 John 5:14)

Because He answers prayer,

Gus, Karissa, Jeremy, Liz, Cristina & Diego