GRATITUDE

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving, Dear Friends!

We are so grateful for YOU and your faithful prayers and support over the years... What a blessing it is to partner with you in serving God here in Lautaro! Here are some praises and photos from the past few months, and then a few prayer requests:

Praises -

Over the past months since starting the new leadership team at ICI Lautaro, we’ve had new ministries running and a few special activities, including Youth group and Women meetings:

 

After a couple months of hard work, the new kitchen at church has been finished!

We held our 2nd ‘Fiesta de la Luz’ (‘Light Party’) celebrating Jesus being the true Light, with costumes, dancing singing and games!

Our kiddos passed their exams to validate the homeschool year!

I (Karissa) was blessed to be to share at a women’s retreat early this month at ICI Oriente in Santiago, and we had a little bit of extended family time!

Our US passports renewal process was approved! Thank You, Lord! Now we just need to wait a couple more weeks for the new passports to be sent.

After 10 months at the mechanic, we finally have our Mitsubishi back!! Thank you so much for your prayers and the generosity of those who gave to cover this huge need!!

 

Now a few prayer requests for the next few weeks -

- Next Monday, Dec. 4^th Gus will have the blessing of sharing about the work in Lautaro in a Missions-wide zoom call about the churches in the south of Chile. Please pray that would be a great opportunity for people to learn about what God is doing in these southern regions in the ICI Movement!

- There is a new couple coming to church, Blankita and Maicol, who are expecting a baby due this next week. The pregnancy has been complicated so appreciate prayers for the baby and mom’s health. In addition, Blankita is a believer but had left church years ago, while Maicol is agnostic, but recently has been open to spiritual conversations. I’m organizing a meal-train for them after the baby is born to show them the practical love of the Body of Christ, and we appreciate your prayers for their spiritual journey as they encounter God’s Love and Truth!

- Saturday, Dec. 23^rd will be our Christmas service! Please pray for all of the preps that are currently underway! The kiddos will do choreography for a couple songs, and we'll have a Christmas play with kids, teens, and adult actors!  The evening will have a very evangelistic focus, and with so many friends involved in singing, dancing, and acting, we are praying that their non-believing friends will accept the invitation to attend and be exposed to the Good News message!

- We are very excited that there are 23 people from ICI Lautaro going to our mission-wide Conference (called ‘VIVE’) in January! A group of us have been selling lunches, snacks, raffle tickets, among other things, in order to raise money to go! Please pray for this whole group and what God is doing in each family...

- Last but definitely not least, my sister Monique just got engaged!! So now, more than ever, we REALLY need to travel to the US next year!! 😉 We are excited to hopefully spend time with family that we haven’t seen in years and visit our faithful supporters! We would LOVE the opportunity to share with you in person about what God is doing here in Lautaro! So far, we have $500 out of the $5,500 that tickets (currently) cost, so we greatly appreciate the generosity of those who are able to help with these travel expenses!

For anyone desiring to contribute to these tickets or to join our monthly support team, here is our support information for tax-deductible contributions:

Online, please use the link below and scroll to “Gustavo Guevara” under the “Fund” tab: https://pushpay.com/g/iamchilenationalworkers?src=hpp&r=monthly

Through regular mail, please make checks payable to “IberoAmerican Ministries”, designate to “Project: Guevara - Chile”,
and send to:
IberoAmerican Ministries
P.O. Box 1493
Monroe, WA 98272

The past few months, we have really identified with the lyrics of “Gratitude” by Brandon Lake:

“All my words fall short; I’ve got nothing new. How could I express all my gratitude?

I could sing these songs as I often do, but every song must end, and You never do.

So I throw up my hands and praise You again and again,

‘Cause all that I have is a Hallelujah, hallelujah,

And I know it’s not much, but I’ve nothing else fit for a King,

Except for a heart singing Hallelujah, Hallelujah...”

 

May our gratitude for what Jesus has done for us lead to live a life of worship, surrender and service to God, by serving others as well... He has blessed us soooo much and we are compelled to bless others with His Love! Thank YOU for being a channel of God’s love and provision in our lives...

With immense gratitude,

Gus, Karissa & Kiddos

Snowball Effect!

 Dear Partners,

We are just a couple weeks away from the official start of winter here in the southern hemisphere as many of you up north are fast approaching summer! 

In spite of the cold and rain, there has been a lot going on here in Lautaro! Thank you so much for praying for the work last week with the short-term team from Flagstaff, AZ (and a few friends returning from ICI Los Heroes in Santiago too)! It was a super busy week for everyone, but these 15 university students and three leaders did fantastic work with great attitudes and left a lasting impression on us as a couple, our kiddos and our brothers & sisters at ICI Lautaro. We were very blessed by them through the physical work they helped with as well as their words of encouragement and smiles!

(University students from "The Corner" in Flagstaff, AZ)

(Claudio Miranda, Claudio Castro and Cristian from Los Heroes)

(We were thrilled and blessed to have Papo come with the team this time!)

One of the big challenges in hosting such a big team (and having 7 on the team staying in our home!) is our current car situation: Yep, the Mitsubishi is still at the mechanic. However, our neighbor don Oscar graciously lent us his car again for the week the team was here, so we were able to move people around as needed! And now this week we finally have a diagnosis for the car problems and a quote, totaling about $3,150 USD, toward which we have $2,300 saved. Please help us pray for the remaining $850 needed to fix the car! 

Now, back to the work with the team: First off, so much painting! The gym walls, bleachers, hallways by the church meeting room and the Sunday school room, and part of the wall outside all got fresh coats of paint that make them look so much lighter, brighter and bigger:

Outside, the structure for the water tower got sanded and painted, and lots of branches from the trees downed a few weeks ago were cut, dragged and stacked!

I took groups of team members to three different grade schools that happily accepted an English Workshop we offered! This was such a cool opportunity to get out in the community representing the church, spend time with lots of kids and connecting with some of the teachers at their schools! Each of the schools then posted about the workshops to their Facebook pages, and the feedback has been so encouraging!

There were at least 30 of us for every meal at church all week, so lots of food and good kitchen help!!

It was a quick week, but there was time on Saturday to spend time with friends from ICI Lautaro that hadn’t been able to come during the week. Some sports, a yummy lunch and evening church service, with lots of conversations and fun mixed in!

As we told the team as the week was ending, this has felt like the beginning of a snowball effect: all of this hard effort in a good direction will inspire (and has already inspired) others to join in on what God is doing in this place and beyond! Our Lord is the One who redeems, shines light into darkness, and brings life even out of a tomb: there is literally nothing impossible for Him!! We know and believe this without a doubt, and a week like this felt like a fundamental step in growth & projection for the ICI Lautaro Church and Community Center Project... 

All that to say, we are so very grateful for this partnership with ICI Los Heroes and now with our new friends from Flagstaff, Arizona, who we hope to see back in Lautaro again very soon, Lord willing! 😊

During this next month, please pray for:

• Two different families with teenagers dealing with severe depression.... May God continue to work in their lives and use us to speak His Truth and Love!
• A special Father's Day service! May friends use this special occasion to invite important people in their lives to church, perhaps for the first time! 
• The ICI Lautaro church, for continued growth, maturity and passion.
• The short-term team from Yuma preparing to come down to Southern Chile the last week of June! They'll be up in Ralco the first week and then down here in Lautaro starting July 1st. We're looking forward to seeing them and working alongside Yuma in Lautaro again!
• The remaining $850 needed to fix the car, and that it would be repaired well and asap. 
• Our health as a family, as there are lots of colds and bugs going around right now.

Thank you so much for your faithful prayers, encouragement and financial support, all of which allow us to serve here in Lautaro. We are privileged and humbled as a family to be in this partnership with you and pray that God continue to provide for each of your needs according to His Word. 

"Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." ((Ephesians 3:20-21)

In His Love,

Gus & Karissa, Jeremy, Liz, Cristina & Diego