Work At It With All Your Heart…

 Dear Partners,

The past two months have flown by here in Lautaro, in what felt like a winter whirlwind! So many good and encouraging happenings, so we will try to summarize as many as possible:

At the beginning of June, we hosted the yearly team from FCC in Yuma, AZ! It is always so fun to get to reconnect again with those dear friends that return each year, as well as get to know new team members! 

Besides doing work prepping and painting two classrooms at church, this team also helped us offer English workshops at three grade schools (two of which are rural) and a high school:

What a great opportunity to help the community in a practical and fun way, while showing God’s love… We hope the team wants to use their gifts and talents to teach English workshops again next year, as well as whatever else God desires us to do together! We love and appreciate this partnership with the Yuma church!

At the beginning of July, we hosted the first team from Thousand Oaks (CCTO) to come in several years! It was such a blessing to have Pastor Joe and his wife Lynne lead this team of very talented individuals: a few of them had been to Lautaro before (even several times) and for others this was their first visit to the south of Chile!  

This creative team brought down tons of supplies and helped us put on our first-ever Winter Bilingual (VBS) Camp, which was an absolute hit:

Here’s a video summary of one of the camp days: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DLsHSxxu1kO/?igsh=MXM2Mnk5MHIwdWUyeg==

 We had a total of 33 kids participate, more than any of our summer bilingual camps! Some of the kids were here for the first time, while most kids were repeats from one or more of those past summer camps. It was fun to meet new kids as well as follow up with ‘old’ ones and their families! The team members were able to make special connections with these kiddos as well as with the regular church families…

It was such an encouragement to be able to have several leaders from CCTO here on that team to see what God is doing in Lautaro. We are so grateful for the faithful partnership of this church and are excited about future opportunities to host another team from that church soon! Maybe even for next year’s winter bilingual VBS?? (wink)

Ten days after the CCTO team left, a High School team from The Grove in Riverside arrived!

 Like the previous team, it had been several years since The Grove had sent a team down to Lautaro, so it was a huge privilege and encouragement to host them. We returned to the same four schools we had visited with the Yuma team, and were able to continue building on those relationships between the schools and our local ICI Lautaro church! Because this team was comprised of current sports players, we were able to put a twist on the English workshops by adding some fun physical activity in there too: 

And then in the evenings, the team put on sports clinics for kids/teens in our church’s gym! They had basketball, hockey and volleyball as the main focuses for the week, with some soccer skills thrown in for good measure. The team brought so much great sports equipment as well as craft supplies and so many other goodies that are already such a blessing to our church!

(Here's a video reel summary of the week with the team: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DMxqylkOXcw/?igsh=Z3E3MG9kYW1uamlw )

Again, so many good connections were made between the team members and the kids, families and teachers here in Lautaro. We are thankful for the support of The Grove over the years for our family and ministry, and for this special team that we hope was encouraged to continue serving God with their talents and abilities… We look forward to seeing them again soon!

 If you’d like to be as up-to-date as possible on current happenings at church through photos and short video reels, please follow the ICI Lautaro church’s Facebook or Instagram accounts:

https://www.facebook.com/share/1CjXjbPrwt/

https://www.instagram.com/icilautaro?igsh=MWdwbGQ3N201ZGl1bQ==

In the middle of all of the team-hosting of the past months, there has of course been regular ministry activities going on constantly: Sunday services, team meetings, counseling sessions, birthdays, funerals, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, next steps in construction planning…

A very encouraging highlight a couple weeks ago was when Estefany, a single mom who has been attending church for a couple months with her kids, decided she wants ICI Lautaro be their church as a family and asked if we could all pray for them:  

God is already using Estefany to be an encouragement to extended family members who are struggling in their faith... Please keep her and her children (Alonso, Jean and Trini) in your prayers!

Prayer Requests:

- This Sunday (Aug. 10^th) we celebrate Kids’ Day! Over the past three years, Kids’ Day has been our most-attended Sunday of the year, so we appreciate your prayers for the families who will be coming and for good opportunities to visit with them after the service to encourage and speak truth and love into their lives!

- On Monday the 11^th, an electrician and his wife (Mario and Juanita) from ICI Oriente will be coming down to continue working on the electricity at our church. Please pray for a very productive week time with them here!

- On Thursday the 14^th, our intern Carson will be returning to the US after being here for 2 ½ months! He’s helped with all 3 of the teams we’ve hosted, been a part of the church here during the in-between weeks, and became good friends with our team and several other families here at ICI Lautaro, where he will be missed... Please pray as he returns home, that God would lead him in this next season of life and use everything that he has learned and experienced here for God’s glory!

- It’s still a couple months away, but the first week of October there will be a Construction Team coming from the Grove to replace the 2^nd story roof over the classrooms! That roof has been leaking like crazy and flooding parts of our Sunday school hallway, so we can’t wait to get that taken care of soon. Please pray as we work on the logistical details for the team, as well as for their preps before coming!

- Right after that team leaves, our four kiddos will be taking their end-of-the-year exams the 2^nd half of October! Jeremy passed his 10^th grade exams in June so will be testing for 11^th grade in October! Unfortunately, Lizzy didn’t pass her 8^th grade exams so will need to retake those in Oct (she is disappointed, but it will be good to get extra focus on 8^th grade material before moving on to high school level). Cristina will do 7^th grade and Diego will do 4^th grade testing.  Thank you for continuing to pray for our kids’ studies and personal growth!

Almost done, but before signing off: we would like to invite you all to our next Ministry Zoom Call, set for Saturday, September 27^th from 9-10am Pacific Time in the US. If you can, please save the date and join us ‘live’ that morning to hear about what God is doing and what is coming next for Lautaro and our family!

This is a busy season of life, but not just for the sake of busy-ness. We truly believe that God is opening up doors for new opportunities, new relationship, new discipleship and mentoring… all so that more people join His family and grow in His love. May we all strive to live out Colossians 3:23-24: Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.

Thank you for your faithful, loving support through prayers, words of encouragement and monthly giving. We are honored and humbled to work together, serving our Lord!

In His Love,

Gus, Karissa, Jeremy, Liz, Cristina & Diego Guevara

...But God!

 Dear Friends,

As always, thank you so much for your prayers over these past few weeks: they have been very felt! God is leading and providing in ways that only He can, and He delights in prompting His children to bless others through prayer, finances, encouragement, direction… and it is such an enormous blessing to be able to partner with you in this ministry!!!  

In the past weeks, we’ve received a couple very generous gifts toward car repairs, for both the Mitsubishi and the faithful blue Kia (that greatly needs some TLC)! This is a huge answer to prayer to have the finances to fix up the Mitsubishi to sell, as well as get the Kia back to being a dependable second car, especially considering all of the short-term teams we are hosting this year! So, thank you very much to those who have given so generously toward these expenses!!

Last month at church as a leadership team, we made the decision to not start home groups up yet this year, but instead doing something different for a couple months: we decided that it’s important that the leaders connect with each church family or individual in their homes (if they are willing!), getting to know them better, sharing a short devotional and praying for any needs. So, we’ve started those visits, in pairs representing the leadership team, and those have been really encouraging and meaningful times!

Even just talking about visiting and praying proactively as a group has led to other important clarification or counseling meetings with people. We really appreciate your prayers for this stage of visiting and all that God is bringing through this: 

(1st discipleship meeting with Xime)

Last Saturday, we had our yearly Volunteers Workshop at church! It’s always good to get back to the basics as a group about why we do what we do, what serving really means and the blessings that God has in store for us as we seek first His kingdom. We started together as a group, and then split into workshops talking about different ministries: worship, sound, greeters, Sunday school:

We have an intern, Daiana, here this month from ICI Los Heroes in Santiago! While here, she’s serving on the worship team as well as in children ministries. Daiana has also helped finalize the setting up of a new projection software for church worship which we are now using, and she trained a few of the youth to use that program at the Workshop on Saturday: 

Last week, we had a short but very sweet visit from Gus’ sister Niki and her husband Brad! What a special time with them. We had a lot going on in ministry that weekend (Niki and Brad jumped in to help out with that too!), and then we were also able to have some fun family time:

Now we are in full “Easter prep mode” at ICI Lautaro! On that Sunday, we will have at least one baptism in the gym immediately after the Easter service, and then will all have lunch together there too. Gus (with the help of a couple brothers from the church) has been working very hard building new round tables for the church! The only tables we have are rectangular, and those obviously don’t allow for the same level of conversation and interaction the new round ones will: 

(enjoying the result of their hard work!)

Also, we have never had baptisms here at church for lack of an actual baptistry to have them in! So, we just bought a 400-gallon water tank, and this next week Gus will build a ‘front' for one side of this plastic tank to give it a nicer look:

Besides cleaning, setting up and decorating, this next Tuesday we’ll paint at least one wall and install some new lights, to give the stage area at church a fresh look. All this in addition to our responsibilities of prepping the worship for that day, sermon, short Easter movie for the Sunday school class, little bags of candy/chocolates for the kids, the Easter lunch for the whole church… 😉

We really appreciate your continued prayers for God to lead, give wisdom, clarity and energy during this busy and important time! And in the midst of the ‘physical prep work’, please pray that the Lord would be drawing those He wants to be at that special service, as well as touch the hearts and give conviction to those who should take the public step of baptism!

Then, on the 28th, a team of men from Santiago will be arriving for a week of very specific & needed work: Replacing the leaking 2^nd story roof over the classrooms! We’ve been purchasing materials this week for the work that will start up in 2 weeks: 

Please pray for each of those team members that are preparing to come, pray for good weather that week of outdoor jobs, and pray for protection in travel and work for each person coming to help with this immediate need!

As most of you are as well, we’ve been very busy these past few months, and we’re looking at a lot going on over the rest of the year too. We are very grateful to God for the work that He has given us and the way that He is leading in ministry. At the same time, we recognize that the first ministry He has given us is our marriage and our family, and it is SO important to continue to strengthen those bonds, deepen those relationships! Yes, we really LOVE serving God as a family (it is the hugest blessing!), but we also just enjoy living life together in general!  

It had been several months since Gus and I had been out on a real date, so in the past couple weeks we’ve gone out a couple times: once for dessert before going shopping for things for church, and then a few evenings ago we went out for sushi! 

How fun to just connect somewhere different, get some time for just the two of us, and talk about God’s blessings in our lives! We are reminded of this Truth that we celebrate every day, but in a special way during this upcoming Holy Week: 

“We were all by nature children of wrath... But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ! By grace you have been saved….” (Ephesians 2:3b-5)

Thank You, Jesus, for the gift of forgiveness and grace You gave us at the cross, that gives us hope and strength for each new day and for eternity!

And thank you, friends: for your faithful prayers, encouragement, and financial support! Thank you for taking the time to read our letters and updates. Our family and ministry are so very blessed by your faithfulness, love and care!

 Because of Jesus,

Jeremy, Cristina, Liz, Diego, Gus & Karissa