2019 In Photos

Hello Dear Friends & Family!

We hope you and your families had a wonderful Christmas, celebrating the birth of our Savior! What a life-changing, hope-granting Gift!

Well, 2019 is almost over! I feel like we say this every December, but this year seemed to fly by, right?  Here’s a recap of many of this past year’s highlights for us (it's so easy to forget all that's gone on in 12 months!), and then we'll close with prayer requests for the next months:

January - 

Technically, this photo is from December 2018, but we did ring in the New Year too with Karissa’s family in the U.S, even though there's no photo to prove it (wink):

Helped with the VIVE conference, at a retreat center just south of Santiago:

Lots of packing... and moved into our new home in the countryside:

February - 

Moved furniture and people around in our unfinished home as construction/installations were being completed:

Gus worked in Melipeuco with a couple teams that month:

Karissa made her first batches of homemade jams and preserves:

March - 

Adopted an abandoned mommy dog and her puppies:

Gus went to teach a sound workshop in Santiago:

There was a blazing wildfire that came within yards of our home: 

We celebrated Liz’ 9th birthday on that same day anyway:

April - 

We finished building our woodshed:

Gus helped with a music team in Santiago:

We celebrated Easter in Melipeuco:

May - 

Lots of apple-picking and relationship-building with a very kind neighbor:

(We had many visitors at our house, both human and animal😉: 

Spent a weekend in Ralco and Los Angeles for ministry meetings:

June - 

Gus played a concert with a secular band in a city further south:

(We went to Melipeuco as a family for leadership meetings and a women’s Bible study:

Celebrated Gus' birthday & our anniversary: 

Gus worked with a team in Ralco:

Taught a worship workshop in Los Ángeles:

Karissa & the kids dug the100-foot trench for the waterline while Gus was away as a surprise:

July - 

Karissa got a special day away with some friends to a hot springs:

Gus worked with another team in Ralco: 

We celebrated Jeremy’s 11th birthday: 

Prepared a birthday bbq for Amador in Ralco:

Road and water problems on the land:

Finally got the well running:

August - 

Karissa & kids went to Melipeuco with a couple friends for a women’s Bible study:

We had several weekend guests: 

Traveled to Ecuador as a family to serve at the VIVE conference and meet our sponsored girls:

September - 

The “18 de Septiembre”, Chile’s independence day:

Several different families came to stay for a couple of nights throughout the month:

We spent another Sunday in Melipeuco:

October - 

We celebrated Diego’s 4th birthday with the family in Santiago:

Gus went on a missions trip to Iraq:

Our neighbor helped Karissa & kiddos plant our first vegetable garden:

A social crisis explodes in Santiago, affecting all of Chile... Unrest, violence & lack of unity still continue in many regions more than 2 months later:

November - 

We celebrated Karissa’s birthday:

Gus worked in Melipeuco again with a short-term team:

Kids took their final exams to wrap up our home-school year:

We celebrated Cristina’s 7th birthday:

December - 

Attended a special lunch celebrating a rural waterline that hundreds of families (including us) will be beneficiaries of this next year:

 Building & painting shelves: 

Baking & delivering cookies together:

Special Pre-Christmas service & lunch in Melipeuco:

And yesterday we attended a neighbor’s birthday, where we were the only non-family members invited:

Prayer Requests for 2020:

- Please continue to pray for the socio-political situation in Chile: there is most likely an impending recession, there have been thousands of jobs lost, and this affects everyone here in Chile, directly or indirectly. Some are waiting for the perfect solution or a savior of sorts, but we know politics are messy, people tend to be greedy and selfish, and Jesus is the only one who can really save, bring justice and real freedom. Please pray for peace, generosity and love to be shown especially by believers in this country!

- Gus will have strategic planning meetings for 2020 with leaders in Melipeuco, Ralco and Los Ángeles in the next few weeks. Prayers for wisdom & guidance in starting off this new year well in all three of those locations!

- We will be traveling to Santiago in a couple weeks for the VIVE 2020 Conference (taking place January 15th-18th). Please pray for safe trips for all of those who are traveling to be there and for God’s leading in all that takes place that week.

- After VIVE, we’ll be hosting several guests in our home. Pray that those would be relaxing times for these families to get away from their normal routine and enjoy the countryside in the south.

- In February Gus will be working with at least two short-term teams in Melipeuco and Ralco. Please pray for the construction and evangelistic projects they will be carrying out, Lord willing.

- Please pray for Pastor Geovanni & his family (from Ecuador) as they are currently preparing to move down here to the south of Chile in March! We look forward to working as a team with them in this region after their period of adaptation.

- Pray for continued relationship-building over the summer months: As weather is nice and kids are out of school, there are many opportunities to get to know and deepen friendships with neighbors!

- Prayers appreciated for good health for our family over the summer. This month we’ve dealt with bouts of heatstroke, a flu bug and some seasonal allergies too... Please pray that all 6 of us would have good health and energy for everything going on in January and February!

Thank you so much for your prayers: we feel uplifted & protected knowing that you are standing in the gap for our family. Thank you for your words of encouragement: hearing from you means so much to us and seems to close the physical distance gap! And thank you for your regular monthly support, as well as your one-time gifts sent to help with specific needs this year: we are humbled & honored to be able to serve in this region, and your faithful partnership allows that to happen!!

It may sound really cliche, but one of the best ways we could sum up 2019 is with: #blessed.  In spite of the manifold changes and challenges, it was a truly, extraordinarily blessed year...and we are so grateful to YOU for joining us in this work and being a part of our international family.

So, bring on 2020! In His grip and in partnership with you, we are ready for any craziness this year brings!

Happy New Year, from our family to yours!!!

Because His mercies are new every morning (and each year),

Gustavo & Karissa, 

Jeremy, Elizabeth, Cristina & Diego

To the Middle of the World…and Back Again

Dear Friends,

Thank you for your prayers for our family's missions trip to Ecuador! We have all taken turns being under-the-weather (even now we all still have coughs, so appreciate your prayers!), but despite illnesses the time there was such a blessing. Here are some of the highlights:

- Family traveling: There were many hours in cars and planes and airports, but the kids travel well and it is just such a blessing to get to go places all together!

(at the aiport in Santiago)

(on our way to Peru and then Ecuador)

- Seeing how God is blessing and leading the ICI movement in Ecuador:

(praying for the leaders in Ecuador and their new vision of planting 100 churches throughout Latin America in the next 30 years!)

(Pastor Geovanni and his family will be coming to serve alongside us in the South of Chile next year!)

- Getting to praise God and learn from Him alongside almost 200 Ecuadorian brothers & sisters:

- Meeting the two girls, Kiara and Dina, that we have sponsored for 5 years through Casa Amanecer (a Compassion-affiliated after-school program in one of our mission´s Ecuador churches):

- Witnessing 19 people baptized at the conference (including Kiara, who Gus was able to baptize!):

(Pastor Luis from San Vicente leading the baptism time, with other pastors and missionaries ready to help with this special occasion)

(Gus and his dad baptizing Kiara, one of our sponsored girls)

- Teaching a marriage workshop that 45 people attended (one couple that came to our workshop got baptized together on the last day of the conference!):

(this young married couple got baptized together!)

- Helping with Sound and Worship for the conference:

(Gus as the sound guy while his dad, Doug, gets ready to preach)

(two sound guys and both drummers too!)

(worshiping with brothers and sisters from different churches and countries!)

Helping with Vive Kids in the afternoons:

Spending time with old friends and making new ones:

(lots of kids to play with in a beautiful location)

(spending time with Grandpa)

(fellow misisonary kids / new friends in Ecuador)

(Hanging out with their littlest cousin!)

(last Sunday, we visited the Oriente church in Santiago, saw lots of friends and witnessed another 19 people get baptized!!)

Thank you for the generosity of so many of you that allowed this family mission trip to Ecuador to happen! We were so blessed to see and participate first-hand in what God is doing in that country and in the Iberoamerican movement internationally!

And Now… to the Middle East!

The international missions work for the year is not over! Though we just got back home, Gus is already prepping for another mission trip: Going to Iraq for two weeks in October! He will be traveling with a team primarily comprised of musicians, who will be playing a couple concerts and teaching music workshops, both for the local believers as well as secular venues (universities) as outreach opportunities. Besides music, the team will also be working in construction in the newly legalized church space and serving refugees in the camp where they live.

(work being done last month in the new church building in Iraq!)

Since the team really needed a drummer in order to have a complete band and the previously signed-up drummer had to back out for family reasons, we took a step of faith and signed Gus up for this trip, though funds are short. His tickets were confirmed last week and his Visa for Iraq came through today!  There was a special donation covering almost half of Gus´total expenses for the trip, but any financial help toward the remaining $1,300 would be very much appreciated!!

To support Gus´ mission trip to Iraq next month, please use the following link: https://pushpay.com/g/iamchilenationalworkers?src=hpp&r=monthly

(scroll to “Gustavo Guevara” under the “Fund” tab)

Thank you again so much for the special, one-time gifts, for the regular monthly donations, for your daily prayers & words of encouragement… We are so blessed through this partnership and pray that you are blessed and encouraged as well! 

In His Love,

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

Happy August!

Dear Partners,

We hope you are doing well! Most of you are halfway through your summer, while we are halfway through our first winter here in the countryside. 😊

(would you believe that less than 24 hours passed between these two photos, and no filters used?)

Weather was very strange and unpredictable here in July (many locals said so too), causing damage to roads and fields and even houses in many cases, not to mention the illnesses and infections going around. We weren’t able to visit several people that we had wanted to, and there were meetings that had to be cancelled due to being unable to get our car out after one especially rainy and muddy week! 

(our destroyed road/driveway)

So, all that to say, this past month was in many ways different than planned (when does everything really go according to our “plans”?), but it was still a very good month nonetheless! 

Here are some praises from July as well as prayer requests for August:

Praises

• The short-term team from Oriente did a great job in Ralco in July and it was a great experience for everyone involved! Amador and his family are getting the hang of hosting and organizing the work to be done (with Gus’ guidance and help), and we know that God has amazing blessings in store for that town and mountainous region!

(the Oriente team in Ralco)

(Gus doing the bbq for the team on the last day)

• There are 10 leaders and volunteers between Melipeuco, Los Ángeles and Ralco that signed up this past month to start studying in the online IberoAmerican Bible Institute program! Gus has been encouraging them for the past few months to take advantage of opportunities to deepen and formalize their theological and practical training, so when this new program became available, most of them signed up right away! May God bless and lead those who are seeking to better understand His Word and His calling on their lives...

• Our well is now functional, so we have plenty of water! What started as a frustration & concern (our road/driveway being destroyed by rain and the city water truck not able to bring us water anymore) became the push needed to get the well usable and now be independent in that area! We are grateful for the help of friends to make this possible. And now our kind neighbors are allowing us to park our car on their land and leave via their driveway since we don’t have access to ours right now, until we are able to get the road fixed when everything dries up. We are so thankful to God for his provision, in every sense of the word!

(pumping out the contaminated well water)

(we now have a working well, with protective walls and a cover!)

• None of us has been sick at all over the past 6 months. Good health, especially for the kids, is an enormous praise and blessing that we don’t take for granted!

• Our oldest child, Jeremy, turned 11 this past month! It is amazing how time flies... but what is more amazing is seeing what God has done and continues doing in Jeremy’s life, heart and mind. If asked, he’d tell you that he wants to be a missionary when he’s older and preach the Word to those that don’t know Jesus; he wants to write worship songs but also songs about the challenges of life; he wants to direct and produce movies that are “family appropriate and have good, encouraging messages”; he wants to make fun, family board games about seeing the world and learning about the Bible... among many other things! Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise us if Jeremy did all that and more, because God’s love and passion just pour out of him... God teaches us so much through Jeremy (as well as through each of his siblings, of course), and we are so blessed to see him grow into such a sweet and conviction-filled young man!

(the big birthday boy enjoying his cheeseburger at a fun, U.S.-style restaurant in Temuco)

August Prayer Requests

• This weekend (Aug. 9th-11th) Gus will be in Santiago seeing to some things there. Please pray for his trip to be good and for us here without him those couple days.

• This Saturday (Aug. 10th) while Gus is gone, I will be going to Melipeuco with the kids and with a couple friends, to have a Bible study for the women there. Please pray for a safe drive and for us to be a blessing to the ladies in Melipeuco!

• On Aug. 21st we’ll be driving up to Santiago to see family there for a couple days, before flying to Ecuador on the 24th! We are going to help set up the space for the conference, Gus will help set up and execute the sound & worship for those few days, and we'll be teaching a marriage workshop, as well as visiting with those attending and serving in any other ways we can. Please pray for a safe trip for our family, for all of the preparations for this conference, for wisdom in what we will be teaching, and ultimately that God would use all of those serving to be a blessing to our Ecuadorian brothers and sisters.  Also, please pray for protection over our house here while we are gone for those couple weeks.

• We greatly appreciate your prayers for continued good health and protection during the remainder of winter, the transition to the heat of Ecuador, and in general with all the traveling over the next month!

Thank you dear friends, as always, for your prayers, your encouragement and your financial support. We are honored to serve God with you!

Blessings in Christ,

Gus, Karissa, Jeremy, Elizabeth, Cristina and Diego

For tax-deductible donations:

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 

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