God Opens Doors

Settling In

Once you move your stuff to a new place, there is a process of settling in.  Deciding where to put things and moving them around until they fit in to their new home.  I took a three hour nap today.  We are very tired. 

Yesterday was the first day I was able to cook an entire meal.  It was great.  We are very used to NOT eating out as Chiloé was very expensive.  While it is cheaper here, I like cooking at home and we all enjoy eating at home more than going out to eat.  Although there are not a lot of resteraunts here which sell anything other than chicken and fries, there is a McDonald´s.  It is been a long time since we have had that kind of convenience. 

Our house is located about 15 minutes from the beach.  We went for the first time last night.  It was wonderful hearing the waves and the boys enjoyed putting their feet in the water.  There were a lot of people out and we are excited at the ministry opportunities we have here.  The Lord is already confirming many things we felt would open up here.  We´ll share more about that soon.

Moving In

We are moving in to our new home.  It is a slow process to relocate.  Things just move at a snail´s pace here in Chile.  Our neighborhood is located in an older area of Arica.  It is quieter than we expected, so far.  The houses are concrete and attached to each other side by side.  We are all enjoying the heat.  It is in the 80´s here during the day and cool evenings. 

The Lord has been teaching us a lot of things.  He knows exactly where the flesh has not been crucified to Him.  We´ll share more soon.  Thank you for praying for us. 

We have a house!

We are moving today. It has been an adventure finding a house here. I will post more soon! Thank you for your prayers.

Impossible

We have heard this word over and over the past few days - impossible.  Saturday was our first day to look for a house.  Sunday we rested and we have been pounding the pavement since.  Arica has seasonal renters who arrive for the summer and leave in March.  Every time we find a house which is available; we find it was just rented.  People tell us it is impossible to rent a house before March.  One rental property agency we visited today has 100 people on their waiting list to rent property.  A majority of what is available is for sale because owners have had bad experiences renting homes. 

In the midst of the impossible, our boxes arrived yesterday from the delivery company.  The Lord moved on our behalf - the company agreed to hold our boxes in their warehouse free of charge until Saturday to give us more time to look.  It has been a test.  We have peace about being in Arica and we have not doubted one-time about being here at this time for this season.  Another blessing - the lady with whom we are staying allows Doky to roam free during the mornings and evenings.  He is definitely ready for a place, as we all are. 

Every time we hear, "No" or "It is impossible to find a house", we keep declaring nothing is impossible with our God!  We know He has a house for us here and we are more determined to keep believing although we can't SEE anything.  This has been a great time of testing and we praise Him for it.  The temptation to whine and complain is always there.  However, we are praying for Jesus to do a work in us because we need to be more like Him.  When every thing doesn't go our way or how we planned it is easy to begin to think the situation is impossible. 

We are standing today saying, "All things are possible." Thank you for praying - we will keep you posted.

We are here!

It has been a whirlwind since we arrived.  Doky made the trip just fine!  We are staying in a place with a church member.  It is a house which offers rooms to university students during the year; and she is allowing us to stay for free for five days.  The owner is named, Patricia, and she even lets Doky roam inside her house.  The Lord has answered many prayers and He is speaking to us daily.

No house yet.  We'll be hitting the road today as our boxes will arrive tomorrow from Chiloe.  Our desire is to have the boxes delivered to our new place.  We are believing something will open up soon. 

Randy is a bit under the weather.  He seems to have a sinus infection with drainage.  Please pray for him.  We will likely sleep all day the first day in our new house as we are all very tired.

I will write more later.  Thank you for traveling with us on this journey and praying for us.

2 Days Left

We thought our Internet would be disconnected on Monday, then we remembered we live in South America!  Things are a lot slower here.  We are working hard trying to get everything packed up.  Today we are going to get more boxes and go by the delivery company who will arrive tomorrow to carry our boxes.  As of today, no word of a house in Arica, but we are still believing.  They all say nothing is available and it will be March before anything opens up.  We may be crazy, but we know the Lord works when everybody says it is impossible.  As of now, all of our things will be delivered to the church in Arica.  We will be staying with the pastor and his family and all nine of us plus our dog and their cat will share their two-bedroom house.  I am certainly not complaining.  The Lord knows what we can handle and we have learned you have to make the best of what comes.  The pastor and his wife are humble people and they would not think of us staying anywhere except with them.  We have much to learn in the area of hospitality.  I am sure I would want to be inconvenienced to this measure; however, He is teaching us and we want to learn.

That's about all here.  I need to get going on our busy day.  Blessings and thank you for praying.

Eight Days Left

Our time is narrowing down. We have been able to say goodbye to many of our friends. What an awesome time we have had to get to know people from another culture and become a part of their lives, and they become a part of ours. This is our schedule over the next few days and ways you can pray:

• We leave here on Thursday evening, February 12th. There is a missionary family with whom we will stay in the port city Thursday evening. Doky is traveling with us so pray he will travel well. He tends to be high strung!
• We will we travel to Arica on Friday and should arrive there around 9:00 in the evening.
• Our house still has yet to be revealed! Please pray for us to find something soon.
• Everything we could fit in a box is being shipped by a freight company. Please pray for all of our things to arrive and in one piece.
• Our team in March has grown to 17 people!!  Please pray as we get everything settled to receive them.

Randy is preaching tonight in the church. We have full days from today until we leave. Lots of people to see and business to finish. We will be sharing Saturday evening with the YWAM group and they will pray over us. We covet your prayers! In the midst of all the chaos, we are at peace. The Lord has completely covered our move financially. He brought an unexpected blessing yesterday through a mission team which was passing through Chiloé for a few days. My makeup was getting low and they gave us bags of makeup they had left over from a conference in Santiago. We lack for nothing. Thank you for praying for us and we pray His blessings for you also.

A Wheelbarrow

We are constantly challenged (or inspired) by the resourcefulness of the people whom we live amongst. A man came to get one of the dressers we are leaving behind last week. He doesn't have a car and neither do we so the most logical option would be to pay a 'flete', which is a delivery driver, to come and pick up the dresser and deliver it to his house. A 'flete' costs between $5.00-$10.00. However, when he arrived we were puzzled as we did not see a truck; just a wheelbarrow and some rope. He put the dresser on the wheelbarrow, anchored it down, and set off for his mile walk home.

Resourcefulness is the ability to cope or deal with a difficult situation or (I like this one) the power of a creative imagination. Jesus is always creative. When the disciples saw nothing, Jesus saw a boy with some fish and fed every person who had come to listen to the gospel and in the end they had baskets of food left over. Often we allow our environment and the daily grind of a normal day's activity to stifle the awesome creativeness Jesus has put inside each one of us. We have learned we can't do things the way we always have. The budgets of the churches here are barely enough to pay the electricity and few churches are able to pay even a meager salary to the pastor. We have to rely on God's creativeness to show us how to minister 100% to a group of 100 kids on a budget of some stale crackers and dried up glue. And the Lord never disappoints. It may be inconvenient or even uncomfortable. It may require a lot of foot work. It may require tracing the copies instead of paying for copies. One thing is for sure, when we seek HIS resourcefulness, we'll always be challenged and inspired.