TESTIMONIES

Starting with Prayer    "Devote yourselves to prayer..." Colossians 4:2 I've now been in Mendoza for a little over a month, and so much has already happened! So far, most of my time has been spent getting to know this new church family, studying, practicing my Spanish, and exploring the city of Mendoza. There are so many things to share, but for this update, I want to focus on sharing with you what God has been doing to establish a culture of prayer here at the church.       Right when I arrived in Mendoza and started asking about what God was doing in the church, almost immediately Karina shared that she felt we should intentionally devote time to prayer before our weekly Sunday gatherings. We weren't sure if anyone else would want to come, and planned mostly that it would just be us, but extended an invitation to the rest of the church as well. Since we started just a few weeks ago, we now regularly have more than 10 people coming just to pray for a half hour before the service! What's even more exciting is that we have actually been seeing the impact of these prayers in our gatherings! The very first night that we prayed, there was a clear sense of God's presence in worship, and since then, we have been seeing more and more people come each week! This has also led to some people coming early and spending time just talking and drinking coffee, and forming a community together. All this just from choosing to set aside time to pray.       This simple time of prayer has been a beautiful reminder of what lies at the very heart of the gospel: Asking God to do for us what we are totally unable to do for ourselves. Jesus says it like this: 5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me, you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. John 15:5-8   Apart from Jesus, we can do nothing, but if we ask him, he wants to answer! When we first surrender to Jesus, I think this feels so clear. We know we can't do anything to save or change ourselves, but sometimes, over time, it can be tempting to think that we are somehow responsible for where we are, and we forget that it's still that same desperate dependence on Jesus that not only brings us into relationship with him, but also continues to transform us to be more like him. It seems clear to me that right now, here in Mendoza, God is stirring this kind of hunger for him.   The focus for this coming month is on pivoting our English gathering from a hangout-bible study to more of a worship gathering. This means we will need to do some very practical work to clear a usable space in the upstairs portion of the cafe, where there would be more privacy for prayer and worship. I'm excited to share how the transition goes, hopefully in the next update!     There are so many other stories of what God is doing that I would love to share with you all, but I don't think I will be able to share them all in this format! In light of this, I am planning to have a video call with anyone interested in October, so be looking out for more info on that in the next update! If you haven't already, please sign up for my WhatsApp prayer group! Click here to join the WhatsApp Prayer group!   Please be praying for: The Spanish-speaking church and Pastor Mark and Karina The transition for the English service and a clear direction on what this transition should look like My continued Spanish learning process       

Arrival in Argentina!     I'm now officially settled into my new home here in Mendoza! Over the past two weeks, our small team and I traveled through a few different areas in Argentina, visiting and encouraging churches! First, the whole team flew into Buenos Aires, and there I was approved for my Argentine citizenship before our team traveled to visit a church in Cordoba. Cordoba  In Cordoba, we visited a home church led by our friends Jorge and Dulci. They are doing an amazing job of building community and inviting both their church community and their neighbors who don't yet know Jesus to join them in ministering to the poor in their community. As we gathered with their community and worshipped and prayed together, someone had invited a woman who didn't have a relationship with God. After our team prayed with her, she decided she wanted to follow Jesus! This church also has a thriving community of young people between the ages of 12-18, so our team spent some time just praying for, blessing, and encouraging them in their walk with Jesus.          Gualeguaychu After Cordoba, we flew back to Buenos Aires and drove 3 hours north to the city of Gualeguaychu, where Ezekiel and Gisela lead a small church. As we gathered and met many of the members of their church family, it became clear that many of those in the congregation had suffered recent and significant loss. This led us to a time of all praying for the peace and comfort of God. It was a very sweet and touching time that left all of us feeling that God was inviting this church to be a place of healing for others who are suffering loss in the community.    Mendoza After leaving Gualeguaychu, we flew to Mendoza to visit Mark and Karina and the church family I will be serving here in Mendoza! Here we experienced something really powerfully that we had actually already seen at the other Argentine churches as well: both our team and the members of the churches here in Argentina felt a strong sense of kinship with one another. Again and again, people we had just met shared how it felt like we were all family. This brought to mind what Jesus prayed in John 17:20-23 "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May the also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one---- I in them and you in me---so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."   God cares so much about the unity of his church. Even when it's incredibly inconvenient and impractical for a small team to travel thousands of miles to a group in another country that speaks a different language, it seems that God honors and blesses these connections and, through these kinds of relationships, is showing the world who Jesus is. Thank you all so much for being a part of this with me!      Prayer Right now, the most pressing requests for prayer are:  That God would bless our new English-speaking gathering to reach and minister to those in the community in Mendoza who don't speak Spanish That God would give me grace to learn Spanish quickly so that I can participate more and more in the Spanish-speaking community  That God would give grace for building new community here in Mendoza