Immigration Temporary Visa… one more year

In 2021 we were supposed to receive our permanent residency visa here in Argentina. We were assured we could travel that year and return without any problems. However when we tried to return from furlough the Argentine government no longer had us in their system. So in 2022 we had to start the 3 year process all over again.We were hoping we could obtain our permanent residency this year but they told us we need to complete the temporary just one more year.  At least our temporary visa for this year was approved. The details are always in the Lord’s hands.  Please pray that all of our DNI (Identification) cards will arrive quickly.

Sunday Evening Bible study

Tuesday Morning Home Bible Study

We are so thankful that Luisa, pictured left, is feeling better. Please keep her and her family in prayer. She had been sick and bedridden for 15 days and it had been four weeks, due to her sickness, that we had not been able to meet with her. She was very excited to be feeling better and to have us come out.

Trouble in the neighborhood

Please pray for the neighborhood that Marcelo lives in, where we have been having a Wednesday night Bible study.  Last week, he told us Not to come out that night due to problems that were there on his street.  Apparently, police had come into the area to arrest some thieves and youth were throwing rocks at the police.  I really do not know the full extent of what is going on.  We are hoping to get back over there and are personally not afraid of the events, but also listen to the voice of wisdom in where I lead my family.  We have had a great study out there over the last ten weeks going verse by verse proving the deity of Christ from scripture.  (There are many Jehovah witnesses working the area.)

Ladies’ Retreat

Stacie had an opportunity to attend and bring a devotional at a Ladies’ Retreat. She is also planning to start a Ladies’ Bible Study soon to minister to some of the mothers she is friends with. It would be a great opportunity for her to get to know other women in the neighborhood as well.  There is so much more to share that space does not provide.  The Lord knows!  Keep praying!

Bonus Pictures

Scott was blessed to be able to repair Bibles for two brethren at Templo Bautista.

Classes have started back

Here in Argentina, our month of March corresponds with September in the US, when schools open again and people have come back from their vacations.  For us, since we first arrived here, the month of March marked off several new chapters in our lives as well as opportunities for reaching out to people.

Spending time at the University of Cordoba

The city of Cordoba boasts of at least 8 major universities and half a million combined student population!  The national university of Cordoba (Universidad Nacional de Cordoba, UNC) began in 1613 and averages about 180,000 students.  It worked out that my son Jonathan and I had the opportunity to sign up to take some music classes at the university together!  We have been enjoying  time spent together as well as meeting several new people.  Please pray that the Lord will guide our steps and our conversations with the teachers and students that we meet!

Teaching a New Testament Greek Class

For a couple of years now, brother Victor has asked me to teach a Greek class for their church seminary.  It is a great blessing to have finally worked it into the schedule and begun.  We are having the class on Tuesday nights and will be going from March to November.  Please pray for the students, a few of them that have surrendered to preach and may be some of the future pastors here in Argentina!

I am here because of you!

“I am here because of you!”
This is what Juan told me as he hugged my neck after his baptism.  

If you look back on the front page of January’s report, you will see a picture of him and his wife visiting our Sunday night service.  His wife was baptized last year by brother Elinai (Missionary from Mexico) but for several reasons Juan was not ready at the time and they were still struggling in their marriage.  When they visited us, we counseled them that they should follow the Lord together as a family and return and work out the problems and conflict.  It is surprising when the advice that you give is followed! (Sadly, much pastoral marriage advice is not followed:  “I know the Bible says, but…..”)  They are not only together in their marriage but now active members together in one of the Lord’s churches!  Continue to pray for them as well as the city of Malvinas where they live! 

Bonus Pictures

“Please come and help us on Wednesday evening!”

As I had mentioned last month, we had an unexpected visit from Marcelo and his family, with whom we spent a lot of time during our first term.  He asked if we would come on Wednesday nights again and asked me to preach. His family has been through a lot in the last two and a half years.  Please pray for wisdom and direction for Marcelo, his family, and for the group meeting in his home!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas is always a strange time here in Argentina as the weather gets hotter and hotter as the month progresses.  We are thankful that God gave us His only begotten Son to pay for our redemption and the sin of the world!

Our Daughter’s visit

For us, our great Christmas present was having our daughter Ruth come and visit us for two weeks at the end of December!  She spent the first year and a half of our first term with us when we first came in 2018.  It was a great blessing for us to show her firsthand some of the blessings that the Lord has been working in our lives here! We want to thank all the churches and individuals who gave us Christmas offerings. You helped us not only bring Ruth to visit us but also the ability to buy gifts as well.

Christmas concert in the park and professions of faith!

One highlight of the month was putting on a Christmas concert in the plaza in front of our meeting place.  Several musicians and youth from Templo Bautista helped us not only play the music but also in passing out tracts and fliers to the people in the park and neighboring houses.  During the concert one of the men from Templo had an opportunity to lead a young man of 22 to the Lord.  The next day he came to our evening service and stayed until 11:30PM talking with us and asking Bible questions.  He has been coming back and continuing to grow.  Please pray for him!  His name is Benjamin.

Wishing you all a blessed new year in the Lord!

One of the things that my family always likes to do is take inventory of the last year looking at the Lord’s blessings and planning with resolve what He would like us to do and work on in the future!   How has this last year been in your personal life? in your family? in your church? in your workplace?  What would the Lord have you do in this new year?  What would He have you change, remove or add?  I am not asking for an empty resolution but a firm decision to let the Lord lead and have His way!

“Thou are not far from the kingdom of God”

This is the verse that I was thinking about while talking to the electrician as he was working on our building.  He was raised and baptized Roman Catholic but did not identify as a religious person or a follower of God. As we had a great conversation, I could tell that he had a very good work ethic.  He did not believe in the priests and that a person needed to go through a Catholic priest to get to God (Directly opposed to standard Catholic teaching).  I shared what Jesus did for us on the cross to open up that reality that all mankind could come to God through His sacrifice!  It is a hard thing for a person like him to connect the dots and see his great need of a savior.  Many people are close to understanding the process of salvation but oh, so far away at the same time!

“Your son gave me a tract!”

We had a couple that recently moved to Argentina from Ecuador that has visited now for a couple of weeks.  They are both doctors and are planning of establishing practices here in Cordoba.  A couple of weeks ago my son, Jonathan, had passed them a tract in the plaza in front of the building and based on that contact, they have come.  Please pray for them as we continue to minister to them.

The word of reconciliation

During this month there were two very interesting events that took place.  One was being invited to the baptism of the woman that gave us so much grief almost a year ago!  We are thankful that she is trying to go forward in following the Lord and wish the best for her.  The church that baptized her is an independent Baptist work on the other side of town.  The missionary and his wife are a very good family from Mexico serving here in Argentina.  It was a strange flood of emotions being there that morning as we not only saw her but also the child and her mother that used to come each week to our meetings there in Malvinas. 

In truth, nothing was ever resolved as we were never allowed the opportunity to have face to face discussion over the problems we had there.  We were glad to be able to see them and  have at least some closure on our part. We were finally able to say goodbye to Samuel who barely remembers us.

The second event was a visit from the family that we once helped with a home Bible study during our first term here.  We had dedicated many hours with them and the people of their neighborhood.  They wanted us to know how badly they felt for how things turned out because of their decisions back in 2021.  Pray for them as they sort several things out and how they seek God’s wisdom in how to proceed from here.

We were so happy to this young boy at church.  He is one that we were ministering to in Malvinas.  We had lost a lot of sleep over the last year thinking about him without having a scriptural church in his neighborhood.  It did this preacher’s heart good to find him unexpectedly in a church!

“I have always wanted to see a tornado!”

This was from a conversation that my wife had with a pet store worker as she was buying food for our cat!  When people hear that we came from Texas, they have very strange ideas of what people or life is like as their perception is based on TV and movies.  She decided not to shatter the young guys dreams of one day witnessing a real Texas  tornado.

~Thoughts from Stacie~

Women’s Retreat

Towards the beginning of November Hannah and I went to a yearly women’s retreat that is held with several Baptist churches and missions within the Cordoba province. We’ve attended this retreat twice before and this was our first year to not have anyone to bring with us. Some of the ladies at the retreat were friends that we hadn’t seen since the previous retreat a year ago.

I knew it would be hard to explain why we no longer are meeting in Malvinas. To add to the awkwardness one of the ladies from Malvinas that we brought with us last year actually attended the retreat this year but with a different group. Thankfully I was able to give the simple answer that the doors closed for us out there and turned the subject toward our new work and new location.

Visitation on Jonathan’s Birthday

Hannah and I left the retreat early as we had the youth group from Templo Bautista come help us pass out flyers and tracts inviting people to join our Bible Study on Sunday evenings. We have truly been blessed by their encouragement. After canvasing the neighborhood we celebrated Jonathan’s Birthday by sharing cake with all those who came.

Our First Four Services

We had a really good attendance the first service in our new location. Everything went extremely well. We knew we would have a huge attendance that first Sunday as several members of Templo Bautista including their pastor came to help and encourage us. We were really glad to have the 5 visitors from the neighborhood. The second Bible Study we had 2 repeat visitors and 2 new visitors from the neighborhood. Then the 3rd Sunday of November just our family was there but we held service just like we had a full crowd. We did have a woman come in to ask for money from our kids. She didn’t want to stay for the message though.

However we were happy to see our 2 regular visitors come and 2 new visitors the last Sunday of November. The Lord is our greatest encourager. And as of the writing of this report we have had another family visit our services. You will hear more about them in our next report.

Surprise Invitation to a Baptismal Service

Scott mentioned the Baptism already but I thought I would add that it was the lady Hannah and I saw at the retreat that reached out to me after 9 months of silence to invite us to her Baptism. The missionary pastor of that church actually called Scott when she started visiting their services so they were very considerate of our part out there. While going to the baptism didn’t really solve any of the problems in Malvinas it was good to get to see some of those we hadn’t had the chance to say goodbye to before.

Repeat Visitors

I just want to share a little about one of the couples that has been coming each week to our Bible Study. The wife is a friend of mine who used to hostess a ladies’ Bible Study in her home 5 years ago when we first moved to Argentina. I knew she lived close to where we are meeting but never thought she would visit us this often. I was so happy when she and her husband came in for our first meeting. She was a real encouragement to me during those early days of learning the language and culture here in Argentina. I hope we are able to be a blessing to her and her husband as well.

27th Wedding Anniversary

Scott and I were married on Thanksgiving Day, November 28th, 1996. We have learned a lot during these past 27 years. We were both just a couple of young starry eyed kids when we first married. This year I reserved us a hotel in a town about a 30 minute drive from where we live. This is the first year that all our children have been old enough for us to leave them alone for a couple of nights. We enjoyed some quiet time away from all the distractions of kids and life. It was a good time of rest, relaxation, and reminiscing over the years we’ve been together. The kids did a good job taking care of each other while we were gone and even surprised us with a clean house when we got back.

End of Year Concerts

At the end of November we had a few recitals and concerts to mark the closing of the academic year here in Argentina. We have only one more recital and concert to go in December but the majority of the classes have ended now. The children have really grown so much this year not only physically but academically as well. We are looking forward to seeing how the Lord uses our children’s musical talents now and in the future. 

Bonus Pictures

Getting the building inspected

One of the things that we needed before having people at our meeting place was to have the building inspected to give us a maximum number of occupants in the building. One of our guarantors who also works for the city in a different neighborhood graciously offered to go with us to help us get our appointment set up. It made us feel a little better that we were not the only ones that had difficulty trying to get something like this accomplished as our Argentine friend had a lot of trouble getting somebody to understand what we were trying to do. The concept of a Baptist church is a very foreign one for many to understand. In their world there is the Catholic church and everything else. The idea that each church is independent, autonomous and local with no hierarchy or headquarters, does not seem to compute. We were successful getting an appointment for the middle of the month. The lady that was assigned to us turned out being a woman pastor that would inspect our building on the agreed upon day. We were not sure what kind of reception we would get on that day since our doctrine does not support both the supernatural gifts in 1Corinthians 12 or the idea of women pastors. As it turned out, however, on the day of our appointment to pick her up and bring her to our meeting place, she forgot that she had a doctors appointment for that morning and had to send her assistant in her stead.

We had a great time visiting with him! The inspection took all of about 10 minutes and the next hour was pleasant conversation at our building over a cup of coffee. He had worked for several years working with companies helping them soundproof and sound-deadening their environments and gave us many professional suggestions and approved the work that we had done already to the building! During the rest of the month we have been following his advice and working each week to improve the acoustics of the building where we will not be disturbing the neighbors.

Insurance set up

Toward the end of the month I received a call saying that our insurance policy for the meeting place has been set up and is in effect! There are still several more pieces to the puzzle that need to be finished but they are getting accomplished one after the other.

Curtains have been ordered!

One of the things that we are still needing for the sanctuary are curtains. The front of the building facing the road is glass and one other side is also glass. Currently there is a lot of echo in the main room which the heavy drapes will help immensely. They are scheduled to be finished and installed before the end of October.

Meeting on Sunday nights!

We have already been meeting in the back room each Sunday evening and are planning on having our first advertised meeting to be on the first Sunday of November in the main room. On our first meetings in the back we started off with just singing and then slowly added guitar, keeping everything simple. When we have our first full meeting in November, we plan on having full instrumentation. So far we have only had positive feedback from neighbors and people that we have invited. Pray that the Lord continues to give us wisdom!

~Thoughts from Stacie~

Renting a Place to Meet

I took a break from writing my part of the report last month. We needed to get the report out and I felt like our new meeting location was really the highlight of the month. There is so much that goes into renting even a simple storefront to meet in. I’m sure it’s a lot of work in any country but imagine adding on top of the normal stuff having to read over contracts and such in another language. Then once we finally agreed to the contract we had to coordinate the signing of the contract before a notary. There were a lot of steps! Then after carrying a big bag of money to the realtor we were finally given the keys.

Cleaning and Furnishing the Rooms

After getting the keys the work had just begun. We still needed to clean and furnish the office and the main room. The first part we set up was Scott’s office space. We added a desk, bookshelf, and chairs to the back room as well as a hot/cold water dispenser. We also bought 20 black padded chairs for the main room. While we don’t expect to have that many people to start with, we want to be ready for our first official meeting.

Sunday Nights

As part of our getting ready to meet we started meeting in the office room as a family. Even though we could have our normal Sunday evening Bible Study in our home we decided that taking the children to our location to have our Bible Study would first get us all used to going to a physical place. It also slowly gets the neighbors used to the idea of music on Sunday nights. So far we have only had one guitar along with our singing but we soon plan to add other instruments.

Naming our Bible Study

Our plans are to eventually have people wanting to be baptized and start a scriptural New Testament Church. In the meantime we are starting by offering a Bible Study in the neighborhood. As a family we discussed possible names for our Bible Study so that we can put the name on a sign and on our handouts. Hannah shared a Bible verse in Proverbs 14:26, “In the fear of the Lord is strong Confidence: and his children shall have a place of refuge.” In Spanish where it says “Strong Confidence” it words it “La Fuerte Confianza” which means “The Strong Confidence”. We decided that would make a good name for a Bible Study. Our logo on our sign and on our handouts will be entitled “Estudio Bíblico La Fuerte Confianza” “Strong Confidence Bible Study”.

Getting the Girls’ Ears Pierced

On another note the three girls have been wanting their ears pierced for a long time. We agreed to them having them pierced this year. The hard part was finding a place to get the piercings done. Here in Argentine parents usually have their baby girls ears pierced shortly after birth. I wasn’t too keen on taking our daughters to any old tattoo parlor to get their ears pierced. After putting the task off for quite a few months I finally asked our violin teacher who has several piercings where she would recommend I take the girls. She gave me the information of a friend that did piercings in a nice clean professional environment. The girls are so excited about their new earrings.

Elisabeth Levels Up in Violin Class

Another event that happened this month was Elisabeth was given the opportunity to play in a recital for passing to the next level. She had to play three songs by memory from Suzuki Book 1 in order to officially move on to book 2. She passed that level and will soon be joining the Level 2 group.

Taking Elijah to the Gym

I’ve been taking Hannah and Jonathan to the gym for a couple of months. We decided that Elijah was old enough to go with and the exercise would be good for him. I believe his favorite equipment at the gym is the treadmill but he also enjoys trying out all the machines. We started out with Hannah and Jonathan partnering up since they know the machines pretty well and I helped Elijah learn how to use the machines and made sure he didn’t go too heavy on the weights.

Homeschool Co-op/ Air Show Field Trip

We had our homeschool Co-op at the end of the September. After the usual classes we drove to a private air field where they were having an air show. We enjoyed watching the different events.

Templo Bautista

On Sunday mornings we have been visiting an Independent Baptist Church located north of Cordoba. They have welcomed our children as part of the youth and allowed our family to take part in their music ministry. When we needed guarantors for our new meeting place three of their members volunteered to help us. They have really been a huge blessing and encouragement to us. One of the Sundays this month their pastor invited Scott to preach on honoring God as a family.

Bonus Pictures

The first Spanish Bible was finished on September 28, 1569 During the month of September we were able to purchase several Bibles at discount to be able to give to people that come to the services!

A scenic view of the City of Cordoba taken at the mall where we were shopping for a new washer.

Our old washing machine quit working so we bought a new larger capacity Washer/Dryer combo.

Hannah, Jonathan, and Elijah performed in a concert in September