We have been home a week now.

Hey Everyone,

Paul said he was going to include a link to this blog, so I thought I had better update it. The trip to Montevideo was wonderful. Here are some statistics from Paul:

5000 gospels were distributed
60 blocks were covered with prayer walking and distribution
2 children’s clubs
8 tables, 16 benches built
Roof place over two rooms at the nursing home
2 nights of coffee house with over 70 guests
20+ presentations of “The Redeemer”
800+ Gospel tracts distributed
Several prospects for follow up
2 people prayed to receive Christ…Ramon was in church on Sunday!

What a blessing to work with six different churches which brought 49 students and adults, two individuals from the states, three interns, and many missionaries along with their families. As you can see we were busy. The weather held for the first part of the week, but it rained pretty much all of Thursday and Friday. This caused our outdoor afternoon ministries to go to plan B.

Here are our crews:

Thanks to everyone. Stay tuned for what is in store for next year.

Ciao,

Jim

Tuesday

Hey Everyone,

It is Tuesday evening, and our six crews have been hard at work doing GAP and their afternoon ministries. All of the crews are meshing wonderfully. I am posting pictures from the Nacional crew, Liverpool, and Penarol crews. These crews are named for the various futbol teams in Uruguay. Nacional is one of the street ministry teams that is using the Redeemer Drama, surveys, tracts, and is passing out invitations to the Coffe Shop Thursday and Friday. Liverpool is doing GAP and hosting a kids club at a housing complex on the Rambla. Penarol is doing GAP as well and is doing some construction of tables and benches as well as doing games and sports with the neighborhood kids in the afternoon. It is painfully slow to upload photos from here. I would love to post more. Please look for your family and friends.

Nacional doing the Redeemer

Kayla, Dorotea, and Bethany talking to the kids

Only one from Liverpool so far, this is Dawn and ? with the children at their kids camp

Some unknown Cubs fan, (Sarge), doing spiritual battle while prayer walking

Penarol Prayer walking, this is Matt, Joseph, Kaitlyn, and Julio

Penarol, with their handywork at the sports club.

Leslie and friend.

Greetings from Uruguay!

Hello everyone! First off thank you so much for your prayers this week. Also thank you for those who prayed especially for me, I am feeling much better.

OK on to the update....this morning we went to the local church for worship. It was such a blessing to worship with another body of believers. Praises in two different languages were being lifted to the same God. It was such a beautiful time of praise and worship, even though we could only understand about half of it, God was moving. Where two or three are gathered He will be there. We were challenged to be intentional this week in making relationships and using our lives as the only sermon that some of the people of Uruguay will ever hear.
All of us walking to church. (not standing out at all)

The churches worship team


The pastor (on the right) and Lyle our translator. Chase leaading one song in English.


This afternoon the groups are spending lots of time in training for the week. They have already had a lesson in culture and how not to offend the people here. Some learned that lesson the hard way at lunch on Saturday by drinking from the bottle and not the glass :) Now they are in what we are lovingly calling Redeemer Palooza where they are learning how to present the drama presentation of Gospel called Redeemer. It will be a wonderful way to present the Gospel to the people of Uruguay this week. Please pray for them to have clarity as they are trying to remember how to do everything they are learning this drama.

Thank you so much for your prayers. More updates to come!

Molly

They're Here

Ok, first off, everyone is here safely. I think the flights went off without a hitch, and everyone and their luggage has arrived. Today we went through the ordeal of checking 50 something people into this hotel, which actually went very smoothly. We all walked to a resaurant and had hot dogs and fries. When we got back, played some silly games, divided them up into their work crews. and did some crew training. Tonight they'll go to dinner with their work crews, and then come back for Worship, church group devotions, and then nighty night. Tomorrow is Church with the local congregation at the seminary. Then we'll train all afternoon. Please be prayerful that our everyone gets the rest they need, and that our training goes smoothly. I spoke too soon about our work sites, as a door was closed at one site. Please be in prayer for Scott Liddell's crew as they have to shift gears with their ministry. I will hopefully post some pics tomorrow from today and tomorow.

Ciao, (That's Chow)

Jim

We're Here

Hey Everyone,

The IWC staff arrived in Montevideo without a hitch. Molly's sick, so please pray for her. We have been finalizing the arrangements here. I had asked folks to pray for several of our ministry sites, and I am happy to let you know that all seems well on that front. Here are a couple of quick photos

A couple doing the Tango on the streets of Montevideo

Shopping for goodies for the participants

Folks at home, please leave comments. Thanks

Jim

Everyone it is my sad duty to post the following information. I met this young man while Cliff and I were in Montevideo a couple of months ago. Please pray as Paul has asked.

From: "Paul & Pam Sheaffer" <thesheaffers@pobox.com>Date: 2008/05/25 Sun PM 11:24:54 CDTSubject: Urgent Prayer NeedI do not even know where to start. We desperately seek your prayers for our family (especially Kaitlyn) and our church family here in Uruguay. Today while Kaitlyn was working at a children's club in the Old City with three of her friends, one of her best friends was electrocuted and died. Her friend's name was Pablo and he went to chase a soccer ball that went over a fence at the club; not knowing he was entering an electrical sub-station with high powered transformers. Pablo was electrocuted and immediately was in the presence of the Lord.Pam and I received a call shortly after the accident and went to get Pablo's mother to take her to the club. At this time we all thought he had just suffered an injury. Upon arriving we all realize what had actually happened. Because of the dangerous circumstances, Pablo's body stayed at the scene of the accident for almost three hours. Many people gathered including kids' families from the club, TV crews, family, and most of the neighborhood. Pablo's life and death made a big impact on many people; we are hoping that God can turn this tragedy into an opportunity to bring these same people to Christ.Specifically, please pray for the following:
1. We praise God that Pablo had a vibrant growing relationship with Jesus Christ. Just this morning he had played his guitar while helping with the music in our worship service. Pray that God will allow Pablo's testimony to continue and that many of his friends will come to know Christ. Just this week, Pablo had shared with Kaitlyn that he thought that several of his lost friends were close to trusting Christ.
2. Pray for Pablo's family. His mother and dad are in shock and his younger brother and sister will have many questions about why all this has happened.
3. Pray that God would provide for Pablo's funeral; Pablo's father has been unemployed from a steady job for several months.
4. Pray for Pablo's girlfriend Sadia. Though they were not officially engaged, they had begun talking about marriage.
5. Pray for Kaitlyn. Pablo has been one of Kaitlyn's closest friends here in Uruguay. Over the past week or two, they had seen each other almost every day. They took some classes together at seminary, they led our worship at our church, they worked with a senior adult home together, and worked in the children's club every Sunday. He was very much like a big brother to Kaitlyn; he was 20 years old.
6. Pray for our youth group and church family. There will be many questions and they will struggle with understanding how something like this could happen to someone with such a heart for ministry.
7. Pray for our two upcoming volunteer teams and how this tragedy will affect their work here in Uruguay. Both groups will be working with our church and we will need wisdom and strength to make adjustments with our schedule and work assignments. We have a GAP team coming from Post, TX in about a week, and we have International World Changers bringing in over 50 youth in about three weeks.
8. Pray for "Member Care" (our mission's counselors) as they will be arriving in Montevideo to offer aid to Kaitlyn and her friends.
9. Pray for the continued work in the Old City. Pray that many will be saved.I will be updating our web page before Tuesday. A week ago West Colonial Hills Baptist Church (my home church from TN) held a basketball camp in the same part of the city where 13 children received Christ as their Savior and over 70 attended the camp during the week. Many of the kids at the club today were a result of the work of this basketball camp. I will also work on a tribute to Pablo and will seek to have this posted by the end of the week.Thank you in advance for your support and prayers. We love and appreciate each of you.In Christ,Paul and Pam

Update

Hello Everyone,

I assume everyone received their CD’s in the mail. Please remember that I need everyone to start becoming familiar with the contents of the CD, especially the GAP training and the Redeemer Drama. I had asked that each of you send me an email to let me know that you have gotten it. To date I have heard from exactly NONE of you. The only one that I am reasonably sure got his was Stephen, and that is because I left it with the secretary. The main reason I am harping on this, is that I found out this week that one of the group leaders was not getting my emails, they were being sent to his junk mail box. I guess that is appropriate, though I hope you don’t think this stuff junk. Anyway, I would really like to hear some feed back from each of you group leaders and the individuals.

Secondly I would like to ask a favor. I need each of the church groups to obtain a working boom box with a cd player and several sets of extra batteries, for use at the ministry sites. You will be free to take this back home with you following the project, should you choose to do so. Please I need your help here.

Thirdly, I am including some cultural tips that Paul has passed along:

Here is a list of Do’s and Don’ts for Ministry Sites
1. Do try to engage people. Talk about family, hobbies, sports, and culture. Sit in listen.Do not talk about politics! Change the subject if it comes up. Do not be in a rush.
2. When using a translator, do talk directly to the person you are talking to.Do not look at the translator when you are talking.
3. Do “kiss” people when you greet them. Do not avoid “kissing”, especially people you get to know.
4. In the nursing home, ask permission to enter a patient’s room? “Permiso?”Do not wake a patient that is sleeping.
5. Be sensitive to the schedule of those you are working with.

Next, I am still waiting to hear back from a couple of you regarding Crew Managers positions. I have 4 so far that have stepped up. I still need two more, especially those that I have already contacted. Please help us out with this.

And lastly, we are about a month away from departure. I would like to encourage everyone to ask questions and to be diligent to the pre project study as well as these emails that I have been sending out. Thanks again for listening.

See you soon,

Jim