Please pray for members, families, and friends of First Alliance Church, Toledo, Ohio. Early Thursday morning the church building caught fire and sustained considerable damage. Thankfully, no one was injured but the sanctuary portion of the building was totally destroyed. Vision for Chile has had many volunteers from this church, so it is indeed a part of our extended family.

We give thanks for the safety of the members of First Alliance Church and take comfort in the knowledge that God’s church is not a building but a body of believers faithfully loving and serving Him.

6/18/09

Family and friends,

Greetings from Temuco! God is alive and well in all that we have been doing here in Temuco as we have experienced exciting things!

It has continued to rain off and on from Monday evening until today. Flash floods both in the city and the countryside have made travel very difficult. Today, we had originally planned on going to another country school to teach English at 9:00 am, but our plans were stalled due to the condition of the roads. We will, however make a trip later today at 2:00pm and teach one class until about four o’clock. (more…)

6/5/09

Family and friends,

All is well here in Temuco. Classes are running smoothly as the students are learning much and my Spanish is even improving in leaps and bounds. Lately for the introduction to each class period, we have introduced one stanza per day of “Amazing Grace.” Wednesday, we reviewed the whole song from beginning to end, and then continued class with the first accumulative review. Today as we introduced new material again and we began to teach them the first stanza of “Onward Christian Soldiers.” The students seem to enjoy the hymns quite well, even though my voice is not the best. But they are forgiving, despite my shortcomings.

Thursday, Andreas and I, accompanied by Freddy (the taxi driver whose house we visited in the countryside) visited the “Wall Street Institute,” an international organization committed to assisting locals learn English as a second language. While there, Andreas left his resume and we met with the assistant director of the institute. For Andreas, such a place could provide him with a steady source of income if he were to decide to return to Chile and serve under Tom for Vision for Chile. Andreas would like all of you to pray that “that God would help me discern His will if I should stay in Chile and continue teaching English classes.” (more…)