August Prayer Letter

On Your Mark…Get Set…Go!

Praise the Lord that we have rented an office building to start our weekly Bible studies for the future Iglesia Bautista de Pilar. Friday, August 1, we will be hosting a “Meet and Greet” reception at the new building. It will be an opportunity to get to know contacts from the BBN station, the MBBC concert this May, and others who are interested in being a part of a Bible-preaching Baptist church in Pilar. On Wednesday, August 6, we begin weekly Bible studies. Please pray that we see much fruit from these events.

James installing heaters

Teaching Others Also

Amy began weekly meetings with Veronica, and James with Benjamin, studying Changed Into His Image by Jim Berg and praying together. This is a great time for us to get to know one another and to help Benjamin and Veronica to grow spiritually. (The Leonov family is the one who had been with BBN radio before they closed the office in February.) They have already been a tremendous help in getting the church going in Pilar.

Culture 101

The atmosphere in Pilar is very distinct from most of Buenos Aires in the virtual absence of a middle class. We are learning the effect of that as we notice more and more the great divide between the working class and the upper class. Those from the upper class live in gated communities, go to private schools, desire to better themselves by education, and advance in their careers. Those from the working class live in humble dwellings, go to public school as long as they are required, and often just try to get by. As we seek to evangelize, we need to be cognizant of this discrepancy between the classes in our methods of outreach. An outreach that would work great for one group would not be effective with the other. We have purposefully located ourselves in the center of Pilar, since it is a more “neutral ground.” It is mainly a commercial district, surrounded by a few houses.

Our friends and neighbors have affirmed our cultural observations with comments like, “You want to choose your location carefully so that someone with a nice car won’t be scared to drive to the church.” “Most churches target the lower classes by preaching in a certain style, but the upper class would not tolerate that.”

Quotable Quotes

[Missionaries] must be equipped to be evangelists who can share the Good News in another language and culture, disciplers who can model and teach Christ-like ministry to converts, and trainers who can furnish local Christian leaders with the knowledge and skills they will need to propagate the Gospel. That was the model established by Jesus and practiced by the Apostle Paul.

- Mark C. Vowels; Director of Missions; Bob Jones University

RoboBoy!

Our newest superhero's name is RoboBoy!

After surviving a near-fatal explosion in his laboratory, Jaden (RoboBoy!) had a small screw installed in his front tooth. This mysterious little screw gave him super powers which enable him to clean his room by merely snapping his fingers, block every goal in soccer, make a mean cup of chocolate soy milk, and zap all his school work done in one nano-second.

Seriously, thank you for praying for our little guy with all he's gone through with his teeth. Lord willing, this new tooth should stay for a long time.

The Dentist...Revisited

Thank you for praying for Jaden and his 4th trip to the dentist this month (8th this year!). They finshed the root canal and all went well. He goes back next week to reconstruct the tooth for the 5th time. However, the dentist assures me it should stay this time since she closed off the nerve permanently. We felt your prayers as Jaden was very calm and obedient.

Update

Just a quick update on the exciting things the Lord is doing here in Pilar:

Meeting Place - We have asked you to pray for some time now for a meeting place for our weekly Bible studies. The Lord has provided that place! We will be renting the former BBN office. Since they closed the office in February, the owners were never satisfied with those who sought to rent the place. However, as soon as James showed up with Benjamin (the former BBN manager), the owners were delighted to rent it out to another ministry. We should sign the contract this week and we can begin meeting soon!

English Classes – Amy has begun teaching English here, but several more have asked her to start teaching them too. She is hoping to use our neighborhood clubhouse for classes for adults and children. We have already made many in-roads with our neighbors and have been able to verbally witness to several about our faith in Christ.

Another Day at the Dentist – Many of you know about Jaden’s bike accident back in December and how he broke his front tooth. Since then, he has had to get it repaired 4 times. Now he has to have a root canal and is on his second round of antibiotics. We’ve been spending our past 3 Monday afternoons at the dentist’s office for this! Today the dentist said he’s not getting better like she expected, so she will do a more drastic procedure this Thursday instead of waiting another week. Please pray for Jaden regarding this matter.

July Prayer Letter

Dear Praying Friends,

Getting Involved Now that we are settled into our new home in Pilar, we are venturing out into the neighborhood, meeting new people, and getting involved in the community. Jaden and Josiah are playing soccer twice a week, and Lauren is in a play group with other girls on Saturdays. Amy is teaching English to Andrea, a Christian lady in the neighborhood. Please pray for these evangelistic and discipleship opportunities, that utterance may be given unto us, that we may open our mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel (Eph. 6:19).


Politics, As Usual James and Benjamín Leonov met with the Director of Community Relations for the Municipality of Pilar with the intention of finding out if the city has a building available that we could use for our weekly Bible studies. We will let the Lord work out the results of the meeting. Many politicians make promises, but we trust God to do His perfect will.

So, What’s Next? The next step in the church-planting process is to get in touch with all of our contacts in Pilar who have expressed interest in being a part of our church. We would like to introduce ourselves, explain our goals, and get to know them as well. (These folks are from diverse church backgrounds and have various reasons for wanting to find a new church, so we need wisdom in each of these “intensive care” situations.) From there, we will launch our first weekly Bible studies. Please pray for wisdom on our part as well as for a building in which to begin meeting.

Praise the Lord that Faith Baptist Church in Taylors, South Carolina recently voted to partner with us, bringing our support total to 96%.

Serving the King of Kings,
James, Amy,
Jaden, Lauren, and Josiah Greenwood