The work at Iglesia Bautista Getsemani is going well though the host of challenges is enough to make any courageous person shake at the knees.  We are trying to redefine our identity and break years of tradition in preaching style, teaching methods, and evangelistic techniques.  Sometimes I think they just look at me like a crazy gringo with crazy ideas.  Yesterday we began working on our first friend day Sunday morning.  It is a Sunday morning dedicated to bringing unsaved friends.  We focus on the visitor and taylor-make the entire morning for them with the purpose of sharing the gospel without losing the friendship.  It is intended to be a help, a good step towards additional significant conversations.  On March 28 we will have our first go-round.  I wish I would have recorded the conversation yesterday as I theorized on what to include and what not to include that morning.  No offertory? No pastoral prayer? No happy b-day (cultural norm here)? No Sunday School so members can arrive with their friends?  Give preference for parking to visitors? No pressure invitation?  Change the seating arrangement?  I felt like I was denying the virgin birth.  We have just over a month to plan and execute our first ever Friend Sunday.  Please pray for this program.  It should be a great morning of sharing the gospel and opening the eyes of the members to evangelism techniques beyond that of simply giving out tracts.

Also pray for the following people: my co-pastor Blas Baez and the leadership team at the church; the ABWE missionaries here in Paraguay—the Fields, Donaldsons, Griffins, and Lennons; for my family—Danielle, Zac, Abby, Anna; and Pastor Cesar Rodriquez who is pastoring my former church Iglesia Bautista Maranata.

Getsamani Baptist has some exciting plans for this next year including its first attempt at strategic planning. Just to get to the point of considering such “nonsense” has been laborious and fraught with cultural mistakes—mine that is. Cascading is a technical term that refers to trickling down strategy through all levels of the organization. Waterfalls also cascade and we feel like we have been swimming upstream with the effort, like the salmons with not quite enough vigor to make it over the top.

Your prayers will help. We want to wish you a Merry Christmas and prosperous New Year and hope that you have enough oomph and vigor to overcome the challenges of 2010.

The fascinating clash between cultures always makes for lively discussion.  Scott presented radical ideas like actually doing evangelism outside the church building and that the church building itself is not sacred—two basic ideas that are a stretch for many traditionalists.  Perhaps the longest and attentive discussion centered on building genuine fellowship in the church.  You would think that in a friendly culture like that of Paraguay, real relationships within the church would be automatic.  Yet, as the conversation unfolded, few have found the church to be a breeding ground for genuine friendships.  That phenomenon may not just be a Paraguayan trait.

Please continue to pray for us.  The first 9 weeks of the new school year have passed and Danielle (and the kids) is counting the days until summer break (our summer break is December-January).  Between studies, preaching, and speaking at retreats, Scott is more than busy enough.  Yet ministry is about relationships.  Please pray for Pastor Blas Baez and Pastor Cesar Rodriquez.  These two faithful pastors are leading two separate churches and are in need of large doses of wisdom.  Danielle spent time with Nancy on Sunday, who is caught in a riptide of hopelessness on many levels including debilitating poverty.  Ethel and Alfredo are an engaged couple leading the youth ministry at our church and we are gearing up with them for a complete philosophical overhaul next year.  The mission has an important meeting on October 24 to redefine the direction of the camp program.  We have invited a number of Christian leaders and pastors to a think-tank mini-retreat to hammer out ideas and dreams for the camp’s future.  Please continue to pray with us.  We appreciate your prayers and interest on behalf of the ministry in Paraguay.

How do you plant a church? has been a new question for me these days. I have agreed to lead a church planting team from my church, Iglesia Bautista Getsamani. First I need to write a strategic plan, then form a team (and hopefully a multi-church agreement), and then get to work on actually starting up the work.

If you were me, what would you do first? It obviously depends up philosophy and context and a million variables. Would you survey first? Talk to other denominations/missions? Look for a store front to rent? Or perhaps the “who” is more important than the “where.” Would you concentrate on finding a good team and forming a good strategy for working together? Who will do what? When? How?

In the end though, if the goal is a church building, we have missed the point. Consider our forerunners in Acts or Paul himself. Was his intent to start a church or to share the message? Perhaps both. Which came first though? When I read Acts and the Epistles I find a much greater emphasis on relationships than I do on buildings and programs, a simple point to miss amidst the fog and pressures of church programming.

So we covet your prayers for wisdom in this church planting endeavor. We also ask for prayer for the 20 girls at the Vientos de Esperanza home for abused girls that is quickly becoming our family’s personal ministry. The commentary on their life is so sad, but the hope many of them have found in Christ and the joy they now have for life so quickly grabs your heart. Pray for Melita the director who ministers daily to the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of these girls.

Being robbed feels like a violation. We returned home to our house a few weeks ago to discover a back door open. A quick glance into the office confirmed our suspicion. Someone robbed us.

That Friday was a holiday and we thought we would go see a movie. We were only gone for 2 hours. In that short amount of time, someone stole around $12,000 worth of electronics, money, and jewelry. I openly confess that I was angry. Snorting like Ferdinand the Bull (remember that kids story? He was stung by a bee…), I wanted revenge. A missionary friend came over and recommended that we pray. I didn’t want to pray. I confess I didn’t close my eyes. Is that a sin? Someone was watching my house after all. Someone was staking out my family. I was ready for some revenge.

As the emotion twisted toward fear, a gnawing sense of letting down my family by not exercising my husband-ly and fatherly duty of keeping us and our stuff safe steadily grew inside of me. I am the man of the house. Security is my duty. A carnal thought rumbled like an incoming storm—why did God let this happen? I left my home, family, and friends to serve him in a foreign country. I at least deserve his protection. It was then than my conscience, ie. my wife, pulled the rug out from under my lament. He did protect us. We were not in the house when the robber came in. We can recoup $12 grand. We should be most thankful for being safe.

After all, stuff is just stuff. Oh, it is easy to lose sight of the value of stuff. Compared to health and safety, it’s not much. Just stuff. Only then, days later, did I first realize (and accept) that he did protect us. Yes, he protected us from potential violence. He protected us even more from allowing stuff to become more than simply inert compounds with no eternal future. We were safe. He was good to us.

I have suggested to others that it is good to get robbed every few years (this is our fourth time) so that the stuff of this world retains its proper place and value. Slightly above worthless and way below everlasting. Just stuff.

About 2 months ago, the owner of our house emailed us saying that they are returning in July and we need to be out by June.  We knew that this was a possibility so we had already begun looking for another house.  We found two houses that appeared to be very good possibilities so we relaxed (open door).  Well, as of last week, the owner of one of the houses raised the rent out of our reach, and the other house was rented to some other missionaries with a greater need than ours (closed door).  However, we are not discouraged…we believe in a God who delights in supplying the needs of His children.  So we wait.

Since then, Scott had his first kind of “kick off” meeting with some of the pastors in the area to discuss the future of a possible “fellowship”.  The pastors are very excited and encouraged to work together and want to continue meeting once a month (open door).  Scott is very encouraged and is busy planning the next step.  We leave tomorrow for a town about 5 hours away called Encarnacion to help a church with their evangelistic event this Friday and Saturday.  Please pray for many people in this little neighborhood to hear and accept the good news!

Dani and the kids are on Spring Break this week and are enjoying sleeping in and being lazy.  They have one more marking period to go.  They are all doing well and Dani is beginning to enjoy the ministry side of her job.. loving and praying for her students and her co-workers.

We love you miss you all so much and are always grateful for your prayers.  We do read your comments.  They are a great encouragement to us!  Have a wonderful holiday weekend a and glorious Resurrection Day!

So I try to tell me kids to appreciate doing homework. You can guess their response. I fear my children are growing up with the same entitlement mentality that plagues so many of us. We deserve a good education. We deserve nice things. We deserve a happy life. We wanted to shed the trappings of materialism by leaving the states, but instead its influence continues to cast a long shadow into my own house. “It’s not fair,” is one of Zac’s favorite phrases regarding what he thinks he deserves.

To combat this mentality and to understand true religion in James 1:27, we are going to start working one Saturday a month at an nearby orphanage. The idea is for Scott and Zac to do physical work and for Danielle and the girls to play and spend time with the children. We will stop at mid-morning and share a devotional and some treats. If anything can re-arrange an entitlement mentality it will be the deplorable conditions of orphanages in Paraguay. We are not sure what God wants to do with this ministry, but we look forward to its commencement. We covet your prayers.

This next Sunday Scott will preach at a church in an outlying community and is considered making it a permanent ministry location. They are without a pastor and Scott already knows several of the members. Please pray for wisdom for us in making this decision and that God would richly bless the preaching of his Word in Itaguá (February 15).

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, every creature was sweating profusely…Certainly an unlikely beginning to a Christmas poem and not likely to become a classic and adopted in mainstream American culture—though it would make a great Hallmark card. We are certainly not dashing through the snow here, but are roasting like chestnuts over an open fire! After 5 days of 100 degrees, an off-course snowflake would be a welcomed sight.

It is always interesting to note the differences in holiday celebrations across the cultures. One of the starkest differences is in the focus of the celebration. For many of us, we celebrate the coming of Jesus as a foreshadow of the culmination of God’s redemptive plan. Here, they celebrate baby Jesus as a baby. There are signs all over that say things like, “May the baby Jesus bless you this season.” A disconnect exists between the manger and the cross for many Paraguayans and has given me opportunities to share with many.

Like many of you, our ministries take a Christmas break. Christmas day we leave for a few days in Argentina and look forward to the rest. After a hectic fall (your fall, our spring) schedule with school and ministry, these days of repose are welcomed. January will arrive with a blast as the first three Sundays I will preach in 3 different churches and then leave immediately for class in Philadelphia. Danielle and I are working through some decision regarding ministries in 2009 that will take shape in January. We covet your prayers.

We want send you warmest 100 degree Christmas blessings as you celebrate Jesus’ coming. We as a family always sing “Happy Birthday” to Jesus on Christmas as a reminder of the purpose of the day. I recommend you give it a whirl this year in your own homes.

May the God of peace, who sent his Son to Bethlehem, richly bless you and your family!

Items of prayer:

3 guys I disciple—Andres, Carlitos, Cesar

Wisdom for ministry assignments 2009

Our fledgling fellowship of Churches to be kicked-off in February

Pastor Pedro Gonzalez, a pastor with whom we work, was just diagnosed with liver cancer. Pray for him, his family, and his church.

For safety for our family and a special year of glorifying Christ in all we do

My work as a discipler, speaker, and organizer continues. I was speaking at church plant a couple of weeks ago where they asked me to preach and share the Lord’s table. I did my thing, distributed the bread, and then I took the top off the canister with the little communion cups inside. Immediately, an intense smell of cheap alcohol overwhelmed me. Well I was stuck. What to do. You see last year I baptized Zac, my 11 year old so he now participates in communion. With no other apparent alternative, we continued normally. The guy in charge simply commented that they were going to use wine instead of grape juice because in the New Testament, wine and water are the same word. That was news to me. But I was worried about Zac. He was sitting towards the back, off to one side. When he received the cup, he began with faces. You know, those faces kids make at the most inopportune times? He was waving his hand in front of his nose. He was shaking his head. Oh man, I thought. We continued. He took the cup (presumably remembering the symbolic nature of communion and not the alcohol-laden smell) and drank it. You can imagine the faces and coughing that followed. I about died. I am sure my face was beet red. I was sweating before, but I began to spray sweat. I lost my place in my notes. I didn’t know what to say. All those new Christians were just looking at me perplexed. Zac was about in convulsions. Well, all is well that ends well. Zac announced after the service that he will never drink alcohol as long as he lives. That may be until next month’s communion.

Pray for us and especially for 3 churches and 4 guys:

Hope Baptist, Palma Loma Baptist, and Getsemani—3 churches forming the beginning of a new organization called a Fellowship of Churches.

Andres (young man with desire for ministry), Juan (unsaved), Carlos (new Christian), and Cesar (new pastor)—I meet with these guys weekly or bi-weekly.

Speaking of Danielle, she began August 4 teaching fifth grade at Asuncion Christian Academy. Her class is a challenge, as is the 5:15 am alarm every morning. As with most Christian schools, materials and resources are a bit scarce, but she is rising to the challenge and her kids already love her to death. Please pray for her!

The field team here has approved the development of a resource center and fellowship of churches to which I will be dedicating my time. A different potential opportunity for me is a newly formed group of baby Christians that are in need of some teaching help. It is a great story. A simple mechanic working out of his house continually shared Christ with his clients. Over time, he led roughly 10 people to the Lord with another 10 that come weekly to his “Discover the Bible” meeting in his home. This Thursday, I will teach them from Romans 8:1 which of course is a great place to begin with any new Christian. I would love to develop the ministry and see the beginning of new church. But we shall see how God works. Please pray for the fellowship of churches, the resource center, and this new ministry opportunity.

So obviously we are not bored. Did I mention we bought a dog? Well, really a puppy. The fresh enthusiasm for a new dog has quickly turned to groans at the site of regular gifts left around the house for us to find. His name is Gabe. The problem is that you can’t end a word with a “B” in Spanish so Paraguayans call him gay. Sooo, that’s not going to work. We need a new name.

Pray for us these days as we seek to be useful in the Kingdom of God.

Scott