May : Latest News and Prayer Letters
Some News and Prayer Letters received into the SAMS office:
Prayer Line
In recent weeks we’ve asked for prayer for rain in the drought-ravaged Paraguayan Chaco. Yesterday we received from Tim Curtis and Chris Hawksbee good news of 60mm having fallen in some communities (50mm in Río Verde where Tim works). The wells are all but full so people have life-saving water. “We praise our Heavenly Father for his provision”, writes Tim. Thank you to all who have prayed. Chris says they need a further 150mm to start filling the water holes/reservoirs, so please continue to pray.
Still in Paraguay Caroline Gilmour-White is visiting fabric shops and factories seeking donations of cloth to share around the sewing workshops set up to help people in needy communities. UK churches have already given material. Please pray for success for Caroline and that shops are willing to give.
On Friday John Wigfield moves from Brazil to Paraguay for a week of teaching on Old Testament social ethics and to talk with Bishop Peter Bartlett on how SAMS might help his diocese in provision of theological education. Pray for this visit.
Bishop Henry Scriven and Tanas Alqassis of CMS are in the Málaga area of Spain this week visiting Felipe & Sarah Yáñez and Juan & Carol Zamora. Pray for God to guide in conversations regarding the next step for these couples and their ministries.
Finally, in the next stage of the merger with CMS, SAMS’ personnel office in Loughton, Essex, closes next Tuesday (19th). Pray for John Sutton, who will leave SAMS in mid-June, as he seeks God’s plan for the future; and also for his PA, Jo Hazelton, who will move to the CMS team in Oxford to take up the post of Regional Personnel Officer for South America from 1st June.
SAMS Prayer Line for the week beginning Tuesday 5 May
On Friday SAMS Theological Resource Consultant John Wigfield flies to João Pessoa in northeast Brazil to teach a course on applied Old Testament social ethics, especially its relevance to the current economic situation. Pray for this week-long visit, John’s time with Marcus & Tamara Throup and the plans for a regional theological seminary. John will spend a similar week in Paraguay afterwards.
Over this weekend are a number of events which merit our prayers:
a conference for indigenous women from Friday to Sunday in the township of Potrillo in the Argentine Chaco
a follow-up meeting on Saturday in Asunción, Paraguay, for the young people who attended the very encouraging EJE (Youth Encounter in the Spirit) weekend a fortnight ago
a Confirmation Service on Sunday evening for people from the St Andrew’s Cathedral evening congregation in Asunción.
Please continue to pray for rain in the Paraguayan Chaco. The situation is desperate for everyone; Tim Curtis may have to send home his Enxet Bible translator colleagues if no rain falls in Río Verde.
Finally, some weeks ago we asked prayer for Barry Tomlinson, ex-SAMS missionary in Chile. Praise God he came through a very delicate brain operation at Addenbrooke’s Hospital and is much better.
Thank you so much for all your prayers.
Latest Newsletters & Prayer Letters
Some newsletters and prayer letters received into the SAMS office:
Pray for nurse Beryl Baker
Pray for nurse Beryl Baker who offers the only hope of medical treatment to around 18,000 indigenous people in the Paraguayan Chaco. She has dedicated nearly 30 years of her life to this area and describes herself as ‘orderly, gynaecologist, midwife and dentist’, treating anything from TB to gunshot wounds and snakebite. Government funding provides some medicines but offers little else in the way of support. The needs are considerable and alongside meeting daily health challenges Beryl trains indigenous health promoters to meet some basic community health needs.
PLEASE PRAY
- For the provision of financial and practical resources to enable Beryl to serve and treat those who are suffering, so that deaths can be prevented.
- For the provision of funds to provide fuel to get desperately needed water into the communities.
- For Beryl who ministers in a complex, dangerous and demanding environment.
Transport for clinic patients
Couple with TB
Wound from spider bite
Boy with fractured collarbone
Damiana Galeano with chronic arthritis
Recent Prayer Letters
Some prayer letters received into the SAMS office:
SAMS Prayer Line for the week commencing Tuesday 28 April
First we ask prayer for folk who are travelling this week:
Ed Hornby is a short term volunteer who flies to Argentina today to work for one month at the Hogar el Alba children’s home in Buenos Aires; pray for Ed, and remember another SAMS volunteer at the home, Esther German.
Pat Blanchard from Peru and Sue Woodcock from Spain both arrive in the UK on Friday. Pat is here until August and Sue for just over two weeks, but both have busy programmes of church visits. Please remember them in prayer.
Felipe & Sarah Yáñez value prayer as they seek God’s direction and timing for the next step in their ministry in Málaga, Spain. Henry Scriven and Tanas Alqassis, CMS manager for Europe, will visit them in mid-May.
Alejandro Mesco in Peru requests prayer for his wife Doris who is having treatment following investigations into a lung condition. Alejandro has temporarily left his work in Cabanaconde, high in the Andes, to be with her at home in the city of Arequipa.
Praise God for the work of the Metcalfe family over ten years in Paraguay. Murray & Penny, who returned with their children to the UK in December, complete their service with SAMS this week following visits to supporting churches. Pray for God’s leading of them in the future.
Finally, a SAMS supporter has asked that the following request be included: “As the process moves forward for an eventual link-up with CMS, let us pray especially for the Home Staff who are those most affected and whose futures are uncertain. Pray for John Sutton, Philip Tadman, Bob Lunt, Richard Crofts and Tim Greenhalgh, and with them all the office staff as well as the volunteers who so generously give of their time and whose programmes and opportunity for service will be affected.”
Abelino and Paty in Santiago, Chile.
We send you loving greetings from Santiago here in Chile.
We have now been in Santiago for six months pasturing a relatively small congregation with an average attendance of 30 adults and 15 children each Sunday. Our church is located in a working-class sector in the borough of San Joaquín. Most members of the congregation are working folk.
Since we arrived they have received us with great affection, particularly as they had been two years without a pastor of their own, and were led by the church council. Now we have got to know nearly all the members pretty well through different activities in the church and by visiting them in their homes.
Recently, that is, on April 10th we had a day-long spiritual retreat for the whole church, which proved to be a time of rich communion of our brothers and sisters. We enjoyed lunch together too. Nearly every member attended and there was a lovely spirit among the believers. We are so grateful to God for this.
We have several challenges:
- Goal for 2016. We hope that by 2016 (date of our possible retirement) the church will have grown responsibly in numbers and in quality so as to have its own full-time pastor paid from its own resources.
- To study God’s Word using various courses. We do lack cash to buy the materials at the moment. But we are selling items of food prepared in the church to get the money together.
- To evangelise this sector, starting with house to house visitation.
- To prepare more layfolk in leading and preaching the Word.
- To improve the front of the church building – repairs and painting. It also lacks some of the finishing touches from the building process.
- To look after a group of children suffering from economic need and serious family problems, and lacking loving care to help with their schoolwork, including food. Lady volunteers look after them for two or three hours each day helping them with their studies, forming Christian habits and teaching spiritual values with the hope that they will become part of the church family. This will continue so long as the church is able to maintain it.
The truth is that we are very encouraged as we face these challenges. We ask you to pray that God will be glorified.
For our part, we are in good health, praise God. Just a little nostalgia from time to time as we remember our families, brothers and friends in the South. I give thanks to the Lord that my sons stayed in Temuco as they remain very much connected to the activities of their church and all three are working with good prospects for the future. Elías has just been elected treasurer of the church in the IX Region; Jonatan is on the PCC of his church, Holy Trinity in Temuco, and Timi continues to play in the music group.
Along with my wife, Paty, we want to express our affection for you all. We remember you constantly and we are grateful for your prayers for our activities.
In the love of the Lord,
Abelino and Paty.
Easter Prayer Letters
Some Easter prayer letters received into the SAMS office: