The 4th Quarter

We had an incredible week down here in Chile celebrating the 18th of September which is basically a July 4th type of celebration which lasts the whole week. It was a great chance to hang out with students at their varoius grill outs including a grillout at El Oasis that brought in over eighty students! After that glorious week, we met as a staff to talk about the rest of the semester. We've got about 8 weeks left down here and this will complete the first year of our time being down here as the new staff of El Oasis. We are calling the rest of this year our 4th quarter. It was a great meeting to talk about what kind of legacy we want to leave with the students after this first year. A lot of our year has been spent learning the language and culture, adjusting to the Chilean pace of life, and forming relationships with these students. But in the midst of all of that, we talked about how we want to leave a legacy with these students of them knowing the love we have for them. We want to see students come to know Christ and continue to grow in their faith. In a lot of ways it still feels like we've just begun down here, but I am excited to see how God continues to move in the lives of the students of El Oasis.

Two things we're really pushing in our ministry as the year comes to a close is service and prayer. This Saturday, we're doing our first of several service projects to spend time at a children's home in Santiago, playing with the kids in this poorer area and making improvements on the house. We hope to be able to return every few weeks to build relationships with these kids over time. Along with this service project we're continually looking at creative ways that we can help with the devestation in Peru. Our exchange students have come up with several ideas to raise funds including challenging the students to "donate their talents" or use whatever skills they have to raise money whether it's through playing music in a benefit concert, making arts and crafts to sell, or simply finding businesses who are willing to donate.
We're also challenging our leadership groups to take prayer to a new level at El Oasis throughout the rest of this year. We're using different ideas like an email prayer chain, a box at El Oasis to leave prayer requests, and a monthly fast as ways to motivate our students to pray that we might see God do some amazing things as we finish out our year.

Thanks so much for keeping us down here in your prayers and if you ever get the chance to make it down here for the 18th of September it will definitely be worth your trip!

Springtime in Santiago!

Springtime has finally come to Santiago! It's hard to believe we are already almost halfway through the semester - time has been flying by!

Last weekend (Aug. 31 - Sept. 2), we took around 50 students to a retreat center about an hour south of Santiago, called Pintué. It was a gorgeous location, complete with a lake, soccer fields, and a volleyball court. We had a great time at our first retreat of the semester, and the theme for the weekend was "grace." Lukas, Mosby, Whitney, Elisabeth and I gave the talks for the weekend, and several team members were able to have great conversations with students throughout the weekend about the idea of God's grace. One of our exchange students told me about a Chilean student who had come up to her before the weekend started, asking her to explain the idea of grace. The amazing thing was that the student didn't even know yet that grace was the theme for the weekend! God was really working in the hearts of our students this weekend, and it was so encouraging to see.

Another thing that was really encouraging recently was that two weeks ago, we had 87 people at our Thursday night Tertulia! We filled the upstairs room in the campus house, and had a great time worshipping God together. Sadly, we just said goodbye to one of our Chilean interns, "Frizz", who is going to Puebla, Mexico for the school year to work with the campus ministry there, El Pozo. We are definitely sad to see him go, as he was a huge help to our ministry and a great friend... but we are so excited to see how God will use his talents and abilities to reach the students in Mexico!

For our Thursday night Bible studies, we usually do cycles of 4 weeks with a common theme, followed by a night that we call "Breakout." This is basically a pause between cycles, and a chance to talk about something completely different. For our breakout night last Thursday, we focused on kids around the world, and our responsibility to do what we can to help them and show them Jesus. We are really excited about the 2 projects we have decided to focus on... the first is volunteering at a children's home here in Santiago, and the second is sponsoring a child in Peru through Compassion International. The recent earthquake in Peru has been in our prayers a lot lately, and we wanted to sponsor a child who had been affected by this disaster. Last week we had our students sign up to make a monthly pledge toward our Compassion child, and we have almost reached our monthly goal already!

And last, but not least.... next week is VERY exciting. In fact, I've been told it's the most exciting week of the year to be in Chile. September 18 is Chile's Independence Day, and basically the entire week is a week of fiestas! I've been seeing signs around the city about a week-long festival, complete with traditional Chilean food and dancing. So on Thursday (Sept. 20), we will be having an asado (cookout) at El Oasis to celebrate. We have a lot of exciting activities coming up, so please keep El Oasis in your prayers as we head into the second half of the semester!