Travel

Rhonda and I have been asked to travel to Concepcion (near the epicenter) and take a team from Convoy of Hope.  We will see if we can take the ferry or have to drive through Argentina to get there.

Update

La alcaldesa de Concepción dice que el mayor problema que enfrenta la ciudad es el desabastecimiento que hay en las casas, ya que al ser fin de mes la gente no tenía alimentos y los supermercados están cerrados. Incluso dijo que si la situación no se soluciona a la brevedad podría haber un estallido social. Afirma que ...desde Santiago no ha llegado ayuda, lo que calificó como una vergüenza,

The mayor of Concepcion says the major problem facing the city is shortages in the homes.  Since it is the end of the month most homes were already low on food and now supermarkets are closed.  She added that if the situation isn't resolved quickly there could be serious social problems.  She assures that no help has arrived from Santiago which is shameful. 

Update

Please know that Rhonda and I are fine.  The only thing that happened here was that we lost electricity for a couple hours and internet and phone service has been off and on.  I do expect some interruption in supplies to our area so I went to the gas station and filled up the car and a 40 gal. barrel.  The government was saying not to do that as there was plenty of gas but I went anyway.  About 2 hours later we hear they are now rationing gas.
We are looking at the possibility of traveling north to help out in the affected area if we are needed.  I'll try to keep you posted.

Earthquake

3:30 AM today Chile experienced a major earthquake.  They are talking of 8.5 on the Richter that lasted some 2 minutes.  Damage is extensive and hundreds of thousands homeless.  I will try to keep posting information as I can.  In the meantime here's a link to look at some photos:
http://www.fotos.emol.com/?G_ID=13635#

The Throne

Thought you might like the bathroom in our hotel room in Punta Arenas.

Baptism Aysén

Last week the church here in Puerto Aysén had a baptism.  We all went up the canyon about 25 miles from town and spend the day in fellowship and fun.  Here's some photos I took to help you get an idea of how our day went:

Christmas cookies

The kids all pitched in to help us decorate Christmas cookies.
Most of the icing actually made it onto the cookies!

Christmas

Well, we survived Christmas Eve! Folks arrived around 8pm and we ended up eating around 10:30. I think only one of them had ever had roast turkey before so there was quite a bit of anticipation.

We set the table, shared Luke 2, asked the blessing and then it was time to dig in!

It was like one of those gruesome scenes right out of Discovery Channel. You know the one where the small animal falls into piraña infested water? Oh the humanity! Just kidding.

We really did enjoy an excellent meal had great fellowship and ended opening presents at midnight.

Cleaned up a bit and finally got to bed around 2am.

Check engine

A few days ago the check engine light came on.  And stayed on.  Uh, oh.  I checked all the fluids that could be checked and all was well.  Not good.  Getting a 4Runner serviced here is, to put it mildly, a challenge.  I got on line and everyone said to take it to a shop to have the code read.  While someone Might have a code reader in the region I have no idea who and the nearest shop that did would be an hour from home.  Of the thousands of possible reasons the light could come on the most frequent is the MAS.  Now I had to research what a MAS in a Toyota is.  Mass Airflow Sensor turns out.  I followed the instructions to clean it, removing various parts to get to it, sprayed it with contact cleaner (only $8 a can here in town), disconnected the battery to reset the light and...IT WORKED!!  Needless to say we're pretty happy.

Annual car inspection

Well it was time to do the annual car inspection yesterday. We left Aysen around 8:30 and made it to the only car inspection facility in the region around 9:30. Waited in line, paid the $40 and waited the 30 minutes as they ever so slowly did the few tests. Efficiency isn't one of the strong points here. Finally they tell us the car failed. Seems it wasn't aligned close enough. Went to the tire place they said they could see me late afternoon. Good news is I saw the boss who remembered I bought $1000 worth of tires a few months ago and they squeezed me in next. Got the car aligned 30 min and $24) and headed back. Waited in line, went inside, waited another 30 min. Car passed, that will be $10 more for the second inspection. While I was waiting I noticed EVERY OTHER CUSTOMER FAILED the inspection at least once. Hmmm. I detect a strong odor of fish.

We arrived home late afternoon.

Late November we had our 4th District Convention. Not everyone could make it but we still had a good turnout and had a great time! Renato Silva (ex national president of A/G) and 2 other pastors came down and shared with us. Thank you so much for praying for this work at the end of the earth!

Tedeum

It's called Tedeum. What it is is a thanksgiving service celebrated around Chilean independence day. All the community leaders and churches are invited. Usually kind of a big deal.

This year I was asked to be the speaker for the Tedeum for Puerto Aysen. I felt pretty honored to be the speaker, especially being a foreigner. I asked our friends to pray that the Lord would give me His message to the community and went to work preparing the message.

Sunday Sep. 13 came and the church ended up packed with a good number of people having to stand. All of the community leaders showed up including the police chief, mayor, and governor. We even had the official police band!

The Lord really helped me share a message on how to be truly free and I was able to work in an illustration from Chilean traditions to give them something to associate the message with.

At the end many people commented how much they appreciated the message including the leaders. One ex naval official told me how much he appreciated it as well. He went on to say that in all the years he's attended these Tedeum's he had never heard a salvation message preached!

I really want to give thanks to our Lord for His anointing and for the prayers of so many friends. Thanks also for your many kind words and comments!

Flour

Rhonda likes to make bread, especially whole wheat bread. When we left last year we could get it in 3 kilo bags but when we returned nada. No one carried it anymore. Someone at the store decided no one wants it anymore and that was that. Actually that kind of thing happens suprinsingly often. Anyway, after at least a month of searching I finally managed to get some. The only available in the region as a matter of fact. So now we have a 50 kilo (110 lb) sack of flour in the laundry room. We are trying to guess how many months it will last.

Cisnes

We returned from Puerto Cisnes yesterday. We left Saturday near noon and drove the 112 miles in 3.5 hours. Rained the whole day, which isn't unusual this time of the year. Sunday we met with some of the folks and shared with them how much will be decided in this (in comparison to the scope of eternity) tiny span of our life.

We saw again how much we need a couple to come live in Cisnes to pastor that new church.

We returned Monday morning again taking some 3.5 hours.

I would guess that 2/3 of the route is now paved and it's a great drive. But that other 1/3 is pretty rough. Today we are pretty sore and trying to recouperate so I can preach on Sunday here in Aysen.

Repair work

Just before we came back to Chile I broke down and bought a riding lawnmower. It's nice, new, but it didn't work. Something didn't get adjusted right at the factory and I couldn't start it. It flooded almost immediately. That's the danger of buying stuff and not being able to try it out before you ship it. Anyway, yesterday I went and got the local small engine mechanic and we messed around with it for a couple hours. He finally figured out the problem and the best way to fix it. So now, I put the choke on, turn the starter, and pull a string. That's right, my shiny new mower has a string running up to the wheel that I pull to do something or other so the thing will start. Oh well, I guess that's life on the mission field. I gave the mechanic a set of screwdrivers for his trouble. He thought I gave him too much but said he'll make it up on the next job.

Watch for falling rocks

This rock had fallen on the road and had been shoved to the side by a bulldozer. They put the danger tape on it so folks would be sure to see it. Good thing because if you ran over a rock this size you would probably dent the oil pan or something.

Puerto Cisnes 7-8-09

Tuesday we made our first trip to Puerto Cisnes since we’ve been back. We left at 11:30, got gas and met Pastor Victor at the turnoff. We made good time as more and more of this part of the Austral Highway is being paved. We made good time till the Cisnes turnoff that is. The road was closed till 2:00 due to road work. We waited the 10 minutes and then continued on. The next 15 miles took an hour and we arrived at Puerto Cisnes at about 2:30. We ate a greasy lunch at a restaurant and went to check out the house. It had been some months since anyone had been there so we didn’t know what to expect. The house wasn’t in all that bad a shape as someone has been taking care of it. The stovepipe cap had blown off in a storm so there was quite a bit of rainwater in the wood stove but other than that we were quite pleased. There was almost no firewood so our chores were: find stovepipe cap, buy firewood, pay electric and water bills.
Found firewood pretty easily though it’s very expensive, $50 for a meter. 3 meters = 1 cord. The average person makes under $500 a month so imagine what burning 3-4 meters a month would do to your budget. The bills were tougher as most places to pay were closed or the line was down. I’ll try to pay when I get back to Aysén. The stovepipe was typical: “no we don’t have those but so & so does.” Then I get directions to go down the road to where the bridge washed out and look for a blue house. Go behind the house and holler till the guy comes out. He usually has stovepipe caps. We did all that and bought a cap for only twice as much as they sell them for in Coyahique.
Later we went around to tell some contacts about the service that night. We found several and they said they’d come.
5 people end up coming that evening, not bad for this area considering it had been months since they had last met. The people asked Rhonda and I to return and we said we’d try for the 19th, a week and a half later.
Rhonda and I slept on air mattresses downstairs and Victor in the bed upstairs. We kept the fire going all night but I still woke up shivering at 5:30. Air mattress may be the most comfortable but it also transmits the most cold. Maybe next time we can insulate between the mattress and sleeping bag. We manage to get on the road at 9:00 so we can get through the construction area before they close at 10. We just made it and got home in early afternoon.

Bridge painting

They finally decided to fix our bridge after the big earthquake 2 years ago. They're almost done and are now painting it a rather bright highway department orange. Be rather hard to miss as they even paint the guardrails that color.

As only one lane is open we have to stop while the other goes. The other day I was first in line, they were spray painting, it was windy...

Now our car is dark green with a light eyesore orange overtone.

I scraped it off the windshield with a razor blade and need to figure out how to do the rest.