We are only at the beginning of week 2 of February and El Pozo has already had lots of events which means lots of great student hang-out time!
SUPER BOWL…
We held our first ever “Courtney Wilson Knee Memorial Super Bowl Party” this year. (Since Courtney is still back in the states recovering from her knee surgery, she didn’t get to join us for one of her favorite forms of outreach: football!) So instead of having the fiesta at the campus house, we packed about 30 people into Becky and Courtney’s house for a great night of food, fellowship, and football.
POKER…
This year we are also sending our first group of students to Juarez, Mexico during spring break to work with Casas por Cristo building houses. Harold, our wonderful intern, planned a great night of Poker at a local bar to raise funds for this trip. The tournament had a great turnout, with wonderful prizes, excellent food, and we were able to rasie some money for Casa por Cristo. Our final four players even consited of three ladies and only one guy… with Sarah Cruz winning the big event! We have another tournament planned for next month, so all you guys better bring your ‘A’ game if you want a shot at winning.
JAZZERCIZE…
Last weekend we had 20 ladies attend our Women’s Health and Fitness Day. The afternoon consisted of two great talks about our bodies and how we are uniquely made, a professional fitness instructor led our afternoon in none other than ‘Jazzercise’, and ended with a very yummy and healthy lunch! The day was fun, fun, fun with lots of great female bonding. (If you’ve never done Jazzercise before I highly recommend it. It will also bring a good laugh!) We had several ladies really interested in learning more about taking care of their bodies for themselves and focusing on God’s great plan for them.
There is lots more going on down here with en vivos, devo lunches, Valentine’s Party, and the Beach retreat coming soon. More to come soon with the great things God is doing in Puebla, Mexico. (and hopefully more pictures too, assuming it will allow me to upload them!)
Much Love,
Karen
Hey everyone, so I am now the official GlobablScope Puebla blogger! You can expect to get regular updates keeping you informed on all the great things happening in Puebla, Mexico.
I have included the McDade’s last email update which paints a great picture of all that’s happened recently… so sit back and enjoy.
This afternoon I’m leaving with a couple of friends for a quick backpacking trip. If all goes well, Sunday at dawn I’ll stand on top of a 17,000-foot mountain and wonder at the power, creativity, and goodness of our God.
But I don’t need the mountain.
Because I also see Him in the continual growth of my teammates.
I see Him in the 90 or 100 faces at our semester kickoff party – many of them the same faces we’ve seen for three years now, many of them brand new to us.
I feel Him in honest and mature conversations with other believers, based in trust.
I watch Him work through my wife as she patiently talks to the outcast kid who would otherwise be sitting off in the corner by himself – or walking out the door.
I see Him smile as He continually pours out inexplicable blessings on Erin and me – from the tiniest, silliest of things, to huge, massive signs of His love and faithfulness. He’s so obviously there in all of it.
I feel His presence at our invitation dinner for 34 student leaders – young people all over the map in terms of their relationships with God, but all fired up about learning, serving, and growing closer to Him. I see the momentum building in each of their lives and I can hardly contain my excitement.
I stand in awe of Him when I hear a girl ask to be put in a different leadership group than her best friends because she knows it will challenge her to grow and reach out more.
I praise Him for giving two of our best student leaders the opportunity to go to Africa this summer with CMF’s REACH internship program and share their love, encouragement, gifts, and beautiful stories of faith in an ever-present God with those affected by or infected with HIV/AIDS.
I hear Him sing in the U2 lyrics playing in the background.
I hear Him whisper when I read Scripture and those “almost Scripture” types of books written by folks like Willard, Foster, Buechner.
I hear Him narrating in the emailed words of some of you, at work in the stories of your lives. I see Him as an artist when I watch “Planet Earth” from the comfort of my couch, without having to hike anywhere.
I even see Him in the way Lucho, our little housecat, somehow always knows when Erin doesn’t feel good and breaks character to snuggle right up to her, soothing her when she needs it most.
And I see Him in this story that just came across the phone lines a few minutes ago: One of our buddies, a student named Samantha, finished up here a couple of months ago and headed off to work at Disney. Now if you know Sammy, this makes perfect sense – constant smile, lots of energy, a joy to be around. In a recent email, she told me she was bringing me some Mickey ears but still hadn’t decided what to get Erin. Well, a little while ago, I learned that Sammy was at GTCCF, in Atlanta, sitting in Rick Harper’s office. She’d gone up from Florida and attended CCF’s weekend retreat (no doubt invited by some former Puebla exchange students), and as a result of her experience, she wants to be baptized. And as an extra treat for those of us down here, she said she wants to wait a short while in order to be baptized here, with the El Pozo community. I’m getting misty-eyed at the thought, knowing that that moment when she comes up out of the water will not only be a seminal moment in her life, but also in the lives of who knows which other young men and women who will be inspired by Sammy’s faithfulness to take another step forward in their own faith journey.
And on and on it goes – light in darkness – truth amid lies – joy alongside pain – Christ at work in this world, here, now. And we get to be a part of it.
Thanks for the part you play, and the ways that that makes it possible for us to play our role here as well.
With love and best wishes for 2008.
Nathan for the McDades
Please continue to pray for the ministry of El Pozo. God is doing amazing things here everyday!!
Karen
Well a lot has happened in the last few months at El Oasis. We are currently in the last week of activities, and looking back, I can’t believe that an entire school year has already passed!
In October, we had a soccer tournament to outreach to new students. It was a great event, with over 80 students present. There were 5 men’s teams, 2 of which were completely new to the El Oasis community. The girls also played, but just for fun! The weather was gorgeous, and we spent the whole day playing, eating and just enjoying each other.
At the beginning of November, we traveled to a city called Los Andes about 2 hours outside of Santiago for our final retreat of the year. Phil and Merran Tatum, who were on staff here from 2002-2006 returned to give the talks at the retreat. They talked about the importance of saving sexual relationships for marriage. The weekend also included a battle of the sexes, which consisted of boys versus girls competitions. The boys were crowned the winners at the end of the weekend, but the girls definitely put up a good fight!
El Oasis is currently raising money to send to the earthquake victims in Peru, and the exchange students came up with an idea called “Donate Your Talents” to help out. It consisted of students performing a talent, such as singing, dancing, juggling, in the streets (very common here in Santiago) and asking people for donations. They chose a spot near a metro station and performed all day long! It was great to see students come out and want to help. We had a variety of talents, and raised over $100!
Please pray for El Oasis as we finish our year here! Thanks! Chau!
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 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!
Hola de Santiago! It has been a busy past few weeks. I arrived in Santiago exactly 3 weeks ago, and have been busy getting the hang of things around El Oasis, as well as working on improving my Spanish. I’m glad to finally be here, and to finish out the semester with the rest of my teammates!
The second weekend in June , we took around 50 students and traveled by bus about 2 hours from Santiago, to a retreat center at El Tabo (the beach). On Friday night, we had dinner and played some games with the students. On Saturday, we had great weather – sunny and warm! We were able to go to the beach and play some football, as well as just hang out with students. We had a “fogata falsa” (false campfire) inside on Saturday night, complete with acoustic music and smores! We also had a time for the students to come up with sketches related to the theme for the weekend, “Transformation”, and gave out prizes for the best actors and best sketch. We were blessed to have Doug & Shelly Kallestad as our guest speakers for the weekend. The Kallestads have been planting churches in Chile for 18 years, and they did an incredible job challenging the students to seek transformation through Christ, and to be a part of transforming their communities and the world!
During the month of June, our focus has been on service. For the past couple of weeks, students have been bringing in blankets, clothes, and food. Last weekend, we had the opportunity to go throughout the city and distribute what we had collected to people living on the streets. We were able to talk with several of them, and this was a great chance to serve our community alongside some of our students. In addition, several of our students and team members are going on a 10-day trip in July to southern Chile to help build houses (similar to Habitat for Humanity). This is a great opportunity to get to know some of our students better, and to help build hope and a home for those who have nowhere to go.
Please be in prayer for our team and for El Oasis as we close out the semester! Also be in prayer for Heather, as she prepares to return to the U.S. in a few short weeks. She has been a wonderful help to our team, and we will miss her!
What’s up once again from the other Hemi! As the days get shorter down here and we move towards winter, we’ve been spending as much time outside as possible. We celebrated one Friday on campus, grilling sausages and sipping El Oasis’ trademark Red Juice (Jugo Rojo!), with a couple of games of futbol on the campus field. We had a solid afternoon and tons of fun, and about 40 showed up that day, including some new acquaintances from Catolica University!
All this, of course, was just preparation – because the following weekend was the real deal. That’s right, the Tournament of “Baby Futbol” – a smaller, different version of the real game of soccer (teams of 5, played on cement), but nonetheless one taken very seriously by all the teams who entered in the championship. The afternoon was a huge success, and we went home with a handful of new friends. We will definitely do another tournament this year!
And now for something completely different, we had a local pastor come and speak on a Thursday night during our regular Bible Study (aka Tertulia). Normally that might not sound so special, but one look at Fernando in the picture below will tell you he’s anything but a regular guy. In fact, he works with a movement that is directed towards the “urban tribe” youth of Santiago. He shared with us about the mentality of kids involved in gothic circles, about punks, and about neo-nazis, among others, and how Christ wants to give them His love – through us. Our students were blessed with the chance to learn about others and challenged to reach out. A few of us visited the Movement that week and rocked out for 4 hours in a heavy metal worship service.
All in all, things are moving along very well here. We are thankful that God is causing the students to grow, and that He is using everything from leadership groups to Bible Studies to one-on-ones, etc. We are thankful for your prayers and your support! Write us!!
Hey Everybody!
Life in Santiago has been exciting and challenging as the new team
continues to adjust to a new culture and language. We are in the
middle of our Mes de Deportes (Sports Month) and are having weekly
activities of soccer, aerobics for the ladies, mini tournaments, etc
to continue to build relationships with the students of El Oasis and
to reach out to the universities. Each week this month at Donce, we will play a sports-related game. The picture below is from playing jump rope this past week. Next month we’ll be having our Music and Arts month and we’ll finish off the semester with a month of service.
The exchange students did an awesome job putting on the scavenger hunt
in the mall. Teams of students were running around taking pictures
with different signs, people, plants, and using creativity to get more
points. We’re excited to see what else the exchange students can
dream up.
It’s been awesome to see how God has come through to make this
transition of teams possible. Two of our Chilean interns, Andres and
Kathy have stayed on to work at El Oasis for another year. Heather
Pearce from the original team has stayed on for another semester.
These three have made this transition possible. We appreciate so much
your prayers as we continue to learn the language and culture and
bring El Oasis into all that God has in store for us this year!
- Lukas Fortunato
Greetings from Santiago once again! We are continuing the semester here in Chile, and have seen great results from this first month. Our second Bible study was about Jesus’ baptism, and this past week the theme was the resurrection. We performed a short play that included the perspectives of Joseph of Arimathea, the guards, Mary Magdalene, and Peter. The play was followed by a talk in which we encouraged the students to “leave their problems in the tomb” so that they could celebrate their new life in Jesus. We had a party after Bible study to symbolize this celebration. Overall the night was a huge success!
We have also started our devotional dinners on Monday nights (called Donce, pronounced don-say). The theme for the semester is “Youth in the Bible”. We have talked about David (as a boy, of course), Daniel, and Joseph. After dinner and the devotional, we play a game in which the students become very competitive! The winners receive a treat the following week, while the losers have to wash dishes! This past week we played trivia.
Our exchange students are doing really well. They’re continuing to adjust to the culture, and they are learning the language very quickly. This month they are starting bi-weekly activities for the students that they will be in charge of. The first is a scavenger hunt at the mall. We are all looking forward to that.
We would appreciate your prayers for the continuation of the semester!
Greetings from Santiago, Chile! We have had a very busy and exciting past couple of weeks getting a new team here and ready for the start of the semester. Our first big activity with students was a workday a couple of Saturdays ago in order to fix up the house and get it squeaky clean for the first Bible Study. About 15 students showed up and enjoyed painting, washing down walls, and eating a free lunch. The next activity was that following Thursday, a cookout intended for fellowship and a chance for newcomers to get inside El Oasis and enjoy its fun yet relaxed atmosphere. We had so many people that we had to rewash dishes in order to provide for everyone!
For the past two weeks and the next we planned a number of extra activities so that we could get to know the students better and vice versa. We had game night, movie and a sundae night, a special lunch on Friday and a day of sports on Saturday. They all had a great turnout and a number of newcomers came as well.
And finally, our first Bible Study was Thursday, March 15. Our series for the next four weeks is “New Beginnings”: the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, the new life we are able to have because of His death and resurrection, and the beginning of the church after Christ’s ascension. Mark Jackson gave the first talk on Jesus’ first miracle of turning water into wine. The night went off very well (especially since it was the first Bible Study done by our team) and we were encouraged by the number of people who showed up, about 75 in total.
We have our devotional dinners and leadership groups starting this week and we are so excited to see what the rest of the semester brings!
