An Updated Family Picture

Dear Everybody,

Have you forgotten what we look like? This is an attempt at getting a new family picture taken on a Sunday morning a few weeks ago. We are hoping to try again soon and maybe getting a new prayer card made and sent out to you.

Dan and Elizabeth

Micah (7yrs. old), Morgan (3yrs old) and Matthias (5yrs old)

Thanks again for your prayers for our family. We depend on the work of God in our personal lives and also on His working in our ministry here in Chile.

You are an integral part of our ministry through your prayers. Thank you!

Liz

It's been too long!!!!

Dear everybody,

Posting on the blog is so easy and I don't really have any good excuse for not having written. So, my apologies for the great lapse of time between posts for all of you who faithfuly come on the blog. Thanks for not giving up on us! We do appreciate your prayers.

Our biggest news as of late is not concerning camp. It isn't about Chile or Lican Ray either.

It really is important to us though as a family and that is that we will be welcoming a new member of the family in May 2010.

YES! I am expecting again. I have just finished my third month of pregnancy and I am feeling ok. Some of you might know this and some of you might not, but I was very sick during my other three pregnancies. We are thankful that this one has been milder. I do covet your prayers concerning my health and the baby's for the remaining 6 months. We will be extremely busy with camps and ministry responsibilities for the summer, but are so excited about this new gift from God.

Liz

The Makings of a Greenhouse

Dear everybody,

Dan loves to plant... anything really, but especially things that later he can harvest and eat! We have miscellaneous pots in the house right now with herbs and flowers that he likes to grow from seed. He keep many different seeds from fruit he eats, or from plants he has liked along the road. So the idea came to transfer these plants growing out of yogurt containers on my window sill to a greenhouse where Dan can grow vegetables of all kinds for our eating pleasure.


The kids of course took a liking to the idea. Dan let them each pick one packet of seeds to plant indoors first. Morgan picked out the yummy cherry tomatoes. Peanut's mouth watered just thinking about his watermelon seeds producing and Micah picked out the green pepper packet... must have liked the picture on the front... So they planted their seeds and had a blast doing it.


But then the work started for Dan. He had to get the backyard ready first. There were trees to remove to make room for some sunlight and then some stumps to take out.


Then, Dan plowed the soil up with a pick, throwing out any unwanted roots. He set up a sturdy 2x4 base and then used PVC for the rest of the frame.


I helped him on the stickier part of getting the plastic up and over the frame and tacking it down.


This evening, Matthias and Dan planted the first few rows of radishes. Peanut just sat himself down in the dirt afterward just waiting for these radishes to pop right out, ready to eat... What a disappointment to find out he would have to wait a little while longer!

Tomorrow, the rest of the seeds get planted. And then my job will begin.... WEEDING!!!!

Liz

A New Ministry Opportunity

Dear everybody,

Last Sunday was a special day for us. After attending a regular morning service at our church in Conaripe, and eating a quick lunch, we packed ourselves in a van and headed into the mountains.


Dan was asked at the latest district meeting to help with the preaching and teaching in the UCB Church of Liquine and our new Conaripe church family decided to go with us for the first Sunday up there.


The church in Liquine was started by Gospel Mission of South America missionaries 50 years ago, but just recently has found itself without a pastor. Dan and I will be traveling up at least twice a month to go and minister to the congregation.

The trip was an interesting one! Leaving Conaripe, it's over an hour long drive on gravel roads, going straight up and down switch backs and curves. We saw breathtaking rivers, gorges and valleys surrounded by lush vegetation and towering snowcapped mountains.

I know it's small!!! On the top left is where we live in Lican Ray, then to the right in the middle is where the Conaripe church is located. Finally on the bottom right, close to the Argentine border is the location of the Liquine Church.

We arrived at the church in time for the service... our first stop? the wood stove. We were pretty frozen when we got there. We enjoyed the wonderful time of worship with guitares and accordion accompanying the singing.


Then Dan got up to share his salvation testimony and message from God's Word. It was neat for us and for the few that accompanied us from the Conaripe church, to see the thirst the Liquine people had for sound Bible teaching. They were on the edge of their seats and the message went long! Many of the people had walked 2 to 3 miles to be at the service and we were having record low temperatures and rain that night.

We would appreciate your prayers for the Liquine church.

We are praying that God would also touch the heart of a young man or couple and call them to this needy ministry of visiting and pastoring the many country churches still without fulltime pastors.

Liz

Anthony and Heather

Dear everybody,

We had the privilege of hosting two short-termers for a couple weeks. Anthony and Heather are from Pennsylvania and came to Lican Ray Bible Camp to WORK and that's exactly what they did!

We had a few projects planned out for them and they saw them through to the end.

Here is a sampling of the work they did:

1) Clean and paint the camp bathrooms - Heather did the majority of the painting and on her own for that matter. She got a little tired of that periwinkle color in the girl's bathroom!



2) Take out the rotten wood flooring in the camp kitchen pantry and replace it with a cement floor - Anthony helped with this project which entailed taking out a block wall dividing the kitchen from the pantry.


3) Framing up and pouring sidewalks in front of the main meeting hall and bathrooms.


5) Painting the kitchen walls and cupboards - Once again this job fell to Heather.


4) Raking leaves and burning brush on camp.


6) Build a covered porch in front of the administrator's house - Anthony works in carpentry so this was a fun project for him.




We worked hard but we also took some time off to relax. Sundays, they accompanied us to church in Conaripe and got to taste first hand some Chilean cooking and hospitality. We also took them for a trip up into the mountains to the hot springs for a dip.





May God watch and care over Anthony and Heather as they return home and may He guide them in their walk with Him.

Liz

GOATS !!!

Dear Everybody,

The past few weeks have been full of activities for us, not only camp activities but personal family ones as well. I would like in the next few blog posts catch you up on these activities but I will start with the most interesting and fun for our family: Purchasing goats!

One of the young couples in our church in Conaripe was selling some of their goats. This gave Dan an idea. Goats are relatively easy to care for and reproduce like rabbits, which is to say, very quickly. We thought long and hard about it and decided to buy a few goats.

Here are a few of our reasons:

- Meat producers for our family= Goats can have up to 2 kids a year (and most of the time they have twins)

- Brush clearers= Goats can eat just about anything and are great brush clearers. We are overwhelmed with brush on camp.

- Easy to care for= Our kids can lead the goats out on a leash to pasture during the day. they are very docile animals.

- The start of a petting zoo = we would like to have a mini petting zoo for the kids who come during family camp to enjoy.

- New responsibilities for Micah, Matthias and Morgan= they are learning what it means to care for our new "pets".

Dan, with the help of another young man, built a nice pen and shed for the goats and last week, we went and picked them up.

It was out in the country, about an hour away from our house. It was pouring down rain that day and the goats were nowhere to be found when we got there. Dan and the boys climbed the hills all over the property looking for them. They got soaked in the process and enjoyed getting warmed up by the stove for a bit.

Finally, in the afternoon, the goats came down the hill and we were able to take four of them home with us. That was a fun process.

The goats are enjoying their new pen, and today we were took them to pasture. They are getting used to their new surroundings very quickly. We are discovering each one of their personalities and qwirks.

Liz

Raking on Camp

Dear everybody,

We love our beautiful Lican Ray Bible Camp. The property is covered with beautiful trees of all different species.

What results from having lots on trees on camp is lots of branches and leaves to rake up in the winter!

What a job! This time around we started a little earlier in the year since we are actually living on camp now. We've been at it with the kids for the past few weeks, working most afternoons after they get done with their schooling.


Yesterday, we had Teresa, a young lady from the El Tume church, call and ask if she could come to camp and work wherever needed. We never turn anyone down that wants to work!


She worked really hard and got the main part of camp cleaned of all leaves and branches.

Dan used the pitchfork to pick up the piles and throw them in the bed of the pickup.

Even Morgan helped!

Then we would drive to another part of camp to dump the leaves.

This was our kids' favorite part of the job! They helped push on the tarp to dump the leaves out and then got to jump in the piles.

We appreciate all who sacrifice of their time to come and work on camp.

The work is never ending but it is gratifying at the end of a day's work to see progress.

Liz