Good News in the USA

Greetings from USA!

Well actually I’m back in Argentina now but I’m sure you want to hear something from our missions trip to the United States.

Most of us had a long layover in Miami!

The lovely Kodys Family

Our three-week-long outreach started in North Carolina. One of our team members, David, is from there and his parents welcomed us to stay there. The ministry that we did there had to do more with Christians and churches. We shared with youth and with a cell group, we presented a play in the Vacation Bible School and in a Sunday service and led a whole Sunday service in a smaller church.

Vacation Bible School. I was one of the actors.

Corin dancing in a Sunday service

Hiram sharing about our ministry and the work we do

For few days we split to groups to serve different families with cleaning, packing and moving for example. With my group we drove a bit further to meet the family we helped. Our job was super simple: to move boxes, pack stuff etc. However we were such a great help and left the families more than happy. It’s crazy though because we ended up being super blessed! Well I think that’s how the Kingdom works.

Connie. We had such an honor to know this great woman.
She even gave us copies of the book she wrote!

boxes

Lisa and Matt and their beautiful family. 

David’s parents lent us their van and a car to drive all the way to Virginia. We stayed there just few days but it was such a beautiful reencounter with Lindsey, one of the old staff members from our base back in Argentina. We got to share with the youth group of their church and they also prayed for us in their Sunday service. We also spent the 4th of July there. It was such a beautiful experience tc celebrate with the locals.

It was such an art to fit all of the bags into the van!

Lindsey translating Hiram in their youth group

Part of the parade of 4th of July

The fireworks kept on going for 40 minutes!

For the last week of our trip we finally traveled to New York. Some of us took a bus meanwhile others drove the van over there. We stayed at the local YWAM base in Long Island. It’s such a wonderful place and the staff are amazing, hardworking servants! The only issue was that the base is quiete far from the city but that’s understandable however.

The base leader

worship moment at the base

We were not the only YWAM team which came to help with the Luis Palau Festival. There was a team from Puerto Rico, from Mendoza Argentina and a couple from Argentina. In total we were around 40 Latinos and Spanish-speaking wannabe Latinos like me.

We spent some days evangelizing and interceding in important places in New York City. We presented some plays and choreographies and invited all the people to come to the New York City Fest / Luis Palau Fest. Our team did really well because there are so many Latinos in the city so you always find someone to speak Spanish to. I was happy as well to be able to speak Spanish, it was pretty useful!

We played soccer with these guys from El Salvador.
It was an easy way to enter to a conversation and we even ended up praying for them.

In Central Park

Dancing salsa and tango at the Times Square

Girls sharing about God´s love to some Muslims

During the last weekend there, Saturday and Sunday, there were two big events in Times Square and Central Park. Those were the climax of New York City Fest, where the world-known Argentine evangelist Luis Palau preached. When he shared the gospel, the people had an opportunity to answer and receive Jesus as their Savior or rededicate them with Jesus. Our job was to get close to those people, pray for them, take their contact and give them a book to help their spiritual growth.

Times Square

Times Square

"Seek first for the Kingdom..." I always wanted to see TobyMac!
God is faithful and He surprised me with this.

Luis Palau and Alejandro Rodriguez, our leader of YWAM Argentina

Central Park

Central Park

Central Park

In general our trip was so blessed, as Jesus “warned” me beforehand. Some may wonder why on earth would the Latinos do and outreach to the USA, but I just got to see that there’s a great need in the States as well. Especially in New York I felt a bit hopeless to see how great the need is and how small the resources of an individual are. However I was happy to be part of something greater. And I do believe that our presence impacted the spiritual environment of the city.

Once again this trip was a miracle and God provided everything we needed during the three weeks. Thank you SO MUCH for supporting me, I’m really touched by that.

Our next challenge is an outreach to the South of Argentina. We’re leaving in two weeks already! We’ll take our children musical to eight different cities and present it in schools. How cool is that: super funny and original musical with a godly message presented to all those kids in the very place they study. I am excited. But it’s also a challenge because we need to buy our tickets there. It’ll be around $300 USD. Please let me know if you are willing to be part of this!

P.S. I renewed my residence yesterday! I have one more year to stay in Argentina legally! That’s how faithful God is!

¡Feliz navidad!

I wish merry and blessed Christmas to all you readers, friends and supporters with some news:

written on 21st of December

I'm writing this update on a train. We are leaving Mar del Plata behind and heading for the downtown of Buenos Aires. 

We are in a new season of the school. The classes are behind and this month is dedicated to an artistic investigation. The idea is to get to know cities with strong artistic movement. As we are many in the school we split up. In my team we have six students: Jason, Mora and Lester from Guatemala, Gerald from Nicaragua, Mirja from Finland and Lorena from El Salvador. My amazing co-leaders are Joel (Argentina) and Camila (Chile). As none of the students is Argentine we decided to stay in Argentina because it has lots of stuff to be seen and discovered.

So we just spent two weeks in Mar del Plata, in the touristic city on the coast of Argentina. This was actually my second time there this year! In February we presented our musical over there. This time we stayed at the local YWAM base. It was totally best for us! The guys welcomed us so well and we got to spend really good time together as well. The base is only one block from the beach. To be honest it's a great privilege and blessing to be able to go to the coast. It's totally beautiful and relaxing!

We got to see different shows almost every night: music, dance, theatre, street art etc. We have break dancers in our group and anywhere we went the guys got to dance and the people were super interested. This also opened doors to new contacts and to evangelize people. 

Mirja teaching ballet to the ywamers

For me leading a group to another city is quite a new experience and that's why I'm super thankful that I'm not alone. Together with the other leaders we compliment each others and also share the burden. 

For me the first week was a bit difficult because I got sick. I had strong allergies and right after I got an infection in my throat. So I spent few days in bed with high fever. It wasn't easy because I felt I'm more like a burden than a help. But God was treating my heart. He affirmed me once again and taught me that my leadership or authority don't come by what I achieve but straight from Him.

I'm so thankful to Daddy for these two weeks of care and blessing! Tonight we'll get to the "Capital base" of YWAM. That's the base in the downtown of Buenos Aires where I did my counseling school two years ago. We'll continue our investigation in the centre. However we'll head back to our home base for Christmas and new year. It's better so spend the holidays in a familiar environment as most of the guys spend their first Christmas away from home.

Thank you friends for making this trip possible! Your support has allowed me to join the team and share the financial challenge as well. Your prayers sustain me and drag me deeper to God time after time. 

So let's thank Daddy:

• For healing me and also treating my heart
• For taking so good care of us
• For His grace every morning ;)

Please be praying for us:

• For the financial challenge of the group (they are lately doing their best: selling bread and dancing in the parks to get some money)
• For protection and health
• For wisdom and discerning to everyone in the leadership

Testimonies from Mar del Plata

Sorry guys about not telling you more about our outreach even though it finished like two weeks ago!!! But here we go!

Going to share flyers.

As I told u before we had some struggles to make people to come to see our musical. However God used us in a different way: to impact other artists. And anyway the whole musical thing was just an excuse to enter to the environment of the local artists.

Something we didn't know beforehand was that the theatre we performed is a place where many transformistas prepare for their shows. Transformistas are gays (at least in this case) who dress up as women for the shows. (So they are not technically transvestites because they do it "just for show"...) Most of the musicals in the city had to do this or other kind of perversion. There were just two other shows for children.

Some of the guys promoting their shows on the walking street.
Oh, there are also three ladies on the back row!

However after the first shock we slowly began to built a good relationship with most of them. They noticed quickly that we are different and have totally different values: family, respect, humbleness, love etc. Especially they were touched by our unity and through the children in our team.

During our intercession times at our house we prayed for the guys and then we wrote on the words God spoke to us and passed them to the guys in the theatre. They were really thankful. In the end one of them came out with an idea of having lunch together. So we invited the to visit us.

Now, in the spiritual world the conflict between us and them was pretty strong. So the previous night we stayed interceding and worshipping till 3 AM because of the oppression we felt. And even during the lunch we took turns of intercession. We finished the lunch praying for each one of them. They liked the fellowship so much that they wanted to come again. That was fine for us and once again we had an opportunity to share our testimonies and pray for them.

The first lunch.

And the second one.

We didn't let them leave before praying!

---

Another goal of the outreach was to play with our band Pujahca. So finally we found a good place to play. Before the gig we also had interviews with two different radios. We really enjoyed playing! The only thing was that just few people came to see us.

Check this out! We played this song for the first time and I just love it.

During our time we were really blessed by the hospitality of the local people. The church we went to welcomed us so warmly even without knowing us! They also helped us with the promotion of the musical and invited us to eat! That night was so special that I won't forget it. As well the local YWAM base helped us with many things and the ywamers were by our side.

The church members sewed the flags of each one of
our countries! Just to make us feel welcome :)

The whole outreach was such a great miracle, how God provided everything, how He kept us safe and used us by His grace, how we grew in intercession and our relationships and many other things. Thank you all for your prayers and support! I felt so blessed because I was able to help the whole team with some purchases.

Gratitude:

• His provision, guidance and care. Health.
• Every fruit we were able to see in the people we met. And there are so much more that we can't see yet.
• My niece is alive and getting better! It's a real miracly, Daddy is just so faithful!
• Maru and Naka got their baby Takeo. He's healthy and cute :)

Trust:

• The seed we sowed won't be stolen but bear fruit.
• I'm leaving tomorrow to Cordoba for five days. I'll be playing with Pujahca and another band. Let's pray God's will to happen in everything.