Home, sweet Finland

It has been quite silent here lately. But it doesn’t mean my life would have been silent.

Right now I’m at New York’s airport waiting for my flight to Brasil only to be continued by the last flight to Argentina. So my trip to Finland is officially over now. 

I arrived to Finland on the 26th of August after a long trip. My parents were waiting in the airport. How had I been missing them!

After one day of rest at home I went to do something really Finnish with my friends. We packed our backpacks and went hiking. In two days we walked 20 km. And of course we slept outside in tents and cooked our food on bonfire. Really Finnish.

My brother was moving to a new house with their family so I also had an opportunity to help him with fixing the new house. 

You can see more photos from my sister-in-law's blog. 

There were also two friends from YWAM Argentina visiting Finland and together we had a little trip visiting some youth camps and churches. Emilia, who had done her DTS at our base this year was also seeing her family so together we formed a great team. I had the honor to translate our visitors when they shared or preached in Spanish.

Ale on the left loves Finland.
Aaron on the right is Chilean and visiting Finland for the first time.

Love this car! Emilia was our trustworthy driver
as we miraculously fit into this Mini Cooper

In general, it was so crazy how many awesome encounters I had with so many people! I got to see all the closest family members, supporters, crowds of friends, got to know my new nieces and nephew and even met with my friends from the job I used to have. 

Getting to know one of the new family members

Spanish worship in Finnish church

These guys (Kruuvi) are my best friends!
So I was more than willing to help them with their gig.

Playing with my niece.

I was spoiled in many ways :D

My plan was also to share about the new base we are about to open in Rosario. So this week my friend arranged a mission night where I was able to explain well what we are doing as AME art team and what’s the deal with Rosario. I was surprised how many people came to listen to me and how generous they were with our project! Thank you all!

So basically I’m just super happy and thankful for all the details of this trip! It had already been more than two years and half since the last visit and I don’t know when the next opportunity will be! So that’s why I’m so grateful for this opportunity to travel in this season.

Thank you everyone for your time, support, prayers, conversations and friendship. It’s something crucial to have emotional, spiritual and financial support from my homeland. 

Who we are?

Hey!

This is something I've wanted to do for a long time! I really would like to introduce the amazing people I'm serving with. They truly are as a family for me! They are the AME Art Ministry.

Here at the YWAM base in Ituzaingó, Buenos Aires we are around a hundred staff members serving voluntarily and full-timely. Each staff member belong to an ministry which is the group of work where they spend the most of the time of their days. The ministries are focused in different spheres of the society: family, education, sports, arts, communication etc.

So today I will introduce you the ART MINISTRY AME (Artists in their Maximum Experience)

The art ministry of YWAM Ituzaingo is composed of an internationally diverse cast of artists. Our main focus is to use all areas of artistic expression to feature principles and values. Through what we do we try to challenge society to embrace a different worldview. 

OBJECTIVES:

• To co-create with God and to express his heart through the arts, seeking out new creativity and taking hope and salvation to people.
• To disciple and minister to artists.
• To redeem the arts of all nations.

How do we do it?
Through different artistic disciplines, participating in social, cultural and sporting events, offering workshops and performances to churches through the following projects:

• Art Studio
• AME School
• Liberarte
• Bands
• AME productions

Additionally, our ministry has the vision of promoting artistic events during summer and winter vacations in the more touristic locations of Argentina like Mar del Plata and Villa Carlos Paz. By doing this we offer a family-friendly and evangelistic show to the public. Our goal is to be a part of the official show business grid, to participate in national awards in Argentine theater and to bring influence and transformation to this area of society. 

Contact: jucumarte@gmail.com

The Maldonados: Hiram (Puerto Rico), Paula (Argentina), Mia, Lucca & Tiago.

The Ramires: Daniela (Italia) & Joel (Argentina)

The Nakayamas (Argentina): Maru, Naka & Takeo

The Arredondos (Guatemala): Edi, Marielis, Daybel & Zoe

The Kodys: David (USA), Noemi (The Dominican Republic) & Eloise

The Lozzis (Guatemala): Sara, Joseph & Walfer

The Theimboueones: Katie (Australia), Mathias (New Caledonia) & Owen

Chile

Canada

Guatemala

USA

Guatemala

Brazil

Guatemala

Finland

Chile

Finland

Mauro (Argentina)

Gabriel (Argentina)

That's who we are. These people are amazing and brilliant. If you want to pray for some of them specifically or support one of them financially, just let me know!

The blessed trip to Cordoba... and somewhere else

Let me tell a bit about last week. (I mean the week before last week, I'm a bit late with the updates...) On Tuesday night I left to Cordoba, Argentina with Joel and Hiram. Here in Argentina the distances are long and it took eight hours for the bus to arrive to our destination. 

The local ywamers welcomed us so warmly. It was my first time at the base. The base is way much smaller than ours, there are just three families and six single staff members. But the guys really offered us their best! We ate so well and had some good rest as well.

The reason we went there had to do with the band the ywamers have in Cordoba. They form a worship band called Connect. And as the bass guitarist is in another province they asked Hiram to join them for a week. 

The first goal was to finish filming their music video. The surprise was that they also asked Joel and me to appear in the video! That was kind of funny because we are not part of the band nor playing in the track. Anyway for me it was such a great honor to do that. I will surely post the video here whenever it will be published.

The main reason of our trip was the weekend's concert. We took a bus early in the Saturday morning to another city called San Francisco. That was just about 3 hours from Cordoba. Then we got ready for the night.

The place we played was a really nice, small theatre. We were three bands: a worship band from a local church, Pujahca and Connect. Connect's drummer played with us (Pujahca) and all of us also accompanied Connect. Before starting the night Hiram shared a word of encouragement for the local musicians. 

The concert was pretty awesome. It was the best place I've ever played, the public seemed to be happy as well. But more than anything it was the beautiful presence of God that made the night unforgettable. 

After the concert we continued to Santa Fe with Joel and Hiram. Joel is from the city of Santa Fe, so some of his friends came to pick us up. We stayed at Joel's house. His parents are pastors of a local church. As it was Sunday we played worship in the service and Hiram preached. With Joel we stayed till Monday night and then took the bus back to our base in Buenos Aires.

Hiram preaching at Joel's parents' church

The Ramirez Gamarras.
Thank you for your love and hospitality!

The whole trip was SO blessed. God took care of us and showed His kindness and favor through all the people we met. Everyone's hospitality and generosity really surprised me. Also our friendship with Joel and Hiram was something I really enjoyed during the week.

Just wanted to share this because I'm so happy and thankful to Daddy. And thank you so much all my supporters and prayer warriors! Without your support I couldn't have been able to do this trip, especially because it was something that came out suddenly without a long time of planning. Thank you, may God pay you back ten times more!

---

This week we've been working a lot here at the base. In two weeks we're going to have the national conference of YWAM Argentina here at our base and we are expecting about 600 people to come. That means a lot of preparation and these days we have been working from 9AM till 8PM.

I have been coordinating the people, just checking what each one is doing and giving them a new task whenever they finish what they were doing before. It has been a crazy and super busy week, but God has been in every detail. He has given me such a grace with the personal relationships and we have avoid all the big conflicts which could easily occur.

The next two weeks can be even busier so I'm not sure if I'll be able to write. And when everything is ready the real craziness is just about to begin. I still don't know how on earth 600 people will fit here! But well we are all exciting to receive our sisters and brothers and see what God has for us these days. 

Be more than blessed!

Something to be grateful for:

• the whole trip to Cordoba, Santa Fe and San Francisco
• the hospitality and generosity of the people we met
• God covering me this week and giving me grace with people at the base
• I have a new niece!!!

Something to pray for:

• All the preparation of our national conference
• I'm finally starting the residence process once again... Please pray for me
• Just pray that the Lord would be able to use me fully without any limitations from my part.

Thanks Daddy for the best Christmas!

Greetings from São Paolo's airport! I'm almost there - just waiting for my third flight which will finally take me to Argentina.

So now as my visit in Finland is over it's a good time to post some photos and share a bit. 

The whole trip was such a great gift and a huge blessing! I really realized that it's by God's grace that I could see my family and friends, serve and enjoy. I could really experience Daddy's love through many different people, especially through my parents and family.

It was hard to leave my country once again - especially because I don't know when will I come back next time. I already miss friends and family. But more than anything I'm so thankful for the time I got to spend with them.

YWAM Ruurikkala - I got to know this amazing DTS!

A worship meeting where I shared a short testimony

The Christmas celebration of
the youth ministry of my home church

From a pentacostal church

Amazing Sarah, my friend from the DTS, came to see me!

Visiting my sister's family

Tampere

Thanks mom for taking us to eat!

Chinese dinner..! 

my daddy

The Christmas Eve. My brother came over with his wife 

The Christmas day
- singing for the homeless/alcoholists/poor

Lovely people indeed.
Got to pray for one of them and just share Daddy's love.

More family together!
The children make a real Christmas!

From my home church's new year camp.
I gave a teaching about missions.

Well, I also spent heaps of time with my friends, but I don't really have photos of that. However they are super important for me and I really liked just to relax.

Hope each one of you had an amazing Christmas and New Year. May God really bless u overwhelingly during this year!