Merry Christmas and Blessed 2016

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Hope you all had the best Christmas ever! I spent mine in the coast of Argentina in a city called Mar del Plata. I came here to the local YWAM base to rest a bit before starting the 2016 with everything!

This year 2015 has been full of action as the missionary life always seems to be. Once again it's hard to believe that all these things happened in one year. Let's see a bit.

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It was the beginning of the year as we created the musical "Huesos Secos" with the art school students and performed it. The school finished in March and some students joined our ministry.

Second night over! So proud of our students! Come and see us this weekend or the next one! #ame #huesosSecos

A video posted by Pyry Ihonen (@tofindmore) on Feb 20, 2015 at 5:36pm PST

The YWAM conference was this year in Mendoza. We went a bit beforehand to help with the sound system. But beyond the work it was time to renew in the Spirit. In 2016 the conference will be in our base..!

A #worship moment from our annual conference. Fellowship, word, ministration, celebration and healings! So #grateful to Jesus! #jucummendoza #ConferenciaAreaSur

A video posted by Pyry Ihonen (@tofindmore) on Apr 5, 2015 at 6:33pm PDT

One of the happiest memories of the year was when Marko, my youth pastor from Finland came to see me here! We even got to know the famous waterfalls in the North of the country.

At the #triplefrontier of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil.

A photo posted by Pyry Ihonen (@tofindmore) on May 13, 2015 at 8:51am PDT

We also got to arrange LIBERARTE, the art event for the youth of our city. This year was very fruitful cause some of the guys stayed in contact with us and we were able to disciple them.

Then the real miracle of the year was our outreach to USA. I had a little faith in the beginning but by your help the trip came true! And how God blessed every single detail..!

Los Latinos took over the #CentralPark as we went to promote #nycityfest and #PalauFestival. #ywam #jucum

A photo posted by Pyry Ihonen (@tofindmore) on Jul 8, 2015 at 5:13pm PDT

Our second outreach was to the South of Argentina where we performed our family musical in 7 different cities, all together 25 times including schools, churches, theaters even outside... Thousands of kids heard the message salvation through this play.

A photo posted by Pyry Ihonen (@tofindmore) on Aug 11, 2015 at 4:41pm PDT

In September we had this unique opportunity to record three songs in a professional studio with our band Pujahca! It was something we didn't expect but God just arranged it all! Such a great experience!

#studioselfie #pujahca

A photo posted by Pyry Ihonen (@tofindmore) on Sep 2, 2015 at 4:23pm PDT

And the rest of the year we had three weddings at the base, we started reaching out the hip-hop culture, continued giving art classes, celebrated the Christmas with the neighborhood and many more things...


This was just a quick look to the year to be able to WONDER God's goodness and faithfulness! Remember that all this was possible because of your support and prayers! I couldn't be able to do any of this by myself! So thank you soooo much!

The year hasn't been super easy but it's good to see how fruitful it was anyway! I'm expecting new things of 2016 and trusting that Daddy has some cool stuff prepared for all of us!

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We'll start the new year with an art seminar. The invitation is open for everyone!




P.S. Even though my plan and vision is to stay here in Argentina and serve Lord here for now I do want to visit home back in Finland this year! So please join me in prayer so everything will fit together!

music & comedy

Ok, it has been more than a long time since last post. There have been lots of things going on and I have been more than busy at least the last two weeks. 

Two weeks ago we had a music concert here at our base. We invited three more bands to play with us. God has been really generous with us as we have received lots of instruments and sound equipment of the best quality. So it's our honor to use it and let others to use it as well. 

This time we had a new drummer and bass guitarist playing with our band Pujahca. To be honest the guys just exploded it and I really enjoyed playing. And so did all the other bands as well.

The goal of the concert was to evangelize, create relationships and raise up funds for our rehearsal room. Praise God it went all well!

Last Saturday we started once again with our musical El viaje de los hermanos Luna. We will be presenting during the weekends and then non-stop for two weeks during the winter holidays. This time it's a theatre in the downtown of Buenos Aires.

It has been such an effort and work once again. During the months I was working with different promotional designs, new tracks, videos, radio promos etc. And during this last two weeks we made a whole new set up. As we didn't have lots of time and resources we have been working super hard. Last week we stayed up almost every night till 1 am. 

We used a projector to mark my drawing to the material.

One of the many many designs I've made.

So it has been kind of crazy till yesterday. I don't personally like pressure because it easily makes me stress. Or actually the work and tiredness aren't that big deal but the way we handle them. In my case, the pressure and tiredness make me see the crap I still have inside and that doesn't really encourage me. 

However God has been more than faithful. There have been so many days I have just said "God I don't know how to go though this". But He has given me strength and helped me in every task. He has healed me from my flu and covered many possible mistakes. 

A video I made to promote the play.

So this is basically what I have been in to. Well, just a small small part of that. Everyday is a new adventure and new challenges. I find myself once again so poor and needy for God. I keep on being surprised by the deceitfulness of my heart but as well by His everlasting love. If I'm alive it's by His mercy. If I manage to do something for His Kingdom it's only by his grace.

Thankful for:

• God's taking more than good care of me.
• The support of you guys, family and friends.
• The concert and the musical.

Praying for:

• To move on in my relationship with God. 
• Our musical to reach the right people.
• A new MacBook :)

back to the summer

Greetings from the heat!

Few weeks have already passed here in Argentina. It's summer out here. Luckily when I arrived the heat wasn't that bad, just maybe 30°C or even less. However last week the terrible heat and humidity came back. Yeah, in the afternoons it gets till 40°C.

With the art ministry we are preparing us to go to the outreach to the coast. That means theatre, band and folklore rehearsals, preparing the stuff we use in the play and looking for places to play with our bands. I have been working with some flyers for the musical. I also helped the DTS staff to design some of their material and as well designed a t-shirt for the school.

We're going to have a new baby in our ministry! Maru and Naka will have their first child Takeo in March. However their house is still full on under construction. So we are also taking advantage of this time before outreach to advance with the house as much as possible. The bathroom is almost ready to be used and praise God the guys received a great offering of furniture for the kitchen etc. Last Saturday we were plastering the whole day and finished the inside part. Now we are praying for the windows :)

Food for the hungry workers

Well there are many stories I could tell you about: birthday parties, the fire next door, all the mess with my residence, many blessings God has given to me and many others etc. But maybe another time.

A worship time

Some prayer requests:

• As a ministry we still lack almost $1000 USD to finish to pay the theatre and our trip.
• For my residence. I'll explain this later.

Some of the 10,000 reasons to praise God:

• For the financial support and Daddy's blessings every day through so many different people
• My home sickness went away :)

I am (almost) ready to go home

Time is running fast! 

Ok, the thing is that tomorrow I'm finally going to fly back to Finland to visit my family! I'm super excited! 

My plans are to stay the first week with YWAM Finland in Ruurikkala supporting the counseling ministry. The rest of the time I want to visit various congregations or events and share a bit about missions, art or what ever the need is. So if you want me to visit your congregation or small group, just let me know!

Other plans are to raise more supporters for me and for the art ministry in Buenos Aires. And well, of course to spend the real white Christmas at home with my beloved family that I haven't seen for almost a year and a half.

And well, right after the new year I'm already coming back to Argentina.

So I should be preparing myself to leave, but to be honest there're still other stuff to be done! Tonight I'm playing with the two bands of our ministry, with Jeremy Black and Pujahca. And every night I'm helping the girls from our ministry to make costumes to raise finances for our outreach in February. 

I'm a bit frustrated because I couldn't renew my residence yet, but well, I'll do it after coming back. God is super faithful and I have seen Him totally coming through once again in many areas. Just love my Daddy. 

Thank you a lot, all friends, supporters, family and all you readers!

Making costumes...

rehearsal with Jeremy Black

A sign we made for a event against
 child sex abuse and violence

A NIKO camp. Awesome experience!

events, parties, and other vol XII

Hi!

Long time, no post.

However I am and I have been fully alive. Many things have happen, lots of work have been done. Some photos may tell you more:

My 23rd birthday! I really spent it well and ate a lot. 

God is SO faithful! He has totally given me the best.

The celebration of cultural diversity.
I'm on the stage dancing Argentine folklore.

The mission night at our base. With some 

friends we made a stand of Australia and Oceania. 

And then, preparing the great event: Liberarte. 

I was in charge of the decoration... 

Praise God I received lots of help.

Liberarte is an art competition that we organize with 

the municipality for the local youth. 

We do the event every year to plant 

biblical values and evangelize the youth.

A photo from the music video my dear friend
from the ministry (and my roommate), Jeremy filmed
last week. I was acting a tiny part and dancing a coreography.

At this moment I'm at a Musical Festival here in Buenos Aires.

 We as ministry are here working and in charge of the production.

 It has been three days of work, but it's great to see how 

God is opening doors to the heart of this environment. 

And well, the construction goes on!

That was a bit about the past and present. About the present... I will write on the following post.

Bless!

the intense internship

Hi folks!

It has been a while since I've written here. And as usual it's only because I have been busy and lazy. One more reason is also that so much things going on that it's impossible to record every event so I don't even try to. 

Our art internship has been more intense during these last times. I have been participating the different classes: singing, dancing, acting, history of art, theatre make up, folklore... In the same time I have had other responsibilities in the art ministry and at the base in general. 

The time has run really fast and this week is the last one for the internship! Luckily all of the guys are staying at the base so we don't need to say any goodbyes. 

We performed an opening dance for a kids' camp

A theatre make up class: fire, earth, water and air

A folklore party we had for the second time

Haha, I was helping in a commercial and gained some money.
(It's not me in the photo. My part was to congratulate him!)

Our girls passing time with the teacher of the history of art

A theatre make up class...

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I have been experiencing some strong homesickness lately. As I wrote earlier this year, I decided not to use my July's return ticket to Finland but stay a bit longer. Even though I had made this decision many months ago, last week was really hard because my return would have been on last Thursday. 

However God is my comfort and my best home is always in His presence. So no matter where I am, I find my home in the intimacy with Papá. And He will surely take me to Finland when it's the right time.

God has taken really good care of me. Every week I have seen His faithfulness. There has been opportunities to work and I'm super thankful for all of you who have remembered me with financial support. My part has been just to receive and share to others as I'm getting to know better our generous Father.

And for those who like folklore: our presentation

a small but really important request :)

Hey guys!

Have been a while since writing. I'm sorry if someone missed my updates.

The Art Internship with Shini and Rob who
came to teach us about communications!
Amazing people, such a blessing!

Lots of things have happened. But the most important is that I can see how God has been working in my heart and the hearts of us as ministry and missionary community. The last month has been also a time of repentance and brokenness. It has been more than necessary.

Basically the life goes on. I'm a staff member of an Art Internship here in YWAM Ituzaingó, Buenos Aires and spend my days with translating classes, cleaning, preparing events, taking art classes, having good moments of worship and intercession, evangelizing, cooking etc etc.

Haha, these photos are from the baby shower of today!

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But now I'm writing to you because I need your help with something really specific! More than a year ago God spoke me about supporting financially the missionary work in the unreached mission field (10/40 window - the areas where people have never heard about Jesus.) So since that I have supported a missionary every month with a certain amount of money. 

The truth is that God has been really faithful and I have been able to be supporting whole this time. However it seems I won't be able to send my monthly support this month. So I really wish that someone would be part of this thing and help me with the support of this month. The amount is not that big, don't you hesitate to ask me!

The missionary I'm supporting (let's call him "Taa") is a Thai missionary in his own country. I met him in Thailand in 2010 in my DTS outreach. He with his ministry is doing constantly a great missionary work and evangelizing. It's so encouraging to read from his newsletters about the new saved souls and different miracles.

So please, pray and ask God if it's your part to help him this month and please let me know! I can send you all the information or you can transfer the money to my account and I send it forward.

Thank you guys! May God bless you!

ready for the national conference

A brief update!

I have been now for two weeks back at my "home base" in the province of Buenos Aires. So I came back to work in the art ministry. Honestly it's good to be back and we're living new, interesting times with the ministry.

As most of you know I first came to Argentina in 2011 to do my art School "AME" here in this base. As a ministry we planned to do the school once again this year. However the plans changed a bit. So now we have 6 more people on the base from all around the world. But instead of taking the art school they work in the ministry as staff members and receive some classes in the same time. So instead of the art school AME we run a six-month-long internship with the new guys.

Ok, ok, let me explain. I was TRANSLATING this theatre make up class... Just translating, ok? But yeah, I'm the person on the left.
The guys of internship: Michel (Colombia), Daniela (Italy), Laura (Brazil), Camila (Chile), Katie (Australia) , Milena (the small girl, not part of our ministry) and Matias (New Caledonia) Hope to put some other pictures also in the future haha. 

So I have been already fully part of the ministry: translating, cleaning, helping with worship, taking theory classes (identity, the enemies of an artist, team work...), technical classes (singing, salsa, dance...), painting, playing with Jeremy etc etc.

But now I'm more than anything writing because in few hours we'll leave to the coast! We'll have the national conference of YWAM Argentina. That means that all the ywamers in Argentina (400+) get together for five days!

This is first conference I will be participating and seriously I'm really excited. Surely I'll have so much new friends..! And I can just imagine the spiritual part of the conference. I'm so blessed with all the experince and wisdom that God has placed on YWAM. So I can only imagine how God will manifest Himself when we get together like this.

So just wanted to share this excitement and tell that I won't be available for 5 days... bless!

Playing with Jeremy Black last Saturday.

Variete

Hey guys! This was like two weeks ago, but I wana share you something. Every second month we as ywamers arrange Variete, an art night in the downtown of Buenos Aires (YWAM has a National Prayer Center "CNO" there.) The idea is to get together with all kind of artists and share some pieces of art: songs, dramas, improvisations, photos...

Diego is the one hosting the nights

This last time we were like 90 people + the ywamers arranging the night..! That's a lot of people hey! We hardly have enough space for everyone. And I guess the majority of the people coming are not active church goers so this is always a good change to share a bit (or more :D) about Jesus. God has led lots of young really talented artists to our these events and to be honest I'm really excited what God's gonna do next! 

We have already started to disciple some of them at the devotionals we have every second week. Today I'm heading there once again!

Please, listen how beautifully Cherish sings! She's my singing teacher and lives in CNO with Diego and their baby boy.

I'm thankful:

• to be part of this beginning revival among the artists
• how God is leading every time more and more people
• for God's provision and few offerings I have received

I'm praying:

• God helping us to disciple these artists
• for chances to share more about Jesus with these people
• for more people helping Diego and Cherish with this great job they're doing

like I never was away

I have been here in Buenos Aires now for one week and half or something. However it feels like a month or something! Here at the base we'll always have our days so full. I have also adapted myself here well I guess, so actually I almost feel I never was away from here.

Something I have already done. I designed a flyer to advertise Hiram's concert in Puerto Rico. Hiram is leading the art ministry with his wife Paula, but now he's in Puerto Rico raising some funds to the family. I also made a short video to advertise the concert. 

I have also been working with another video: AME school 2013. Our ministry starts running a 6 month art school for dancers, actors and musicians. That was the reason I first came to Argentina last year - to do the AME school 2011. Anyway, with this video I'm working with we want to promote the school. I'll post it here at soon as it's ready!

I'm also making some paper work to get a residence of Argentina so I wouldn't need to get out of the country every 3 months... It has already been a bit of work... Praise God I have friends helping me with this complicated paper stuff. Btw, it's all in Spanish...

I have been playing keyboard in some worship times and also practiced with Jeremy's band. This Monday we also got together with some artists to have a small Bible study in downtown. Oh, and I also started my singing classed once again!

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This all has been a lot of work but we have also celebrated! My friend's brother got married last Saturday! Jonatan did the art school with me and I have become to know his brother by visiting his house a lot. I was so happy for the invitation and even more happy that I actually got the opportunity to participate la fiesta.

Jonatan did the AME school with me in 2011. Maika did her DTS in the same time. They didn't get married.

They did!

From the beginning of la fiesta.

Few hours later...

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Today we had El Día Del Niño (Children's day) here in Argentina. As a base we arranged a big party and invited all the kids from the neighborhood to come. 150 kids came today for few hours to the base. 

We played some games and ate some sweet things. But this year we also shared something important to the children. During the day we talked about child abuse and how to prevent oneself from sexual abuse. Here in Buenos Aires it's such a great problem so we wanted to bless these kids with this really important message. It's not an easy theme to talk but we had prepared few plays to make things easier to understand. Every child also received a book with the important message how to keep oneself safe.

"¡Felíz Día del Niño! un regalo inolvidable"
- I worked the whole morning (4 hours) making this...

From the play: Grandma telling her grandchildren
how to take care of one's private parts.

Happy kids with their books in the end of the day.

The day was long and stressing but everything went super well. With all kids we prayed Jesus to come into our life. Some kids also shared their experiencies about some kind of abuse. Most of the kids had their parents with them so we were also able to share with them what we have on our heart.

I'm giving thanks for:

• I had the opportunity to be in the wedding
• I have seen many of my friends again!
• How God used us to minister the kids of this neighborhood today
• God answered all my prayers I posted last time!

I'm praying for:

• everything that has to do with my residence... The whole process is a bit complicated
• deeper encounters with God 
• my finances - it has been a step of faith to come here again for such a long time