News, Good news

Good news!

There are some pretty awesome things going on I want to share with you guys!

Today I went to renew my residence. This is the third time I got to do it. Everything just went so smooth and perfect. Since this year I didn't even needed to pay for it! Since this year the religious residence is free also for the evangelical ministries!

Next year when I renew my residence for the forth time it will finally be a permanent one. It has been a long battle but it's easier every time.

As it is Argentina's independence day today we stopped the traffic in order to celebrate on the street with our neighbors.

A photo posted by Pyry Ihonen (@tofindmore) on Jul 9, 2016 at 5:14pm PDT

Last Saturday the 9th of July it was Argentina's 200th independence day! So we decided to celebrate well! We cut the traffic and danced folklore on the street! Lots of neighbors gathered to dance, hang out and eat tradicional Argentinean food.

This was also a strategic and prophetic move against the crime wave that had attacked our neighborhood lately. There have been more robbery than ever before and people are afraid to move outside. We have been interceding a lot for the situation, walking in the neighborhood doing spiritual warfare and this event was such a big part of this all.


In two weeks I'll be already on my way back home. I'll hope to see lots of friends in Finland during August!

Be blessed all!

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!

Che soy argentino

Good news! I got my Argentine residence today! 

I'm more than happy and more than anything thankful to God for all of this. 

Let me explain once again a bit how it's the thing:

• When you come to Argentina you will be given a tourist visa of 90 days.
• After those 90 days you have to renew your visa or leave the country to receive other 90 days.
• However if you are planning to stay longer it's better to do the residence. The first residence is temporary and lasts for one year.
• After two years of temporary residence you can apply for the permanent residence. 

I already got my temporary residence in December 2012. However I couldn't renew it on time and I had to start the whole process once again. Having a religious residence through YWAM isn't that simple and I actually had to ask for help from our lawyer. But today they received all my documents in the migration office! So I should be fine for one more year here. 

Thanks a lot for all you who prayed!

I'm Argentine. Am I? 

Well, the first thing I did after receiving my residence was to eat a good choripan. That's quite Argentine.

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!

from the desire to marry all the world

I've been thinking and took the decision to change my blog a bit. Since now this will be a...

WEDDING BLOG..!

Photos by BannanaNuts Deco (the decoration team/my employer)

Haha, don't get too excited over there I was just kidding! But yeah, just want to tell you that we had another wedding here at the base and once again I was the DJ. Lot's of fun. This time the couple was from the Japanese church so the day included bilingual ceremony, sushi and Japanese dances. So much fun!

Another thing I want to share is that I FINALLY got my ID card! I couldn't fully rejoice before this day because there had been so many problems. Actually the ID was ready since March but they never send to me! This was the second time I went to look for it from the office (actually from three offices today).

Well, praise God for His faithfulness! 

On the other hand... They gave me just one year starting from last December. So in 4 months I need to start to renew my residence. Well, let's not try to worry about that yet.

Thank you for your prayers. And please. Please be praying for me. I really need it.