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!

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!

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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.

worshiping on the beach, interceding in the theatre and evangelizing on the street

Greetings from Mar del Plata, from the coast of Argentina!

A worship time on the beach

We have been already more than a week here on outreach and it's a good time to write something.

We came here on the Saturday 1st. Our bus was almost 3 hours late and the AC didn't work, but finally we got here. Gabriel and Joel came on a van and they also had their own adventure when a random driver decided to give a punch Gabriel. Well, they ended up to a police station to figure out what happened. 

We're living in a house we're renting. Since we are more than 20 people including 5 marrieged couples and 5 kids we don't fit all inside. So I sleep with the guys in a tent outside and two of the couples are taking turns with another tent. We have two bathrooms, one kitchen and the living room serves us as dining room and girls' bedroom as well. Till now we're doing great, not big fights or anything hehe. 

Almost every one of us

The house is like 15 blocks from the beach and we've been able to go there few times. I'm working hard to look a bit more latino, but I still working on that. 

So our main tool to evangelize is our musical. El viaje de los hermanos Luna is a story of three siblings who are taken to a new world. In that new kingdom they find answers to their questions and core issues and finally got to meet up with the King of Light. The musical is for the whole family and the message is quite straight in the end. 

We perform the musical in 5 days every week, last week we had already a full week. The thing is that even though we've already handed out 10.000 flyers, just a few people have come to see the play. The other musicals are doing great. It's sad but maybe because they are all about transvestists, gays, gossip etc. During our play there are always a group of guys in the same theatre putting their woman make up for the transvestist show of the night. 

Oh, what's my part in the musical? I'm working on the back stage. Before the show starts I prepare the set off and during the play I take care of the props. As well I have been working with all our promotion and flyers and the huge banner.

A huge banner I made :)

Handing out flyers

Flyers and new friends

So in general we're doing very well. We have already paid the house and theatre and we've got some sponsors to provide some snacks. Thank you so much for your support!

What really upholds us is the daily moments of intercession and worship. To be honest we're not playing around here but in the midst of a spiritual war. So every prayer for us is more than welcome and needed!

Motives to praise:

• the financial provision of our team
• the health we all have
• we're doing well with our interpersonal relationships

Prayer requests:

• for more people to come to see the play
• for discernment and wisdom in this difficult atmosphere
• please pray for my niece in the hospital recovering from surgeries!!!