Gualeguay Flood and Ministry Opportunities as a Result

Gualeguay, April 8, 2007

The team from Kinchloe/Newberry/Ludington, which numbered 23, came to the city of Gualeguay, Argentina to help put up a church as well as bring dramas for plaza evangelism... but God had another plan. During our time there, Gualeguay experienced the worst natural disaster of its history, where about 20 inches of rain fell in 5 days, (after two weeks of rain) swelling rivers and flooding the whole Province (their word for state). The Lord spoke to us that we were in Gualeguay "for such a time as this" and we made ourselves available to the municipality to help with cooking food for refugees, collecting data for the authorities to find out who needed what, helping the volunteer fire department stuff bags w/ necessities, and taking our drama team to many refugee centers to bring hope and encouragement to those who had lost everything. In a country that is as completely secularized as the States, suddenly we had freedom to talk about the Lord in every school and club that was used for refugee centers.

One man who was broadcasting live for the radio who happened to be at a center the same time, reported that, "this team has brought such life and joy into this center. They are playing with the children, turning sad faces into smiles, it is just amazing how they are affecting this place!" The team performed dramas gave personal testimonies, performed tricks, and at the end would give an invitation for those who wanted to invite Jesus into their lives. People responded at each place, (no, we were too busy praying to count) and only heaven has the ultimate count of those who heard and saw Jesus in action through the many diversified activities of this team.

Meanwhile, we had a few from our team join up with a team of four Argentines from a city 10 hours to the North and put the roof on the church building, make the pastor's home livable and in general, work from daylight until after dark, trying to make up for lost time that the rain stole. By the time we left, the pastors' were completely blessed, the team had stolen the hearts of the people from the city, and we believe that Jesus was glorified.

There has been a neighbor of the Pastor who has complained about the music, cussed him out, and caused problems in the past. Monday night, he called him out to the street after the service and apologized for everything, said he was astounded at how the kids worked so hard, volunteered to help in anyway that he could, and promised to invite him to an Argentine barbecue. WOW!!! The Pastor was shocked and blessed! Kim is also expecting the hardware man to give his heart to Jesus, he was so close before we left!

We had a prayer meeting during the rain where three people got baptized in the Holy Spirit and received their prayer language. The first service we had, the Holy Spirit fell and we had an awesome time of prayer afterwards. It started raining as soon as the service started, but we moved the chairs under the existing piece of roofing and continued on anyway. What a memory!! All the services were blessed!