In the past couple of days you may have seen, heard, or read in the news about the current emergency situation in Santiago, Chile caused by the rains that we have been receiving; which have left approximately 4.5 million people without water. You may have even seen pictures showing the flooding that is currently taking place.
BUT, I am willing to go out on a limb and say that you have not seen, heard, or read about:The Latin Bridge and Multiplication Conference that took place during the same time; so I want to share some news about these two events with you.
The Latin Bridge was a two day conference hosted by missionary Jason Holt. The purpose of the conference is to bring missionaries together and discuss the needs of reaching latin america, how to keep others informed of the great needs in Spanish speaking countries and what we can do to be more effective in reaching the people in the cities we serve.
The conference was a great encouragement and help as we learned over the course of the two days how to more effectively reach our communities, train national pastors and leaders, and help others see that there is still a huge need in all of Latin America. Each of the missionaries left the conference with a new zeal and desire to be used of the Lord.
Following this conference was the Multiplication Conference. This was a three day conference of various churches here in Chile that came together to be challenged to do more to plant churches in Santiago. There was a great representation from several churches for this conference.
Although, a lot of great things have been done there is still more to do. In the city of Santiago, alone, we need to plant at least 125 more churches to have one church per every 50,000 residents. The churches represented in the picture above were encouraged from the Bible to get involved in reproducing themselves.
Both conferences were used of the Lord and the results from them will be seen in the days ahead as we set out to do even more. We plan to step out by faith and trust the Lord to provide what is needed as the next steps in the work here are taken to advance the gospel here in Santiago, Chile and the regions beyond.
Thank you to Jason Holt for the vision to host these two conferences, Iglesia Bautista Fe for hosting the Multiplication Conference, and all the other churches who attended and served in many different ways. Also, I want to say thank you to Pastor Austin Gardner for taking time to come and share with us from his experience as a missionary in Peru for 20 years and the group from Vision Baptist Church that came with him to preach, teach, and share testimonies of what God has done in their lives.
In the middle of the storms, literally, God was and is working!
Please continue to pray for the work in Chile as press forward.
In Christ,
The Smitheys
Jamie, Erica, Morgan, Luke, and Meredith