Yup, that’s a real word. It’s a real place, actually, and the site of a youth camp that I attended along with about 14 other people from OM Chile and 110 Chileans around my age. It was wonderful (and exhausting (but mostly wonderful))!! Each year the Intensive Training group experiences a youth camp from a local church and this year we attended the camp of the church I’ve been attending. I really enjoy the youth of my church (and sorry, I realize I’m using the word “youth” in the Chilean understanding of its age range, somewhere between 18- early 30′s, I’d say), and it was really, really great to get to know people better and deepen friendships. My first year here in Chile I attended a different church. After a year passed, I still felt on the outskirts of the church, just a visitor. Being a preacher’s kid and growing up always involved in the heart of a church, that was really difficult for me and added to my feelings of being unrooted here. I switched churches and began attending a church where I found the services boring but had felt welcome and at-home within its youth group since I first arrived. I’m so glad I made the switch. Especially after this youth camp we went to, I really feel like I have a church family here in Santiago and good Chilean friends. Praise God!
Yup, that’s a real word. It’s a real place, actually, and the site of a youth camp that I attended along with about 14 other people from OM Chile and 110 Chileans around my age. It was wonderful (and exhausting (but mostly wonderful))!! Each year the Intensive Training group experiences a youth camp from a local church and this year we attended the camp of the church I’ve been attending. I really enjoy the youth of my church (and sorry, I realize I’m using the word “youth” in the Chilean understanding of its age range, somewhere between 18- early 30′s, I’d say), and it was really, really great to get to know people better and deepen friendships. My first year here in Chile I attended a different church. After a year passed, I still felt on the outskirts of the church, just a visitor. Being a preacher’s kid and growing up always involved in the heart of a church, that was really difficult for me and added to my feelings of being unrooted here. I switched churches and began attending a church where I found the services boring but had felt welcome and at-home within its youth group since I first arrived. I’m so glad I made the switch. Especially after this youth camp we went to, I really feel like I have a church family here in Santiago and good Chilean friends. Praise God!
Anyway, back to the youth camp experience. What I really enjoyed about the experience is that I felt involved within a church again. One afternoon I taught about evangelism to the entire group (in Spanish for over an hour, whew!). In one evening session I from up front translated to English the message of the visiting pastor, and for the majority of the other sessions translated from my chair for the IT participants who needed it. At the end of the 10-day youth camp we planned to do two days of evangelism in the little town near the camp, so the IT and I prepared ahead of time so that they would be ready to do some clown dramas for the little children and more serious dramas for the adults. As the days of evangelism grew closer, I went with a group to go talk to the manager of the biggest (and only) supermarket in town. She, as well as the owner of the store, are Christians and they offered us the use of their parking lot and sidewalk outside to host our evangelistic activities that we did, like free massages, free blood pressure checks, free haircuts, free hugs, prayer, songs and games for the children, face painting, balloon animals, as well as our OM dramas accompanied by a short evangelistic message. It was a huge blessing to have that site. What came about because of that meeting, though, is that some of the group also wanted to do a flash mob within the store in order to draw attention to what we would be doing outside. Since I have the most experience in organizing flash mobs (having done a grand total of….. one…..), I suddenly became in charge of that, too (though with a lot of help).
The flash mob went well, with the store letting us use their sound system to play a song, use extra uniforms to stage some of our people as workers, and hide some of our people in their upstairs offices. Those five guys came out and stood on a balcony overlooking the store, and when the music started they grabbed the attention of the shoppers by singing at the top of their lungs. As they made their way down the stairs, more males joined in singing from all over the store. At the chorus all of the girls started singing from their different places in the store. We all moved together into the center of the supermarket and sang together, worshipping God. With over 100 people participating and in four-part harmony, it was a pretty cool experience. We then called to the shoppers around us to come outside and participate in what we were doing.
I want to speak more of this camp and I’m also going to post a bunch of photographs (because now that I have my professional camera with me, I got some wonderful shots), but that will be in another post because I need to head out for the day. God bless you!
Chau.
I posted awhile back on the first project we did with our front gate and gluing a painting to its bars. I was so pleased with the result and it held up remarkably well with only using flour and sugar to make a paste (it also helps that it didn’t rain once for 5 weeks).
I decided it was time to change out the painting for some new messages so we began the whole process again. It’s very time-intensive and detailed to get everything into place correctly after painting, but the final product is completely worth it. We’ve had some great conversations come out of it with people passing by who want to know more, and one of the guys from the training program here told me that the other night, he woke up around 2AM and heard noises outside. He looked out front and there was a group of people standing around our gate, looking at the paintings and then taking photos with them. I pray God touched their hearts with the messages.
We did two paintings this time with a paired message. The first painting asks the question, “Are you really free?” as a man’s hands hold the bars of a jail cell. As a person walks past the gate, if they turn around they will see the second painting, which says “Jesus sets you free”. In that painting the hands of Jesus are bending the cell bars open.
beginning stages
hand upclose
writing the message
"Are you really free?"
"Jesus sets you free"
A few weeks ago, the participants in Chile’s Intensive Training program went to Santiago’s largest plaza, the Plaza de Armas, to share about Christ with the people there. It is very normal to go to the plaza and hear people shouting the Gospel at passersby, but the IT group wanted to approach people in a more creative way and, hopefully, to reach them because of the different approach. They spent a few class periods of Evangelism Training to brainstorm ideas, prepare what they thought of, and get last-minute details taken care of. On the last Evangelism Training of their nine months here in Chile, we boarded the metro heading to Plaza de Armas loaded down with chairs, mirrors, an easel, a frame, a huge box, candies, and more. Our group of gringos (foreigners) already grabs a lot of attention, so we made quite an impression on the other passengers.
When we arrived at the plaza, we grouped together to pray over what we were readying to do, to ask God to bless the experience, to claim the space for Himself, to ready and soften people’s hearts, and to show us how to best share His love with the people there that morning. 
We split up, the IT prepared the different “stations” they’d created, and they began interacting with those around them. Two of the team set up a couple of folding chairs and put out their sign, “FREE MASSAGES”. They quickly had a lot of people taking them up on the offer. It gave them the opportunity to have conversations with people, to explain why they were giving free massages, and at the end to give them a bag with candies and a Bible verse inside.
Two of the IT moved to a high-density area and got their easel and frame set up to start doing a sketchboard message for the people around. While one guy painted, the other girl shared with the people about Jesus’ love and death on the cross. They had the opportunity to pray with a woman after they finished.
Two guys from the IT started walking around with a long mirror and praying for God to reveal to them with whom they should speak. They walked up to people, showing them the mirror and asking them what they saw reflected when saw themselves, and then sharing what God sees when He looks at them.
Three of the IT headed over to set up right in front of the huge cathedral on the plaza, where many people were passing by. One of the girls sat down on a chair and the other two placed a huge box over her, completely hiding her inside. On all sides of the box the team had written, “THE MOST PRECIOUS THING IN THE WORLD… INSIDE”, with a very small door cut into the front. The other two IT invited people to step up and look inside. The box drew a lot of attention and a crowd quickly formed, a long line waiting to look inside. People of all ages stepped up, from small children to senior citizens, opened the little door and looked inside. Their reactions varied, but all were great, because as they looked inside into the dark of the box, they saw themselves looking back; the girl sitting inside was holding a mirror. As the people stepped back from the box, the other two IT shared with them a bag of candies with a Bible verse, and told them they are precious in God’s eyes and He loves them.
In the span of a few hours, the Lord really blessed the experience of the IT as they creatively evangelized to the citizens ofSantiagoat Plaza de Armas. They connected with many people, had some deep conversations and had the opportunity to pray with people. We pray that it reached the hearts of some of those who experienced it, and praise God for what He did that day.
 | Pam on Weighing heavily on my he… |
| Pam on Stones of Fear |
| Pam on When the world around me … |
 | Becky Durham on Are You Really Free? |
| Pam on Humbled at the Hogar |
