YouthHOPE

Promife

2009-07-29T23:15:00.000-07:00

Alright I am publishing this post way way way late, I have been kinda lazy since I got back to the states, i was just exhausted then i had surgery performed on my mouth, then a brief bout with the stomach flu and my time has consisted of a lot of being irritable and tired with all of that going on, but now I am about to start school and i have one last thing to address concerning my trip.

We continued to hang out in brazil for our last few days and we became involved with a local program called Promife. This is an organization run in Brazil that performs street evangelism in local Brazilian neighborhoods and slums. We were just lucky enough to be able to attend because the conference was being held in the Ribeirao Preto. The first night we went, we witnessed the completion of two ordinations and we discovered that there were in fact other american youth in Brazil. These kids were visiting from Colorado and there was another group from Massachusetts, really cool people I must say. Mark, the youth minister from colorado brought his two kids, Ian and Alex who had never been on a mission trip before, with him because he had been with Promife for a few years at that point. Mark was just an awesome, awesome, incredible, sweet dude. Words do not do this man justice; he was just a breath of fresh air for me in multiple ways. He was just happy to be there, you could just tell, everything made him happy, whether it be some Brazilian youth beat boxing during breakfast (which happened everyday) or the brazilian ice cream he would treat himself to after evangelizing in the brazilian slums, this guy just loved life and loved everyone around him, and it seemed so genuine, it was just indescribable. Mark had an amazing energy about him, and a great sense of humor, he was truly a blessing from God for everyone that attended Promife. My favorite part of Mark being at Promife was hands down his teaching sessions in the mornings, in which he walked us through Genesis 1-3. Now i would preface that I just took an entire class on Genesis, on which Professor Dyke (CCU) spent honestly the first 10-11 weeks of the semester on the first 2 chapters of genesis alone, so I was incredibly interested in what Mark was going to cover. I guess I was overly skeptical, ready at any moment to pick his presentation apart, (which is a fault of mine that i seriously need to get over). So Mark gets up and has us stretch and massage each other to get warmed up, we do various calisthenics (he's a youth minister), he sets into what i can only describe as Biblically based standup, or exegetical comedy, i dont really know how to explain it, but this was Mark Lowry with actual biblical facts. I was laughing and learning for the first time in so many years. Mark made learning the Bible actually fun for me, without sarcasm (which too many of my professors employ), without shoving it down my throat, it was just a great great experience (i apologize for using so many positive adjectives, but i cannot explain accurately how impressed I was with this guy).

So, anyway aside from Mark and the Genesis learning comedy I was introduced to (he told a baptist joke that seriously had me laughing for about 10 minutes straight, ask me sometime and ill tell you, even though you have probably heard it, it was new to me) evangelism was the main point of Promife. We would worship and have learning sessions in the mornings, then we would hang out and talk with each other until lunch, then we were off. There were three busses that would take groups to different sections of town. We would have a VBS for children at the church, while simultaneously making house calls and door to door evangelism and talking with people on the street. This was obviously designed to bring people to Christ on the spot, but anyone we spoke with was also invited to a showing of a Jesus film (the one campus crusade uses that has been translated in a bazillion languages) that would be shown in different sections of town. The first day was tough, we had six follow up appointments that were made the previous day that we were following up on. We hit a big goose egg and no one was home and anyone we talked to on the street was obstinate and didnt seem interested. That was only my pairing and many other groups seemed to have success in inviting people, that night we had a nice crowd at the Jesus film, which included pantomime performed by the Brazilian and American Youth as well as a sermon. The first night was pretty crazy, we had a homeless man attempting to shout us down from the street, we werent sure if he was possessed of if he was drunk, or both, but he was wearing tattered clothes and seemed to have all his possessions on his back, and he just stood shoeless screaming at us. All we could do was pray until the guy left, which took several minutes. We had a lot of commitments that night, from teenagers to the elderly, many who showed up for the film and message were moved and we prayed with them and we had a lot of commitments, despite my own groups tough day, the night proved to be more impactful. The second day, we had some difficulty with the number of gringos against the number of translators available. So I volunteered to go without one, I was the one extra guy that had to spend the next 4 hours with two young brazilian girls that spoke no english. Needless to say, I would not be doing a great deal of talking. I decided that they only thing I could possibly do would be to pray incessantly. The first house we went to let us in. The day before the same girls had visited this woman's home and she she was completely obstinate, unwilling to listen, constantly arguing and making outlandish points based on her catholic upbringing. Surprisingly, the second time around she was more attentive. She tried to turn on the television, and was seemingly texting the entire time, trying to avoid any of the questions presented to her. Maressa (one of the young girls with me) was walking her through the tract at the time, explaining to her what God's plan for her life and for the world was. This entire time I was essentially keeping my head down and praying, which creeped the woman out a bit, but I really had no other choice. I honestly had NO CLUE how the meeting was going, i sat in quiet prayer for an hour and a half straight, praying for Maressa and that this woman would be receptive to her, at the end of the time, we all stood up, and I was still clueless. Then we joined hands and I saw tears in the woman's eyes. She gave her heart to Jesus that day, and I didn't speak a single word to her. I was kinda just floating down the street after that, it was really intense. I didn't know what to think exactly, but we came upon a couple of guys sitting shirtless on the sidewalk and we struck up a conversation. Again, just 45 minutes of straight prayer while Maressa did her thing. The guy started crying, we joined hands, and he gave his life to God.

This cycle repeated itself throughout the day, and there were so many incredible stories from other teams and groups. There were healings, one girl brought 9 boys playing soccer to Christ. Mark (the awesome dude I mentioned earlier) spend 2 hours talking with a girl who was only 17 and pregnant, she gave her life to Christ. Promife was having such an incredible impact in the community, it was really an amazing experience to be used by God in that time. Those final days of the trip may have been my favorite, I have rarely felt such a strong camaraderie, from singing worship songs in Portuguese and English on bus rides, to praying together at every opportunity in multiple languages, one just couldnt help but feel like he or she was apart of something bigger than themselves.

I got to meet a woman named Thais Pinheiro, who was a 25 year old brazilian ju jitzu (i have no clue if i spelled that right) master. Seriously, she couldve killed me in an instant, i was just a little intimidated. Either way, she spoke perfect english and she introduced me to her father who ran Promife. I had a ton of questions for him, considering i was curious about the discipleship aspect of Promife, if there was one. He began explaining to me that they only held the Promife conference if they could partner with local churches to plug the people they interacted with directly into a church congregation. The percentages of growth that occured in local congregations following a Promife conference was staggering, and I followed with a question about a drop off, if the conference merely boosted local churches temporarily or if there was lasting growth. The latter was the case, Promife is honestly a really beneficial thing for the community and local churches as an avenue to further the gospel and also it is a benefit to the youths that participate in the conference. They are enveloped in a Christian community and they are stretched by going out and talking with perfect strangers about Christ.

I was really sad about the reality that such a conference would be largely ineffective in an American setting. I thought about what would happen if Promife was to come to suburban Cinicinnati and I just laughed as I thought about the no soliciting laws and the incredible number of churches already available as well as the reality that people probably wouldn't even want to be bothered with talking to us. Fortunately for me and the team, Promife works in Brazil and I got to participate in the week long conference. I will never forget it, the people, the impact, the growth, Promife was my favorite aspect of the trip and it happened at the time when I was battling the creeping reality that I was about to return to the US. Which allowed me to completely refocus and finish my time in Brazil strong, something I am incredibly thankful for. God worked through me and every youth at Promife in one way or another and I am thankful for that, take my advice and go to Promife next year if you can, plane tickets are pretty cheap these days you know.

here is a youtube video of worship and one of the guys telling the story of a healing he encountered, Im sitting right under the camera in the back before the dude walks up to the front, so you cant see me, but i am there I swear. There are a bunch of videos if you're interested. The second video is street visits, Mark is the dude filming and talking, I might be in one of these videos, I know Mark filmed me, but i may have been edited out, I'm not the most photogenic guy in the world. The last link is just a little thing about Promife from world venture projects if youre interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8fBPmdIJ7Y&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtNn-BM2VLY&feature=related

http://www.worldventure.com/Give/Support-Projects-Ministries/Projects/Promife%20Evangelism%20Projects.html

Either way, thanks for your support and prayers, I am working on getting follow up letters out to all of you guys that supported me, so be patient with me, its much appreciated. If I haven't seen you already I hope to see you soon, this should be the last entry in the this blog thing, thanks for reading my really long entries and I hope to get to tell you all about my experience in person soon. Have some good questions ready!

brazil...at last

2009-07-12T22:31:00.000-07:00

Alright so we survived the snow capped mountains of the Andes. Quite an experience that was, they told us as we were boarding the bus that , "they hoped we could make it through". So we drove for 2 hours into the mountains then waited for 2 hours in a line of cars as we took turns sending vehicles through the pass and allowing others to come back to our side. This was a sweet experience as every person was out of their cars playing in the snow, building snowmen, having snowball fights, etc. I hope to post pictures soon, it was just really fun. Well after a couple of hours we finally got through and proceeded into Argentina. The bus-trip took several days, with differing legs of upwards of 20 hours. We stopped in Buenos Aires for a day to receive vaccinations, luckily I had my yellow fever card and was not forced to receive and unnecessary shot. I might add that while we had to pay an arm and a leg in the states for vaccinations, they were all free-of-charge in Argentina. Surprising considering it is widely considered South America's poorest country. This is irrelevant however, we crossed into Brasil last week and stayed in a hotel on the border for a night. We had a great time there, just enjoyed the warm weather and the rain, catching up on sleep and preparing to meet our new hosts the following day after the last leg of the journey. We arrived in Ribeirao Preto and immediately we all fell in love with the city. Our hosts were all warm and inviting. Part of our plan for this trip was to connect Chilean youth with youth in Brasil, so we were able to fund 4 Chilean guys to come with us to Brasil and participate in our activites here. I have had the pleasure of living with two of them here in Ribeirao. Antonio and Manuel are both great guys. Antonio is 30, married (sorry ladies) and heads up Urban Action Ministries' climbing division. Which is a ministry geared to getting kids out of the urban jungle and showing them God in the context of creation. There is ample oppurtunity for such ministry in the mountains surrounding Santiago and Antonio is a great guy, with an amazing heart for the outdoors, God and youth; I am confident that he will have a huge impact in that area with UAM. Manuel is a 19 year old Chilean kid who is a non-Christian that I talked our team leader into getting to come with us. I hope that we can continue to set a positive example for him concerning the Christian lifestyle and bring him closer to a relationship with Christ. He has already been working through a lot of questions he has and its been really rewarding to spend time with him. We have been working with a church in Ribeirao called Comunidade de Cristo (community of christ, obviously, sorry). This is the home church of the NMSI missionaries that are hosting us, Bel and Joy Munoz, along with their hilarious son Joshua. The church has been incredibly loving toward us in all aspects ( hospitality down here is a huge emphasis in all facets of life), providing for our every need thus far. We have done a bunch of different things here concerning the youth in the area. We have partnered with a social work center called SOBERP (dont ask, i have no idea what it stands for, haha). We have been working at the center as well as assisting with a VBS for the local children. SOBERP is a school and community center for impoverished children in Ribeirao Preto. In the United States the kind of work done by SOBERP would ordinarily be funded by the government, but in Brasil there are no such programs, so the church is picking up the slack in a Matthew 25 sort of way. SOBERP is completely staffed and funded by Comunidade de Cristo. Needless to the VBS went great and we sorted through a ton of donations, cleaned, organized, provided general manpower during the week and we really got attached to the kids (pictures to follow at some point!). Another thing I got to do was visit a local orphanage. I had no translator and the two girls (Elisha and Tara) that went with me could not speak Portuguese either, so we really had no idea what we would be able to do without much communication. I spent the drive over praying that God would somehow allow a connection to be made dispite the hindrances, and I am sure you all know the ending that he came through. We showed up and the girls hung out with the girls of the orphanage and watched Taxi (the movie not the show) in Portuguese, an atrocious movie, Jimmy Fallon and Queen Latifa? Whosever idea it was that they would be a successful comedy duo should be dragged into the street and smacked (shot might be a bit too graphic should children be reading this). I then went in search of some boys to hang out with. This is when I ran into Daniel. One of the first things we did when we arrived in Ribeirao was attend and participate in a baptism party so to speak. There were a bunch of baptisms so the church rented out a retreat center with a pool and a house, and invited everyone in the congregation for a cookout, worship, prayer and a whole lot of new Christians! Well, the kids from the orphanage came and I got to play a whole lot of futbol with them; Daniel was one of the kids. So we recognized each other and I was able to ask what he was up to, and he told me he was about to practice drawing, when he was surprised to have a visitor so he was going to stop what he was doing. Much to my surprise it turns out he was drawing anime. HELLO CONNECTION! And this entire time Mom and Dad (Mark and Karen) thought I was wasting my time and money on such frivolous pursuits (I was, but that is a story for another time). Daniel loves Naruto, Dragonball, pretty much every show I love to watch and read. He had a box of manga (japanese comic books) and some notebook paper. So we hung out and just drew cartoons for two hours, accompanied by two other boys named Reinaldo and Carlos. We drew, we laughed and I was reading some of their comic books when I got humbled pretty masterfully by God. All three boys, who have next to nothing to call there own each gave me a comic book from their community box and a how to draw anime book (all in portuguese). Its generally considered culturally offensive to not accept a gift given to you, but these kids had nothing and they were giving me these books. It was the proverbial rock and hard place, but I really had no other choice but to accept. I did my best to communicate how touched I was by their sacrificial generosity. Reinaldo explained to me that I could not draw very well, and the how-to-book was given to me because they didn't need it any longer, because they all knew how to draw already. I left feeling incredibly blessed to have been born in a country and family where I have needed for nothing in my privelaged existence and I was determined to make it up to them somehow. I have made it a point to not buy souveniers on this trip. Dad, you will remember that in 2004 in Ghana we bought so much crap we didnt know what to do with 90% of it, so ever since then I have restrained myself. Needless to say I had a lot of loos cash, so I set off in an attempt to figure out what I could get these kids to make up for their sacrifice. My lack of creativity was to return their gift in kind. I bought a bunch of manga and some art books for drawing. I returned to the orphanage a week later, and bestowed the meager offering on them, praying to God that it could somehow make up for the feeling their gift had created in me. I can honestly say I have never seen happier children in my entire life. Reinaldo (he is 11, BTW) was saying "Obrigado" (thank you) non-stop and Carlos and Daniel had smiles the size of Canada plastered on instantly. I did not feel worthy of their gratitude, and I felt incredible guilt that this was all I could muster to offer these boys, and really hurt that out of my selfishness I could not or would not do any more. It was just really an amazing thing to have a connection with 3 boys who didnt speak any english, because of a hobby I had when I was their age, God works in crazy ways. The man reason we came to Brazil was to set up and run a missions conference with Brazilian and Chilean youth working together to interact with each other and their countries. We spent much of the week preparing for the conference which was to be held on wednesday and thursday. Following a great deal of preparation and stress, the conference got underway. It was an interesting experience being responsible for keeping 3 different cultures' youth occupied for two whole days. It is usually difficult enough with just one, for 15 minutes. We had break-out sessions, prayer stations, games, food, worship, etc. The conference went really well. I was in charge of teaching about the idea of Evangelism. A term that is a bit confusing to me to begin with, but nevertheless I taught for about an hour and forty minutes, utilizing group activites and open forum discussion to instruct. Due to my lack of confidence, I am not sure how well it went, but I think I was well received for the most part, at least they werent sleeping on me. It turns out we had more than enough activities planned and stretched the conference into friday. While an aspect of the conference was to educate and motivate South American youth about missions, our more specific goal was to connect the youth group here at Communidade de Cristo with Chilean youth. This is called the Global Connect Project. So we spent time breaking down differing aspects of the two cultures in an attempt to connect the two. We started with Learn, where we had a workshop for the Brazilian youth taught by the Chileans that were in our group in order to educate the Brazilian youth on the needs and challenges facing Chilean youth today. Following that we had Pray, where the Brazilian and Chilean youth would address those needs in focused prayer time through stations and object prayers. Another aspect of the Global Connect is Give, where we take an offering for the youth in Chile that will assist them in some way. Dream is the most important aspect of Global Connect. We gave the Brazilian and Chilean youth free reign to dream up an idea for a 2 week missions project that could be implemented next year. So on friday we all got together to discuss it. Needless to say, following two hours of discussion, we are still deciding on a project. Once the Brazilian youth have their finalized plan, they send it into NMSI along with dozens of other youth groups from around the world that have been connected with one another, and NMSI is going to pick one of the projects and implement it next year! They even have plans to fund a youth from one youth group to travel to the other so that they can see their dream become reality. For instance, this would make it possible for a Haitian boy or girl to travel to Africa (which ordinarily would not even be remotely feasible considering financial restraints). It is just a really cool idea, and we hope to continue to work with Comunidade de Cristo over the next few weeks to help them finalize their idea. The conference was really a great success and paid off all the hours of preparation. 3 cultures hanging out and learning together, from one another, just an amazing expression of unity of the Spirit. Tomorrow, we are going to another youth conference in Brazil, and performing door-to-door evangelism all day monday and tuesday! (I have my name tag and bicycle ready), all sarcasm aside it should be a really stretching experience talking with complete strangers through a translator about Jesus Christ. I am both apprehensive and excited for the experience. This will probably be my last post until wednesday (when i return to the US, sadly), so if you guys have any comments or concerns, post on my facebook wall, because there seems to be no way to post a comment on here easily, or just that no one cares to comment! HAHA, I hope the former is true people, come on, I want criticsm to improve this blog thing.

Prayer LIST!!!! -

We had some girls that were sick, and thanks to all of you that prayed for them (aunt susan and uncle dave especially), cuz theyre all better now.
Continue to pray for the team dynamic, that we love one another and love those around us out the reality that we are members of the body of Christ, and should represent Him at all times in our walks.
Please pray that even though we only have a few days left here, that none of the team checks out and decides to coast home, pray that we continue to be engaged and taking the position of learners at all times so that we can squeeze out that last bit of whatever God is seeking to teach us these last few days.
Please help us to continue to make the effort to inculturate, considering it would be easy to check out in this area also.
Pray for our safe travel on wednesday, I hope to see all of you soon, thank you for making this possible for me, it has and continues to be an incredible experience.

I would like to once again list a disclaimer that I do not major in grammar and spelling and that this was not proofread (just like none of my college papers jajajaja!) so dont give me a hard time, I think I even misspelled Brasil (there, see I did it again). I tend to stream my consciousness out onto this thing and just hope that it is coherent in form and theme. Thank you to everyone who has prayed for me and held me in their hearts these past two months, I love you all dearly and hope to return to your warm smiles and hearty embraces soon!

Much LOVE!

John Graham Gambill

SNOW...

2009-06-28T18:14:00.000-07:00

Alright, so we were supposed to travel as a team to brazil today, however, due to inclement weather the mountain pass to argentina is snowed in with an inordinate amount of snow and thus we are hanging in chile for a few extra days.

We held a missions retreat last night, where we as a team put together a conference aimed at gearing Chilean youth to consider missions and its application within the context of their lives. Growing up I always had the misconception that missionaries were white americans that went to foreign countries and lived exciting lives, bringing these people something they lacked, the american approach to Christianity, which we of course had down to a science and would be able to show them how its done. This stereotype of mine was backed up by my reading about the Elizabeth and Jim Elliots of the world, heroic figures, that impacted the kingdom in incredible ways, albeit they were white. Upon shedding my close-mindedness towards the idea of missions, it became obvious that white american missionaries do not seem to be impacting other countries in the way they used to. Utilizing their financial and educational resources, training seems to be the most effective way to minister outside of the US. Training nationals to reach nationals in their own culture. I am obviously not discussing anything that is revolutionary or new, but its just interesting to realize your own inability to impact a situation in the way you might have dreamed in years past. That's neither here nor there, the main bullet point of this presentation, what is important to note is that while americans are not necessarily doing the things they used to in the context of missions, it seems other countries are picking up the slack, its really cool to see.

For example...

A chilean businessman that is a supporter of my host missionaries is utilizing the profits of a skate shop he runs in order to fund his call to take his family as missionaries to Sierra Leone.

A chilean friend of mine name Victor is raising support (exclusively from Chile, which is no easy feat) to travel to spain as a missionary by the end of this year or start of the next.

I met a chilean girl name Camila who is traveling to the United States with YWAM in order to minister in hispanic communities in virginia.

So our goal as a team was to take that burgeoning spirit of being missionally minded and hopefully provide some direction, information and example to accompany the passion that seems apparent. We broke our team down into sections and I came up with a system of setting up three simultaneous workshops and we would have the kids rotate around. We had a workshop centered on community (one of NMSI's major focuses), led by Tara House. We had a workshop on prayer centered around missions (in this case it was specifically designed to pray for brazilian youth and their needs, our goal is to connect a youth group in Chile with one in Brazil, so when we do the conference in Brazil, we will have them focus on Chilean youth, etc), this was led by Melissa Davenport. I was in charge of the workshop on evangelism, a term i am not particularly fond of, but nevertheless I was running that show. I just discussed basic parameters for evangelism (differing aspects, different types of evangelism, incorrect ways to go about it, at least maybe not incorrect, but ineffective, IE standing outside a baseball game screaming at people handing out fliers about death, fire and eternal damnation...). I had the kids pair off and role play different evangelism scenarios, some difficult some easier. We talked about fears of evangelism and I did my best to dissuade those, such as rejection, being contradicted, etc. Questions centered around the difficulty of some people's interaction with Christianity and the reality that many Christians have caused a great deal of pain, and how to respond to that. It was a really cool thing, they seemed to interact with it well and ask good questions to gain a better understanding of what they needed to do as far as evangelism was concerned. This basically boiled down to loving everyone around them, regardless of the circumstances, this would include meeting, physical, emotional and logical needs posed in various specific situations and relationships.

Regardless to say the event was a lot of fun, and we had a lot of kids really discuss the idea that they could be called to a life of missions, which as Christians we are technically anyway, which is ridiculous that we hold missionaries on some pedestal, leaving home, family, friends in service for Christ, something that any Christian should be ready to do at any moment, whether they be Chilean, American, or otherwise. I do not know if I am strong enough to make such a commitment, but I know there were a lot of great kids last night who did, there is a picture of us all praying in a circle and me teaching one of my lessons on the flikr page. The prayer was for kids that felt called to missions, and everyone else surrounded them, just a really cool night and a lot of fun.

I ranted quite a bit and after reading this, some of my points do not make much sense, nor are they backed by any statistical information, so do not give me too hard of a time if you choose to critique the ridiculous nature of this blog post. Right now I am watching monsters INC with my host family's kids, leave me a comment or encouragement, I would really like to hear from everyone, especially the family, I'd love to see grandpa and grandma gambill and mckay and Sam make accounts on here and post, you too Bro...much love to everyone, thanks again for making this possible for me.

2009-06-28T13:04:00.000-07:00

FLICKR update...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/youthhope/

the thing has a limit, so there will be nothing new til' next month...

Finally, AN UPDATE...

2009-06-26T06:07:00.000-07:00

I do not even know where to start considering I have been here a month and only typed a paragraph so this may break the word limit for the website, I do not know. So we started off with some fun inculturation stuff. Which involved them letting us loose in the city for a day to wander around by ourselves and attempt to buy, trade and communicate. We worked with the Iglesia de Cristo Metropolitana youth group a bit, but because I was having a good time with the children they assigned me to the children's ministry. Most of the two weeks was us working on various projects within the church all leading up to the "Fun Friday" skating event. The Flickr page has photos of us working on a ramp among other things, which was to be used during the event. Glen and I spent a few days building and repairing ramps. That was a lot of fun as you can see in the photos. We helped set up the event with supplies and manpower so that Urban Action Ministries could raise awareness concerning their identity and ministry. The environment within the skating subculture in Santiago is hostile towards religion. Most of the kids we have been hanging out with would not set foot in a church. So UAM is trying to go to them instead, utilizing outreach, while being seriously underfunded (the missionaries here are raising 3 kids and are only on about 20% of their support budget). This of course is no easy task, going against the flow of centralized worship within a building to a sprawling city that has hundreds if not thousands of youth hangout spots. But the debate concerning church buildings and all things related is neither here nor there. What is important is the reality that relational evangelism is not about numbers, and it takes a great deal of time. If Habacuc and Liz (our host missionaries) were to waltz into the skate park and its subculture proclaiming Jesus to all, the reality is that they would be ostracized, mocked and have little impact. Instead they have been here for three years and have focused almost entirely on developing relationships with the kids, skating with them, immersing themselves into something that the kids care about, going day in and day out to the skate park, building credibility. They have done skating events and contests, but the "Fun Friday" was a huge leap forward for them. They were introducing new concepts to the kids and with prizes and several other interesting twists. The event was 3 years in the making and was the result of careful navigation through the skating subculture. This style of ministry obviously can be frustrating to supporters who oftentimes seem to demand numbers and results in the form of conversions and physical growth, but that avenue is just not available in Santiago. For the first couple of hours we set up the ramps (after loading them into a small truck and dragging them halfway across the city) and watched our hard work in action. Glen and I were nervous, hoping the new ramp we built largely from scrap wood, would meet the approval of the pros. We were not disappointed as it was one of the most popular attractions. The most amazing feet was a wedge ramp that allowed kids to get a fast start and fly 6 feet into the air to do tricks over other objects. The kids had no idea what hockey was, so I explained that it was futbol with sticks, which Habacuc and Liz combined with skating. We were at the park for over an hour and no one had signed up for the skate hockey event yet and many were examining the sticks and goals with quizzical expressions. Since they were not coming to us we went to them, illustrating the rewards for victory and the fun that could be had along the way. We quickly had more than 20 kids sign up, with 4 different teams for a bracket style tournament. The teams were divided in a strange fashion as we let them choose, so we had a team of girls, a team of little kids (around 12-13ish) and we had teams of older guys. Liz made the comment that two of the teams consisted of guys that were the alpha males of the park, (nicknamed "the sharks") indicating that if they dubbed Habacuc and Liz cool and if they approved of the event, then the other few hundred kids would approve. For the victors we had purchased skateboard decks. These were to be used by UAM and we have away 5 to the winning team. These boards are a test, if the kids find them to be of high quality then Habacuc plans to sell the boards under the UAM brand to promote the ministry and make a profit to fund other projects. The question constantly posed was why would anyone want to come down to the skate park and hang out with a bunch of kids, let alone build them stuff to skate on and give them boards. The event had a huge impact, all of the kids had a blast and the answer to their question is for Habacuc and Liz to continually answer, as they move closer to being able to communicate Christ in a way that a bunch of post-modern skater kids can understand, their effort is only a small one compared to the great need that seems to reside among the youth in Santiago who are largely searching for truth and meaning.

Following the "Fun Friday" event the team headed south to experience Chilean youth in a more rural setting. It is in La Florida that the team really seemed to come alive. Our leader in the south is a great guy name Miguel, who runs an organization called Youth Specialties. YS is designed to supply resources and information to youth workers in their own language in south and central america. Miguel is really great at what he does, and he is pretty much flying solo. We have attended a couple of different conferences he has run now and it is amazing how effective he is. There are so few workers geared for youth internationally it is stunning (you read the stats in my support letter), as one youth minister who worked in Chile for ten years plainly stated, "the churches don't give a crap about youth". So Miguel has taken it upon himself to follow his passion and equip youth leaders all over South America to better reach kids in Latin America. Miguel's passion is obvious and he has the skill and knowledge to back it up. He has been a real blessing to me and the team as a whole, with his knowledge of Latin American youth as well as his ability as a translator. In La Florida we worked in multiple rural churches with youth and we preached and encouraged often. Our main objective was to work in the local school system, interacting with youth. We visited several different schools, with ages ranging from elementary age to high school seniors and some university age students. We played games with them, held discussions concerning morality, politics, education and vocational issues centered around Chilean youth. Each separate experience was equally enlightening. I preached twice in La Florida, that was sweet, speaking with a translator is interesting, it gives you time to think, but always seriously damages the flow of the message. It was a lot of fun either way. Following La Florida, which had quite the tearful goodbye from the team and the residents, we headed further south to Villarica. There I preached a couple more times and we continued to work in the local school system and to work with local youth groups. Miguel did a Youth Specialties workshop and we had a great time building relationships with the youth. We are back in Santiago now following a very long bus ride, and are putting on a conference ourselves tomorrow geared to missionally minded youth, so pray that goes well. That is it for this update I think, I am sure there is more that I could say, but I need to get to work, here is the prayer list...

Several team members are sick, please pray that their illness does not hinder their attitude or work.
As per any team there is tension, so pray that we do not allow ourselves to be taken over and resent one another for any reason, but that we continue to resolve conflict in a peaceful uplifting manner.
Continue to pray for our host missionaries, that we can be as great a blessing to them as they have to us.
Continue to pray for the Chilean and Brazilian youth that we are interacting with, youth that are skeptical of virtually all organized religion, pray that we can live out to Gospel to them to that they see it is relevant to them and their lives.
I pray that we do not water down Christ, that we present the Gospel as it is meant to presented, no matter how difficult its cost.

Disclaimer: I did not proofread this, so do not nit pick on the grammar, Jones I dont know why you have been thinking about me, but i appreciate the sentiment. Matt, good to hear from you dude, I hope all is well with you in Cincy. Jessie, I pray you are well and I cant wait to hang out with you when I get back. Rob, I love you and thank God everyday that you were the man to woo my sister and protect her, there is no other man worthy of her time.

Dad - happy father's day, I hope mom did not spoil you too much (since I know matt has no money to buy you anything anyway haha), and I am sorry I am not there for that, tell grandpa happy father's day as well, albeit a belated one. I love you and thank you for providing for me.

Mom - I hope everything is going well, dont remodel the kitchen till I get back, so that i can talk you out of it. Give my regards to the doggies, I miss them lots, there are a ton of strays here, because PITA doesnt allow them to exterminate them, i even saw a stray basset in Villarica. I love.

Brother - hope you are giving God more thought these days, its not an issue that one should wait to decide later in life, as the Gospel states, your life could be demanded of you at any moment, I hope and pray that you do not wait, fame is a fruitless pursuit within the context of eternity, if you feel up to it, when I get back I would like to discuss the issue at greater length. Love you man, and I am figuring out some photography i think BTW.

Much Love,

John

Chile

2009-06-13T21:04:00.000-07:00

Alright, I have had limited internet access, due to my own personal discretion, so I apologize for the lack of updates, however, Santiago is an amazing city, and public transportation is a really interesting experience in Latin America. Either way, I had a hectic first two weeks in South America, I will update at greater length shortly, but just for now, know that I am safe and sound, utilizing what little Spanish I know to work my way around town. Currently, the team and I are in the south of Chile; in a city called Concepcion, and I am preaching a couple of times tomorrow, so keep me in your prayers, even if they are later on, I am sure they work retroactively, so when you read this, pray that my hour long sermons go well. My host families have been really good, and I ask that you guys would pray that we learn and grow from one another, even if I am only one crazy gringo, I really hope that I can learn a lot from the friends and families I meet here. God Bless, I hope to write again soon. Mom and Dad, and all the family, I miss you all and love you very much, I cannot reiterate how thankful I am that you have helped me get here. Jessie, thanks for the encouragement, I hope that your Bloc experience is going really well and tell all the kids I miss them a lot, the ones that know me anyway. Kugler, if you are reading this, I know that you are doing a great job leading your team, you've got a ton of ability, I hope and pray that this summer grows you closer to God, your team and helps continue the process of fulfilling God's dreams for you and your ridiculous potential in ministry. Rob and Amanda, I miss you two a ton, I have been thinking about you a lot the last few days, I hope you are both well in Cincinnati, I hope to return to you soon to have Amanda cook for me. I hope that you are taking a ton of great photos as well, I really miss you guys. Its pretty late and I have to awaken early, so I am going to get to sleep, if I missed in shout outs and have many typos in here, I apologize, this was written expediently. Good night and God bless. Peace Out.

Gambill

Pre Field Orientation (PFO)

2009-05-29T12:11:00.001-07:00

Alright, I flew down to Florida last week and began a week of training that was fairly intense. We spent everyday from 7 am until 10 pm training for our respective internships. Primarily, we studied missiological issues and performed team building exercises. Besides the YouthHOPE team that I am a part of, there were teams headed to Bulgaria, Kenya, Myanmar, Thailand, Malawi, as well as Costa Rica. In all there are over 20 leaders and interns traveling with New Mission Systems this summer.

My team consists of 8 people. Besides myself, my other team members include Adam Griffith, one of my best friends, team leader and graduate of Cincinnati Christian University. Glen and Melissa Davenport, an amazing married couple from Knoxville, Tennessee; both of whom attend Johnson Bible College. Nikki Hernandez, a youth worker from Texarkana, Texas. Tara House and Elisha Jeffrey, the two of whom are best friends and are from Ft. Myers, Florida. And last, but certainly not least, Kristy Peebles, who hails from Dallas, Texas and is a member of the YouthHOPE division within NMSI.

During Pre Field Orientation, we have all gotten to know each other, part of NMSI policy is open community with one another, sharing in each others' fears, doubts, joys, and how God has and is working in our lives. So as a part of PFO, we have to tell our stories, who we are, and how we all began to have a passion for global youth ministry. For those of you that know me, I am not a big one to talk about my feelings, so telling my story was an interesting experience. I feel that my group really got to know me better and I definitely understand the circumstances that shaped their lives and made them into the people they are today. We have great team chemistry and we seem to work well together despite relating to God in drastically different ways. Myself leaning on the pragmatic end of the spectrum and getting to interact and discuss spiritual issues with fairly charismatic individuals.

On a side note we, as a team, dominated all team-building activities during PFO. We scored the lowest total on the survival scenario we were put through (the lower the better). We as a team completed every ropes course element without failing, some in record time.

We also took an Extended DISC Test. Having my personality articulated within 23 pages of detailed charts and graphs was definitely an out-of-body experience in that I was looking at myself in written form. The test even articulates how i feel people perceive me versus what I actually am. I do not feel its appropriate to detail the breakdown of my test, but it was definitely an enlightening experience. I took a large amount of photographs, but only 6 of them are on this site so far, so feel free to check them out, and no I am not in any of them, but I am working on that issue.

Comments and suggestions on how poorly this is being written or anything you would like updated on, or questions would be welcomed, I really want feedback on this so I can keep everyone updated on this to the best of my ability, thank you all so much for supporting me in this, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/youthhope/

p.s. - prayer list for this week

We as a team are traveling to Chile on Monday, June 1st. We embark at 9:50 pm and arrive in Santiago, Chile at 6:15 am the following morning, so keep us in your prayers as we prepare to leave and as we are traveling.
Pray that our team works through conflict well, and that we stay united behind Adam's leadership.
Please pray that as we prepare to put on our youth conferences that we all have the confidence to speak and that we prepare well over the next several days.
Pray for the missionaries in Chile that will be receiving us this coming week, that we are gracious visitors and represent NMSI and Christ to the best of our abilities.
Finally, I ask that you pray for the national host families that we all stay with. We each will stay in a non-english speaking home. So, I ask that you pray that we can each be stretched and grow in an environment where communication goes beyond spoken word.

Thank you in advance for all of your prayers and support, I love you all, and give me some feedback people...I am new at this blogging thing.

Summer 2009

2009-05-19T18:25:00.000-07:00

Alright, I really have no idea what I am doing attempting to blog, but I figured that this would be the easiest way to update people that actually want to follow me in South America this summer. I am going to try to update this at least once a week, detailing our trip and the impact my team has for the Kingdom this summer. I do not know what kind of internet access I will have though, so I hope that is possible. Just to remind you guys, I am going with New Mission Systems International (NMSI) to Chile, Argentina (traveling through) and Brazil from May till July. Alright lets get things started off with a general prayer list for this summer.

Prayer for those currently working in Chile and Brazil:

Bel and Joy Munoz, missionaries in Brazil with youthHOPE

Habacuc Diaz-Ramos, missionary in Chile

Pray that the ministers there receive daily encouragement from one another and Christians all over the world.

Prayer for the lost people in Chile, Brazil and all of South America, Pray that God will open their hearts to receiving the good news of Jesus. God is constantly speaking to all people; but it sometimes takes the help of others to get those people to hear His voice.
Pray that God prepares me mentally, physically, and spiritually for my trip. Pray that God will use me in whatever capacity He desires.
Pray that the necessary funds come in with the remaining time that I have left.
Pray that I am constantly growing in my desire to work with the people of South America.

Alright if you guys would pray for those things, I think that would be really great to start our trip off in a positive way. There is an official site to follow the NMSI interns and my team specifically as well.

http://nmsi.org/interns.aspx

That is all I have for now, if you guys have any questions feel free to email me or post on here I guess, thanks again for all of the support and prayers, it was only because of your help that this was possible for me, I cannot thank you enough.