The Allen's: Family Update

February 5, 2006

I'm taking advantage of a few moments at the mission headquarters to send you the latest news from Argentina. There's so much to say and so little space. If you read our last letter, you may remember the news about the International Crusade. Well, the final results were over 3,000 people saved and a good number are being discipled. Perhaps the best news has to do with the El Circulo church. On January 8, Jackie and I spent some time with their mew daughter congregation in Barrio San Alfonsin. The church meets under a tree since there are no buildings around to house them and they have only been meeting for 3 months. There were about 40 people there, more than half of whom were new believers. Then Celso and Alejandro (the elders of the church), asked me if I could preach the second week of February at their other church plant, in Barrio Autodromo. That group has been meeting for about a month and is made up of 20+ more new believers. It's great to see how God has given these seminary graduates a passion to evangelize and start new churches.

Seminary News/Continued

By the time you read this , I'll be back in Argentina and starting the newest seminary students on their journey. Classes start for first time students on February 6! We have between 4 to 16 people interested in studying, but being Argentine, many will wait until the day before classes start to finally commit themselves. The level of pre-seminary preparation of this group looks to be our best ever, including a medical doctor! We'll have to see if he has time to study.

Medical Ministry News

The past few months we have seen a major increase in the number of people with medical needs. In our last prayer letter, we mentioned a 5-year-old girl who I thought might be autistic. Since then, we've been able to meet the family and start working with Sarah. She was born out on a farm and it took almost half an hour to get her to breath properly. The bones in her skull closed and hardened too early so what we have is sweet little girl who had the body of a 2 year old and the development of an 18 month child. We were able to get her to some great doctors including a top quality pediatric neurosurgeon (not a believer). At present we've run all the tests except for a genetic factoring and hope to have a plan of action by mid-February. God worked wonders and we were able to get Sarah a tomograph for free (normally %500 U.S.), but there is still much to be done. Brain surgery hasn't been eliminated at this point though it is improbable. We've established a new special project to help cases like Sarah. For the past year, we've covered all of the medical needs that come our way out of our salary, but the needs have become to great to continue that way. If you'd like to help people like Sarah, please send a contribution to the ARGENTINA: MEDICAL COMPASSION FUNDS #6406-904.

We're getting excited about receiving a short term team in March! They'll be coming down to help us paint the conference center and do some repairs in the cement. If you'd like to contribute to the cost of materials for that project the account is ARGENTINA: CERILLOS PROPERTY MAINTENANCE #6404-901.

Thanks again for all of you who contributed towards getting us a new car. We still need several thousand dollars, but your gifts to date have been a great encouragement.

God is doing great things in Argentina. Ministry opportunities are exploding. Thanks for being a part of our prayer and support team. We couldn't do it without you.

Ministry Updates

Things are getting active again with the Conference Center. We hope to have our first church visit in June. We're starting to work on more repairs so we'll be able to house people again. Keep praying that we'll have the time to get the jobs done and that the finances will come in to allow us to make the needed repairs.
The Seminary is in full swing. We have fewer students due to decision not to receive any new students this year. The committee which made the decision didn't have the time on inclination to do the necessary promotion. That means one more thing which I need to recover this year. The students are doing well for the most part. Several had to quit studying last year due to job conflicts. With the economy in such a bad situation, no one dares to say "no" to any change of hours in their job.
The churches in this area are doing fairly well. I'm hoping to challenge them to a different type of evangelism. Everyone is involved in a big campaign this year, but we all know that after the campaign stops, the real work of evangelism begins. I'm working on teaching friendship evangelism in different churches the next 6 months.
Perhaps the biggest challenge I face this year is training some new professors. Each year there are fewer missionaries to help with Seminary. This year, our filed conference has freed me up from some other responsibilities in order to allow me some time to train some Argentines to be professors.The difficult is, those who are capable of teaching are already overloaded, while those who want to teach, are not up to the secular educational level of the students! It's always a challenge.
One other item of interest, I've been doing some work with music and have been leaving CD's with several unsaved friends. I'm hoping to use this type of evangelism not only to reach them but also show Argentine Believers how to share Christ in a more natural way. So far, there's quite a bit of interest. Pray that I'll have the opportunity to keep contact with everyone.

May 2, 2005
Pastor Steve and friends at Powellhurst:
I'm taking advantage of a couple returning to the States tomorrow to send some snail mail. How are things going up there? I trust all is well. Drop us a line when you can and let us know what's happening in your ministry. We're still planning on sending you folks the CD-PowerPoint program which will help people to know more about what you can do next year when you're here. Chelsea is waiting on me to install a microphone on the computer so she can do voice-over and then we'll send it.

I'm sorry I haven't written in a while but things here have been extremely busy. Between lots of meetings and all that's involved in trying to catch up a year's absence, life has been more than exciting.

We arrived back in Salta only to find the conference center where we live was a month behind in up keep. The Seminary had suffered from some minor mismanagement, which will take about 9 months to really put straight again, and the are untold other items to catch up. At present, Cerrillios is almost up-to-date, though we need to make some repairs. The Seminary administration is 90% up-to-date and now I just have to help some students get caught up on their projects so they can graduate. It all adds up to a lot of work, but more on that later.

February 20, 2005
After 76 hours of travel and waiting in airports and hotels, the Allens finally arrived in Salta, Argentina on Saturday, January 29th. As of today, here's what's happening with each family member.

Colin continues to grow. At 6' 4", he towers above most people in Salta. He is practicing basketball daily after he does all of his outside chores. He continues to love to make wooden swords and is currently cutting and sanding on his latest project.

Nigel is now as tall as Dad. He is enjoying being back in the wide open spaces where he can bicycle.

He is currently working on CD racks for the family and has his eye on the possibility of building stereo speakers so he can put his electronics training and carpentry experience into something practical.

Chelsea is taking care of her 4 cats and loving it. The surrogate visits to the Oregon Humane Society were good, but not the same as having her own animals. She's becoming a big help around the property and is trying to get registered for College on line.
Jackie is getting tired of living out of suitcases. She's happy because the painters are now working on our house so we should be ready to move our things into their proper locations around March 1st.

She's enjoying having her puppy back. Jackie really missed all of her outdoor activities last year and she's taking advantage of being outside every chance she gets. She hopes to have things in order by mid-March so she can get some time to herself once the boys are back in school.

Rod is struggling to get caught up on everything. One's work never really goes away for a full year, in fact, it has a tendency to pile up. The first month back in Argentina will be spent getting everything in order with all the paperwork up to date. Hopefully he can move into full time teaching again around the beginning of April. This first month will be spent greeting everyone. This is a very important aspect of social life in Argentina. It takes a lot of time to see each person you've worked with before, but it is very offensive it you don't go out of your way to contact the churches and especially, those who aren't Christians. Rod is hoping to get some new software installed which will allow him to send more information back to the North America and to people in Argentina.