Home Safe and Sound...

For all of you who have been praying for us and thinking about us, we are home safe and well.

God Bless

Phil

Last Day...Coming Home...

Well;

It truly is a sad day for us as a team. We are all looking forward to our homes, our beds, our families, and our church. But, the time that we have spent here has been life-changing and unforgettable. We all love Chile. We love the people, the weather, the food, and the fellowship. The Lord is so good and we are blessed to be able to serve. Thank you for sending us to represent Summit and to be Christ´s ambassadors to work in Chile. God bless you all and we will see you soon.

Phil

Judy in Paradise

Louise is a wounderful man whom I got to know during my time in Chile while I was working on building the christain church at Playa Ancha. Everyday he would be there whistling some very wonderful bird calls and music tunes. He was there sitting in a wheel chair and seemed so happy. I started to talk to him and he relaid his story to me how he was injured and ended up in the wheel chair. As he conveyed this to me I coulded help but feel so sorry for him. He had been hit by a vehicle as he was driving his car in front of the old church that we are now rebuilding. He was driving and when he was struck so hard that the bumper had forced itself against his hip and pushed him out of his own vehicle through his door out into the street. The force was so great that it broke his hip and lower spine. Since that time he has been in a wheel chair and had been angry until he met the lady that now is his wife. She loves him so much that she cared for him for the longest time. God had revealed to him that he could bring peace and joy to people by whistling these wonderful tunes. These tunes not only bring a wonderful blessing to me but to the others here that are working on the church. He was told that he and his wife would not have children because of his injuries, but God has blessed them with two wonderful daughters now. He doesn´t spend a day that he doesn´t thank God for that blessing. He enjoyes whistling to us everyday.He invited me and Micheal to his home to introduce his wife and one of his daughters to us after we spent a day at the church. We feel the blessing that he has brought to our life and this is one of many blessing that we have had here in Playa Ancha.
We have met so many people that reflect their willingness to do Gods work. Another is a man named Victor, a native Chilean retired military man that spends everyday here helping us. This man starts the same time we do and ends his day with us, never asking anything in return, but just to serve God. Another very friendly man that enjoyes his time with us and not only helps with the church but asks if he can guide us around if we like or even take us to see some of the beauty around Playa Ancha. This man is so hard working that you would think that he was being remunerated for his time, but as he puts it, God is paying him for what he does. Another person is this
We met this lovely lady called Vilma, she teaches adult classes here and is blessed with a wonderful understanding of the Bible, what a LOVELY LADY. She has touched our lives with her life in the LORD and what has she has indured in her life. In her life she always had the lord in her life but a tragedy took here husband and her best friend, that same event almost took her life as well as her daughters. Her husband was a police officer here in Playa Ancha and a dedicated Christain that helped with classes at the local church. One day at the beach her family decided to go to the beach and in a quick moment she was being pulled under by the undertow of the ocean and her husband went out to help her and lost his life while saving hers. It is not clear how her friend lost her life other then she was caught up in it too. One daughter wasn´t paying attention and the other was in the water, but after it was all over she was in a ambulance going to the hospital and her husband was in her air lifted to the hospital and died in route, while the ambulance was on the way to the hospital who was their pastor and she asked why. He had conveyed to her that her husband had died in route to the hostipal and needed that information. Her faith has been tested over and over since then and she feels strong in the Lord and has become more commited to the Lord since that loss.
This helps to reinforce my faith in my God and every memont spent with these wonderful people is a testemonial to that. It will be very difficult to leave here and I will never forget how they have touched my life in their own ways. There is so much to share but this can be saved until later.

Mike y Judy

Dan chill'n in Chile

Hola mi Amigo's,

Hope all is well up North. We are having the time of our life down here. I feel somewhat guilty becouse the blessing's I have received are in excess of what any one person deserves. I have made new friends down here that will last a lifetime. I have learned what it means to be bathed in prayer. I have sung praises to God almighty with quite possibly the most passionate people on the earth today. These experiences that are part of a normal week for the Chilean's that live here, have changed me forever.

My wife Karla and I had the most remarkable of experiences while down here the other day. We, as most of you know, are heavily involved with the AWANA ministries. Being that that is one of the things that God has called us to, we decided to bring some stuff with us. The hope was to see some interest and maybe start a Chilean club!!! To us that was to be a side note on this trip becouse the overall focus was for the building of the Playa Ancha church. God has other plans!!!! We talked to Pastor Steve Phillips about the program on the ride from the airport to the church and he seemed very excited. We set up a day to talk to him and his staff about AWANA for thier church in Quilpe. It turns out that not only is there a church but there are ten Christain schools that pastor Steve runs. That is about six thousand children. The estimate is that about five percent are saved. At this point I start to understand a little more about God and his plan for me. The schools have the room for AWANA, the kids for AWANA, and the resources for AWANA!!! Talking to Steve and his staff we learned that not only are they interested in the AWANA program, but that they have been in heavy prayer for this very thing!! Books, supplies, and information for an after school Christain activity are virtually non existant down here. Ahhhhh now the plan is not only clear to me but I can feel God in the room as can everyone else in attendance. We have decided to help in the start up of an AWANA chapter in Quilpe. By the time it is up and running strong the church here in Playa Ancha should be built and ready for a program. My wife and I will be in contact with Steve and through him when the timing is right, together we will help start the Playa Ancha chapter!! Watch out South America here comes AWANA .

On the lighter side we are all having fun to. Some of the team went to the stores on Saturday, and some of us decided to fish. Fishing here is a little different than in the states. We went out on a boat with two proffesional commercial fishermen. As the boat was lowered into the water we began to notice the lack of fishing poles. There were nine people total on the boat. There were no fishing poles. In Chile these fishermen use a piece of plywood with fishing line wound around it. A weight is tied to it, this can be anything from a piece of rebar to a hunk of metal. One lowers the line to the bottom and jigs. If you get a bite, set the hook and haul it in! Seems a tad ineffiecient? We caught over fifty fish in four hours. It was just the type of fishing I was looking for.

I hope everyone enjoys the blog. Blessings from your brother in Christ, Dan

Randy´s praises:

Bendiciones! ( Blessings from God!) We are not on our own here. The body of Christ our Lord has many parts, and like two hands that live on opposite sides, we are two hands of the body from North and South America reaching together and grasping in the middle.

There is no distance between us like strangers at a family reunion who are meeting for the first time at age 10 or 20 years old. From the first moment at the airport with pastor Steve and then with every prayer meeting and church service and good morning and good night are hugs and handshakes and holy kisses (to the left of the head) and great joy and laughter and LOVE of God our Father is obvious and everywhere! We are family here, and every house is our home.

I am humbled everywhere I look at the great peace and joy and love with so little of the perfect things we expect and strive for at home. We don´t need most of what we want, and what we need most is what we already have: The moment by moment opportunity to Love God and Love everyone else like HE DOES!!! Practical application here of this basic 3 truths we learn at church to Love God, Love people, and Serve others is the way here. The congregation prays alone and together much more than I have ever known. Their love for our Father is huge as lived out by the desire to pray to him and thank Him for great blessings of what to us looks like less than poverty level. Their love for people - for us and with us - is lived out in prayers and kind wishes for many good things for us and all of you at home in requests and thanksgiving for God´s constant blessings. And their love to serve is lived out in blessing each other and all of us all the time with beautiful service in preparing 4 meals a day, assisting with every possible comfort, going with us and guiding on every excursion, and with every joke and kindness and smile.

Shannon and Judy are better like new - thank you for prayers. Ross has some rash and cold sore concerns to pray for, Mabel is our Chilean mom and has a stomach flu also, and Marina is on her way still to serve her family in the things of completing Hal´s affairs.

Thank you all for sending and funding and supporting through your continuing prayers the great good work of God with us here in Chile. We are a beautiful smile together from the father´s face to our family here. The world looks very small from our perspective now, and we are all hungry to come back and go also other places even with you next time!

BE BLESSED TODAY AS IT IS YET ANOTHER GIFT FROM GOD!!!

Humbly your brothers and sisters from Chile!

Randy

So far so good

Hi there - this is Ross Foote.

The job site is going well. We have portions of the stemwall poured and most of the stemwall set up. The concrete is poured in sections as there is not enough lumber to set up the entire wall and pour it. The concrete is mixed on site with 2 barrel mixers and then wheelbarrowed with 2 wheelbarrows. This is a bit of a challenge as we are used to setting up the entire area, have trucks bring the concrete and a pump there to place it!! This is their way and we will do it their way. Our hours are 9am to 6:30ish.

Food is plentiful, delicious and after a full workday, we are very hungry. Last night we rode a bus into town, went to the mall, ate at a resturant, and visited. Some of the host families came along and it was wonderful. Mabel had eaten there once before but not her family. They said it was a treat and we had a great time just talking and eating - a true blessing for Mabel who did not have to cook for all of us!!!

Today is a visit to the touristy part of town and I get to go fishing with Dan and Phil. I love to fish and am looking forward to catching the largest ocean fish, the first fish and the most fish on this trip. Love to my family - I miss you all and your mom says hugs and kisses.

Ross

Contact for Philip Vana...

Hello everyone;

If you would like to contact Phil then please email philandjess@gmail.com.

Gracias.

PRAYER REQUEST!!!

Hola,

Please pray for Marina and her family. Marina just found out that her father passed away on Tuesday. She was already scheduled to fly out tomorrow and she will fly to Ohio on Saturday. It was such a blessing for her to see her father last week before the trip. Please keep her in your prayers.

Phil

Cooking with Mabel

Mabel made fish for us today. Wow! It was great. She fried it outside. Otherwise, we cooked inside. I´m trying to write down some receipes to take some of our experience home with me.

What a wonderful time we have had praying and worshipping here in Chile. Mabel, Pastor Santiago´s wife, is a wonderful cook and has taught me so many things about their way of life and their food. Everything is so fresh.

Mabel has such a loving, giving, Christ centered heart. She is a prayer warrior. You can feel the power of the Holy Spirit when she prays.

She took me shopping for groceries yesterday. Shopping without a car, oh how spoiled we are as Americans. People in Chile really enjoy being together. Women kiss each other on the cheek and men pat each others back, to say hello and greet each other.

It has been very exciting to have running water. This is the first mission trip I´ve been on where there is running water in the homes. We have it in the hotels but not in the homes in the Phillipines and Uganda where I´ve been. Water is very clean. No one has been sick from it, which is also a pleasant surprise.

Chile is very beautiful and green. The members of the church here are on fire for the Lord. The building project is going very well the team has been working very hard. They sleep hard at night. Their testimony in service has been a honor to witness.

I have only been here a week I have grown attached to the people. I encourage everyone at Summit to go on at least one mission trip. But I also know that you won´t be able to just go on one because the blessings you receive are so much more than you give and you´ll want to go on a trip every year. See you Saturday night at service.

Marina

Day Number Three From Chile

Hello from the Team,

Tuesday night we had an awesome time of prayer and worship with the church here in Playa Ancha. The Chilean church members laid hands on us and prayed for the building of their new church. As you can see in the picture the forms are going up the footings for the building. It is very exciting to see the change happening daily. All of us here are having such a blessed time working on the project. Some of us are working on the forms while the others are working on the landscape, getting the property to grade in the back, and cleaning up all around the property. There is never a dull moment around here. It such a blessing working with the people and staying here in Chile. The people are so appreciative of what we are doing for them with this missions project. The family I am staying with tried to teach me a few words of Spanish the other night, but after a short time thought it was better for me to go to sleep instead of struggling on trying learn Spanish. They are such a wonderful host family and try to do all that they can for Randy and myself. For all you young students that are reading this blog you will be happy to hear that today,Wednesday, was the first day of school for the kids here. The looks on their faces were precious as they headed off to school for the first day. We would like to thank all of you who are praying for us and the building project. We wish you all could be here with us. I would like to also say a quick hello to my wife Pam and my two beautiful daughters, Erynne and Erika, you would all love it here in Chile. Blessings to all of you back in the States. We will see all of you in a couple of weeks. Please keep praying for us and the people here in Chile.

Blessings,

Joel Moss

Work And Play!

Hola Familia!

This is Karla. We´re so excited to be here in Chile!

Last night, a few of us went on a trip to Valparaiso, the nearby city. We were escorted by Pastor Santiago and his son Joshua. We were so suprised to find it to be such a big city. Many of the buildings we saw were very old and looked to have a European influence. Randy especially loved looking at the architecture. Pastor Santiago explained that before the Panama Canal was built there were many more tourists and trade that occured in the port city, which of course makes sense, but many of us hadn´t really thought about it before!

Today has been a busy day on the job site. This morning was spent mainly mixing and pouring concrete for the building foundation. A few of us also worked on some additional excavation of the prior building site. We´ve also got a bit of a project at the back of the site where much of the materials from the prior building were shoved out of the way. We´re getting rid of unusable materials and organizing potentially reusable materials. Everyone is working very hard! The mornings have been pretty cool and the afternoons are warm, but not too hot, at least for me! There have been fires somewhere nearby the past couple days and we´ve woken up to smokey morning air that seems to clear out around noon.

Dan and I are staying with Pastor Santiago and his wonderful wife Mabel (along with Ross, Jan, Marina and Shannon). They have a beautiful home with room for all of us! Mabel has been very hospitable and is working so hard to feed and take care of all of us. The house is on the same property as the church buildings, so we just walk out the back door to the job site. The two of us are doing great and enjoying spending time with the team and the Chilean people that we´ve met. Dan likes to pretend that he speaks Spanish and we´re typically able to communicate okay with our broken Spanish and several translators nearby.

Shannon is still not feeling well. She is feeling a bit better today and is up and around. She was our photographer and videographer this morning so we´ll have some pictures and video to share with everyone! She would appreciate your continued prayers for healing.

On a side note: Shannon´s name is a bit hard for our Chilean friends to pronounce, so Dan picked a nickname for her that would be easier for them - el gato, or the cat! That´s been pretty fun for us, but I´m not sure how she feels about it.

Tonight is a prayer meeting at the church where Marina is planning to share her testimony and we look forward to spending more time with the folks that we´ve come here to love on.

Love to all,
Karla

Our first day on the job...

Greetings Summit Family,

This is Jessica Vana with a quick update on our trip so far. Today is our first day of work on the new building. We started out the day with a group devotional time. We discussed the things we were most excited about and the individual areas where we felt God may be growing us on this trip. We broke up into groups of two or three and prayed for one another. It is amazing to see, already, how God is moving during this time of ministry.

I´ll quickly share one personal highlight. The woman Phil and I are staying with, Vilma, is the mother of three daughters. Two of the girls are in the States and one, Stephania is here with us. Vilma´s husband drowned in the ocean a few years ago. (He died saving her from a rip tide) It is so interesting (and like God) that Phil and I were put with a family dealing with loss. They are gracious and kind hosts, and Phil and I are eager to be a blessing to them as well.

Our team is doing well. Shannon has been out of commission this morning due to a flu. Please pray for quick recovery for her as she has not felt well for two days.

The building project is off to a good start. We are cleaning up the job site and finishing the excavation of the footers. We are building forms and getting ready to pour cement. We will work through the rest of the day and hope to spend the evening building relationship with our new Chilean friends.

Blessings To All,

Jessica

We Made It...

Hey Everyone;

This is Phil again. I am sorry that I did not post a message before we left. But, we have made it to Playa Ancha, Chile. It is near a town called Valparaiso, just north of Santiago. The flight went very well and we didn´t have any BIG problems getting through customs. Our ride was on time and waiting so we boarding two vans and drove about three hours north through the country. The land looked a bit like Nevada, it was pretty open but there was more green. We drove past a smal airport and some huge vineyards. The roads are very maintained and we drove on the right side of the road. We stopped to grab some water and a coke and were able to see one of the many Christian schools that Pastor Steve Phillips has started.

The drive in Viña Del Mar (Yeah, the keyboard that I am using has a ¨ñ¨ key. I have to get one of these!!!) was beautiful. It is a city on the ocean and there was a beach that rivals any that I have seen in L.A. The road up to Playa Ancha was very steep but a lot of fun. We have been very surprised at how modern things are where we are staying. We are by no means ¨roughing it¨and we are very safe. We ate a large lunch at Pastor Santiago´s home but I do not know what it is called. We had a salad with lettuce (letuga), corn (maize, I think), and tomato (tomate). There were home-made rolls and plenty of pepsi to drink. Then, we ate a soup dish with chicken, potatoes, and squash. It was very delicious.

After lunch, we all get set up in our host homes and the went to the 7:00 pm church service. Though we were tired from our travels it was an awesome service. It lasted almost three hours and we had a few nodding heads, but I can´t wait to do it again. The worship was great and there were a few songs that we knew. We were able to introduce the team and present the church with a cross from Summit. I gave a testimony and then we sat down to hear a message from Hebrews 12:1-3. It was in Spanish but I am sure that it was awesome!!!

We are going to bed and I just want to thank you again for all of your prayers. Keep them up and you will hear from us soon. We are tired but ready to begin the work that we came to do.

Phil

Test Blog

Hey Everyone;

This is a test blog to see how the site works. The Team will be leaving at approximately 2:00 pm from the Reno-Tahoe International Airport. I will post a blog from the airport before we depart. Thank you for all of your prayers, love, and support.

God Bless.

Philip Vana