Updates: Peru, Chile and Convivencia 2019
It was a joy to visit our brethren, sisters and friends in Peru and Chile. As usual, a series of lectures was held in the Hotel Kamaná in the historic center of Lima. The immensity of the city with its 10 million residents and heavy traffic has made it difficult to find a venue accessible to everyone.
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PERU AND CHILE, NOV. 2019
It was a joy to visit our brethren, sisters and friends in Peru and Chile. As usual, a series of lectures was held in the Hotel Kamaná in the historic center of Lima. The immensity of the city with its 10 million residents and heavy traffic has made it difficult to find a venue accessible to everyone. Different locations have been tried in other areas, but we always return to the dependable Kamaná, which was actually discovered by Bro. Robert Alderson of Auckland around the year 2005.
On our previous visit this year we discovered that none of the email invitations sent to the postal contacts had been received, so for this occasion we tried a new mass-mailing system and about 800 were delivered. Lima has been one of the most fruitful sources of postal course requests in South America. It was very gratifying to have 19 visitors out to the talks, many attending them all, and we pray they may continue to develop. Sis. Gloria took charge of the smaller children, using coloring books, crayons and lots of chocolate to keep a half-dozen of them occupied during the lectures.
On Sunday the members met for the Breaking of Bread at the home of Bre. Flavio, Gloria and Nahuel, with several friends also attending. Afterwards, the Sisters served a chicken lunch which included a traditional Peruvian dish called “causa,” a delicious and artistic version of what we might call potato salad.
From Lima we flew south to Santiago for three days, a little nervous about the social violence that had been occurring. Chile had been in an upheaval for a month after an attempt was made to raise subway fares. There were street demonstrations, looting and burning of supermarkets, subway stations disabled, smashed windows and lots of graffiti. On arriving at our hotel we saw hundreds of people running past with their faces covered or wearing gas masks, but the bulk of our visit was blessed with peace.
In spite of it all 4 friends showed up for classes during the day, though joint evening activities were not possible. One young woman came all 3 days, staying from 9 AM to 1:30 PM with an endless series of Bible questions. Jim was able to have a good chat with her husband also, and had some good visits with our old friend Bro. Richard Castillo.
We pray God will continue to protect and guide the brethren, sisters and friends in both these countries.
Written by Bro. Jim & Sis. Jean Hunter, Link Couple for several Spanish speaking Countries
Submitted by Sis. Jan Berneau, CBMA/CBMC Publicity
CONVIVENCIA, DEC. 2019
The Annual Convivencia (Retreat) was held in December, with 98 attendees in total. Some couldn’t make it for the whole weekend due to the holiday falling mid week, but did come Saturday evening and Sunday.
Bro. Jim Hunter’s classes were based on the Sermon on the Mount for the adults and the young people’s class (there were 23!) was a review of basic Bible teachings and “Why Should I Care?” – trying to show the Young People how the teachings should change our behavior, and they will if we REALLY believe them. It was a nice bunch of kids with good attitudes.
Saturday evening the CYC prepared an activity for everyone – you had to even let the littlest kids participate or your team was disqualified! It was a great way to really mix everyone up and have everyone looking out for the little kids. The teams had to each do 6 different competitions – all Bible based.
Afterwards the CYCers who organized it, each told us what the spiritual point was for each activity.
In the evening the Sunday schools did presentations/dramas/Hebrew dancing – really well done.
The four baptisms were Sunday morning in the freezing water of the hotel pool!
There were Brethren, Sisters and young people from Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, USA and Peru.
Written by Bro. Jim & Sis. Jean Hunter, Link Couple for several Spanish speaking Countries