Weekend Spin

Check out the excited youth group in the young Las Grutas church! (Friday night Photo)

I spent all day Saturday in the hotel in Las Grutas praying and preparing for a weekend of ministry in Sierra Grande, Puerto Madryn and Trelew. I took no time for anything else… didn’t even stop to eat. I finally finished a rough draft of a message for my Sunday night message just in time to load my suitcases in the car and get myself 130 kilometers down the road to Sierra Grande for the evening service. I arrived in time to spend some quality time with the pastors, Jorge and Norma Coba, before the service. Here the pastors are a dear couple that many years ago were my students at River Platte Bible Institute in Buenos Aires. They served for a time as missionaries to Brazil, then later, something like 7 years in Bolivia. Sierra Grande is kind of a ghost town whose mine closed down years ago. The church is small and has suffered some set-backs. The pastors said it had only 3 or 4 people in it when they came here 7 years ago. During the prayer time at the close, the keyboard player was keeping the music going while praying fervently down on his knees. I couldn’t resist clicking the camera. (Photo) Later I invited the married couples to gather up front for special prayer. There were 12 couples, plus the pastor and his wife…. (See last photo) That’s a pretty strong Saturday night congregation for a ghost town.


After church I drove another 135 kilometers to Puerto Madryn, arriving at my hotel at 1 AM. I got right to bed at 2 AM so I could be up and at the church at 7:45 AM for the 8:30 morning service where I was scheduled to minister. What a great church we have in Puerto Madryn! Pastors Horacio and Julia Balbi are the greatest! They have been like family to Frances and me. This is the area where the Welsh Christians settled many years ago. Madryn is a pretty city facing the sea. During certain times of the year huge “Right” whales can be seen playing in the waters. They say they come here to mate. I even saw one breach clear out of the water here once. Another time Frances and I and a bunch of tourists watched several of these monsters only about 150 feet from the shore just hanging around “tourist watching”… whispering to each other, “Hey Moby… Check out that guy with the striped shirt, short pants and dark glasses!” The Madryn AG church has Sunday School for the kids after the Sunday morning service and I stayed to have Felipe share a Bible story with a bustling church-full of kids of all ages. Then I drove the 84 kilometers to the Patagonian Bible Institute in Gaiman where I will now be staying in for a week in the home of Directors’ Martin and Charlotte Jacobson’s. They served me a delicious Sunday lunch. Then I crashed for an hour before rising to finish preparing my message for tonight in Trelew. Pastors Ramon and Blanca Saucedo have a powerful work going in Trelew with its fingers reaching out for hundreds of kilometers in several directions. I preached from the three parables in Luke 15: Lost Sheep, Lost Coin and Lost Son… and asked the congregation of about 300 to come seek God for the same passion for the lost that Jesus demonstrated. This church is always good for a great altar time… and I was not disappointed.

Hey… It’s 2:30 AM again… past my bedtime. Good night.

Ralph