August 2011 Newsletter

We've had an exciting time here lately. We're glad to hear that everyone is okay after the earthquake in the US!

We had a funeral yesterday for a member of our congregation. He battled cancer for about 4 years. He was faithful to the end and a witness to his whole family. Their testimonies mentioned that Juan Antonio continuously shared the gospel with them throughout his illness. We praise God for His faithfulness, the faithfulness of His servant Juan Antonio, and our future hope gained for us by Christ.

In other news, we are leaving for a leadership conference about 5 hours south of Santiago. We leave in about 10 minutes, so I had better hurry up. Starting last year, they made the conference for church and ministry leaders and their spouses. Pray for a good time of edification and fellowship.

Tabi's radio program continues on the web. Her biggest prayer concern currently is finding a co-host to take over for the time we will be back in the States.

My (Mike) classes continue to go well. I have continued to make contacts in other churches where I will be teaching classes next year. The biggest prayer requests here are 1) Getting good teaching materials here to Chile, 2) more students and follow-through on the part of participating churches, and 3) a future, dedicated class space.

Stay tuned for more information about our upcoming time in the US. We will be coordinating an open house in Alliance, OH at Cornerstone Christian Church for a Saturday in early October. We hope to see many of you there.

Blessings,

Mike and Tabi Boyce

Cornerstone Chilean Mission

June 2011 Newsletter

Hello everyone,

Life in Chile

We are having a good time in Santiago, Chile’s winter now. In the winter we get lows in the 30’s and highs range from 40’s up through 60’s. It is also the rainy season. It isn’t really all that much rain compared to most of the U.S. but more than enough to flood the streets here. Our street seems to be especially susceptible to flooding. We celebrated our anniversary on June 3^rd, marking 5 years!

Tabi’s ministry

Our ministries are progressing. Tabi has been hosting a radio program online at Radio Integridad. Her co host will now be forming his own program. Here is the link to listen: (http://www.integridad.com/radiointegridad.php). Tabi’s program airs from 3:30-5:00PM eastern time on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She talks about topics relevant to Christian living and plays music. Some topics have included: Christian service, bullying and respect in debate, church traditions, and family relations. It is an interactive program using a live chat program. Just as a warning, it is in Spanish. Tabi continues to help in the Sunday School class for kids when necessary and helps lead the singing on Sunday mornings. Tabi had been doing a fair bit of translation work, as well.

Mike’s ministry

I, Mike, continue to teach classes from the house, and am working on how to get some good reading material for my students. I’ll be starting the 3^rd round of courses in July. In the first round I taught a hermeneutics class for 6 weeks. In the second round I expanded the hermeneutics class to 8 weeks and introduced an 8 week basic doctrine course. In the 3^rd round I will introduce a preaching course for those who have successfully completed hermeneutics and doctrine. I had a meeting on June 21^st with a young leader from a local church, Darío, and will be helping teach a biblical study on Thursday evenings there. In addition to my teaching ministry outside our congregation, I am also teaching Sunday School, have been named an elder of the church, am helping plan sermon series, am part of the preaching rotation, am proof-checking the sermons of the others who preach, and have a few other responsibilities in the church we attend, Iglesia de Cristo Jesús es el Camino (Jesus is the Way, Church of Christ). It is a great blessing for me to be able to serve in these ways, especially teaching and training. My Spanish continues to improve. I switched over to writing lessons plans and sermons in Spanish (rather than writing in English, then translating) several months ago. At first Tabi had a lot of proof reading to do on each. She doesn’t have to do quite as much now in each document. She does still check all of my documents so I can be sure I am saying what I intend to say.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Tabi and I are planning to be in the US in October and November. We would like to start arranging times to visit with any of you who are interested in October and the first half of November. We will be heading to the National Missionary Convention Nov 16-20 in Atlanta. Please be in prayer for the trip, the visits, and our transportation situation (we sold our cars before coming to Chile). We’ll be trying to get a little more support since we came on about half of our original goal.

Thanks so much to all of you have sacrificed for our sake and for the Kingdom. It is always encouraging to remember that prayers are being offered on our behalf, and we don’t doubt God’s power to respond to our prayers. We wish you all many blessings.

April 2011 Newsletter

Greetings to all our friends and family who support us in more ways that we can count! It was brought to our attention recently that we haven't written a newsletter since December. Much to our surprise, we found this to be true. So much has happened since then that we seem to have lost track of time. Let's catch up, then, shall we?

January

Having enjoyed a wonderful Christmas and New Year's, we got back down to business, Mike continuing to preach and teach Sunday school at church, and Tabi going twice a week to do volunteer work with another missionary, as well as still singing on the music team at church. During this time, Mike also visited a man from our congregation who has cancer, and another girl from church who had to have an emergency gallbladder surgery.

Some special events:

January 22nd, Mike began teaching his first class from home. He decided to make the first course a study of Hermeneutics (how to study the Bible) since, to his thinking, there's no better place to start with than the Word of God. For 8 weeks after that, five students gathered every Saturday to take the class.

January 28th, Tabi went to a women's retreat just outside of Santiago. The theme for the week was "Worshiping God in Everything."

February

The weather in February was fabulous (albeit excessively warm some days). Mike, as a Sunday school teacher, joined the ranks of church leadership as a voice on the board. In order to fully and carefully address various issues in the church, the leadership board met every week for the entire month of February. Mike also continued to preach.

Some special events:

February 6th, we invited some friends over for the Super Bowl, which was being streamed in Spanish to Chile (minus the commercials, sadly). We made all kinds of fun "traditional" Super Bowl food, like hot wings, chili dogs, and chips & salsa. Of course, we watched the game, too.

February 15th, Tabi went back to Penco to do some work as photographer and sound technician. They did activities for the children every afternoon; singing, playing games, and giving child-friendly classes.

February 27th, we took another trip over to Argentina to renew our Visa.

March

The temperatures stayed high this month. March was a month of settling into routines, then getting shaken up abruptly into furious activity. Mike continued as occasional preacher and regular Sunday school teacher at church. Tabi began her internet radio show with co-host Luis Almonacid on the Integridad Ministries website. She also stayed on as singer on the music team. At the end of the month, Mike also started up his second round of classes; Hermeneutics on Monday evenings, and Basic Theology on Saturday mornings.

Some special events:

March 11th, we heard about the devastating earthquake in Japan. Our church, having been through a massive earthquake themselves, promptly dedicated themselves to praying for Japan.

March 19th, the church began the process of changing buildings. The new building, however, needed some reconstructive work done on it, so several of the members met at the new place and worked all day to improve the building. This activity was repeated the next Saturday, as well, on March 26th.

April

April has brought us changes in temperature, as well as many changes around us. The church switched over the new building and has been trying to figure out how best to lay out their chairs, instruments, etc. The music team changed their style from "contemporary" to "acoustic," switching the drum set out for bongos, the electric and acoustic guitars for one bass guitar, and one of the voices (Tabi's) for a flute. Mike preached three sermons in a row this month, on top of his giving his classes, Sunday school, and keeping up his regular weekly activities. Tabi and Luis settled into a comfortable routine for their internet radio show, and covered such topics as freedom, bullying, and family.

Some special events:

April 9th, Mike convinced the leaders to have a meeting to restructure the leadership following a Biblical model. After a long meeting and much debate, the group emerged with four elected elders and one deacon. Mike agreed to step in as one of the elders for the duration of one year, after which time he would step down.

April 22nd, the church had a special Good Friday service. Mike preached about how the Jewish festival of Yom Kippur was a festival designed to illustrate the death of Jesus, and what it would accomplish. Tabi dusted off her classical flute-playing skills and played a piece by Bach. And most exciting of all, a girl came up after the sermon, asking to be baptized.

April 24th, Easter Sunday! Always a day to celebrate and remember.

So that's our time so far in Chile. We've been busy and loving it. We pray that things are going well for you, and that God blesses you as much as He has blessed us.

Blessings,

Mike and Tabi Boyce

December 2010 Newsletter

Hello everyone,

December 10^th will mark one year for us in Chile. Time really seems to be flying by. When we arrived one year ago, my Spanish was barely enough for me (Mike) to get by with. My main goal for our first year was to improve my Spanish. I think I have been able to do so. I still have my problems, and a thick “gringo” accent, but it is adequate for most situations. We quickly found a cheap little apartment to rent in about the area we wanted to be in. We have excellent access to public transportation from here, as well as street markets and supermarkets.

I praise and thank God for the opportunities He has given us to minister here. In January (just a month after we got here) we went on a youth retreat and I was able to teach the Bible portion of the lessons for each day. I also started to integrate into the preaching rotation and help with the preparation of Sunday School material.

In February, as you all know, we experienced a very strong earthquake. We were able to comfort our neighbors who were very frightened at the time. We spent the following week planning how we could help nearer to the epicenter. I went with a group of guys from a couple of churches to a coastal town where we distributed food and other supplies and helped with the manual labor such as tearing down unsafe houses and helping people digging through rubble for their belongings. We have also been to another town where there is ongoing work with the Swansons.

I have continued since then to be part of the regular preaching rotation in the local church. It is good practice for my Spanish and preaching skills, and of course, an opportunity to preach the gospel. After one sermon, two people came forward to be baptized. I have also been able to be part of a home group, I have been able to make friends, and to visit people from the church. The planning of Sunday School lessons has been very rewarding, and together with a fellow named Ivan, we recently completed our lesson plans for the book of 2 Corinthians. I also get to teach Sunday School, alternating with Ivan.

In addition to these ministries, I get to be part of the leadership meetings for the local church, helping to plan sermon topics, address issues and such. It is helpful for me to watch and learn how things are done here, what meetings are like, how people address issues, etc.

We have been able to travel and get to know several churches throughout Chile, meet some former missionaries, and go to a conference for ministers and their wives. I was able to make a lot of contracts through those meetings, that I hope to be able to use for future leadership training.

Tabi has also had a lot of opportunities since being here. She too was part of the youth retreat in January, and has been part of the earthquake relief. Since her focus is on media ministry, she filmed some of the work that was being done on the coast and made a video for it. She has also produced videos for the local church and a DVD for the Swansons (the missionaries with whom we work most closely), among other miscellaneous projects. Another missionary family, the Thurstons, have allowed Tabi to work with them. They have been on the field for 40+ years and have a lot of valuable experience and wisdom to share. Tabi volunteers there and thereby gains experience that will help her when she is able to set up her own media ministry in the future.

God has given us a lot of opportunities and a lot to be thankful for. Our whole life can be a ministry for Him if we’ll allow it. For example, buying fruit in the street market, Tabi struck up a conversation with a vendor. A couple weeks later, we were able to get a couple that hadn’t been to church in a long time into a local Church of Christ. Now we are developing friendships with other vendors. We’ve gained the trust of our neighbors in our apartment building, and I foresee good things coming out of that.

I thought I would include in this one-year anniversary edition a little about our life here. Most of you already know that our seasons are opposite the US. We are going into summer right now and have sun almost every day. Highs have been upper 70’s to mid 80’s for the last couple of weeks. It is still odd to walk into the supermarket and see Christmas trees and ornaments alongside beach towels and swimsuits.

Twice a week, each neighborhood has a street market with fruits and vegetables, called a feria. There are several that we can easily walk to, but the closest is only a block away and occurs Tuesdays and Fridays. On those days, they close the street early in the morning. By about 10 AM most of the vendors have set up their booths. Most of the booths sell fruits and/or vegetables, but there we usually have a fish and seafood booth or two, a few selling plants, some selling clothes, others with kitchen supplies and other food items. There is one stand selling hotdogs and sandwiches. The whole thing ends in the early afternoon. We usually prefer buying meat at a butcher or at the supermarket (Wal-mart even owns a supermarket chain here), rather than from the street vendors.

On weekends and holidays, we can walk to another type of street market that is sort of like a flea market, called a persa. This street market sets up on Saturdays and doesn’t end until Sunday night. Bigger than a feria, it sprawls across 10 to 20 city blocks. Instead of food, here we can find clothing, kitchen items, appliance parts, pet supplies (and pets), sunglasses, toys, and even paintings. Some items are new, but a lot are used. If we get hungry doing all that “window” shopping, sprinkled all through thepersa are little food stands selling hot dogs, pizza, and sandwiches. Or you can get ice cream, candies, desserts, or juices.

As fun as it is to wander through the persa, it’s also fun to hop on the bus and head down to one of the malls in Santiago (Santiago is a large, modern city), or to visit one of the beautiful parks and see the street performers entertain passersby.

Well, this coming year promises to have a lot in store for us as well. Our new home has made the news a few times this year. From the earthquake to the 33 miners to a major fire just this week killing 80+ people. But God has been good to us, has given us opportunities to serve, and has allowed us to grow spiritually as well. We pray that He will continue to allow us to serve Him effectively.

We thank each of you for your prayers and concern for us through this year and into the future. We are hoping that we will be able to visit the US toward the end of 2011, including the National Missionary Convention and will look forward to seeing as many of you as possible! May God bless you in the Christmas season coming up, as we remember the blessing He has given us in sending His Son to be our Savior.

Blessings,

Mike & Tabi Boyce

August 2010 Newsletter

Hello to all our brothers and sisters in Christ,

What a blessing it is to be able to serve our Lord! We are glad to be under His care and to be part of His Kingdom. We are grateful to God for each of you and for prayers that you send up on our behalf.

We are here in the middle of the Chilean winter. Temperatures in the winter here get down around freezing at night, and commonly up to the 50’s in the days. A lot is happening this winter that we are happy to be able to share.

Tabi’s work is progressing. She has been helping some other missionaries who have a media studio. She is learning a lot from them and has some upcoming projects with them, such as a conference in Buenos Aires in September. She will be working with her brother to design a website for our ministry and will be putting together a VBS packet for churches in the US. She has some projects for the church here that she has completed, such as a short video for the children’s Sunday that we had recently. Some other churches have expressed interest in her work as well. She has a good start and, as we all expect, everybody here enjoys getting to know her.

Mike is in the preaching rotation and is continuing to make progress in his Spanish. His preaching in Spanish still isn’t quite as fluid as in English, but is getting better and people in the congregation can now understand the majority of what he is trying to communicate. Of course, God’s Word is powerful and effective, even if the preacher mispronounces a word here and there! After his sermon on July 25^th, two people came forward to ask to be baptized! Mike still works in the Sunday School program with a Chilean named Ivan. They meet together weekly to prepare a lesson plan and co-teach the class Sunday morning. The class is currently going through 1 Corinthians. In addition to preaching, Mike helps plan the sermon topics and themes for the local church, meeting with the leaders. This year’s theme is Spiritual Maturity. In addition to the church work, Mike is still coordinating contacts with people interested in Christian education in Chile. We schedule at least one Sunday per month to visit a different church to try to build new contacts and relationships. Mike will be going to a gathering of Christian Church leaders a few hours south of Santiago in August.

Things are going well in terms of health. We are feeling more and more at home here. We have lots of good friends here in Chile and enjoy spending time with them. It is nice to feel “at home” in our little apartment.

Blessings,

Mike & Tabi Boyce

Prayer Requests

• Continued Spanish and culture learning
• Relationship building
• Spiritual growth for us; also wisdom and discernment
• That God will utilize us for His Church
• Ministry progress

May 2010 Newsletter

Hello everyone.

Blessings from Chile. We haven’t sent out an update since letting you all know that we were okay following the earthquake. Things have been busy and good. The number of things we’ve been a part of since being here in Chile seem astounding to me. We have helped in English Club in a school and another one for adults. Both English Clubs are once-a-week ministries here. We help out once in a while. We did a one-week youth retreat back in January that went well. Mike got to teach youths from the church some basic doctrine and Tabi filmed and photographed the retreat as well as talking to the kids about developing and using artistic abilities for the Kingdom. Seeing the youth make genuine progress was rewarding. We also have gone through the earthquake and taken relief trips to help after the earthquake. Mike met with church leaders and missionaries and made them aware of IDES so that they could help more. Following the earthquake we have also created a Facebook page for the Christian Churches and Churches of Christ in Chile. As ongoing earthquake relief progresses, we are hoping and praying that this Facebook page can become a means by which churches and missionaries can coordinate work and resources, so that Kingdom work can be done as effectively and efficiently as possible. The earthquakes have “thrown a wrench in the works” as they say. Lots of things we had planned pretty much got put on hold for a month or more. It was good that we did not have a lot of obligations yet, which left us free to help others with immediate needs.

From Mike: Unfortunately, the Bible Institute plans that I had have not materialized as planned. In fact, to the best of my knowledge the Bible Institute that I was planning on helping is nonfunctioning at this point. I am, therefore, using my gifts in other ways – still with the goal of training and equipping future church leadership, especially in the areas of Bible and Doctrine. At the moment I am planning on offering weekend seminars at Christian Churches and Churches of Christ throughout the country. This will give me the opportunity to polish my Spanish (which has been coming along quite well, I think), teach and train, as well as gaining recognition among the churches. I am hoping to build on the seminars in the future. I have been looking to plug into some work already started, but have not found any among the Restoration Movement churches yet – though my contacts are still limited. I am praying about and considering possibly starting a Bible Institute at some point in the future. Meanwhile, in the local congregation I am helping with coordination of Home Group themes, creating Sunday School lessons for the adult Sunday School and helping with the teaching, entering the preaching rotation, and participating in various other coordination efforts in the church. I am also offering to guest preach at other churches. In fact, May 16th was my first guest preaching outside of our local congregation. In addition, I am monitoring the Facebook page and trying to extend it to be an aid to unity among the churches. So far it has 90 or so “followers” from various parts of Chile.

From Tabi: Although there have been some delays, I am now working with Jim Thurston (another missionary with a media studio) who will be helping to further train me to go out and start my own studio. Jim Thurston has two extensive websites, on which he posts news stories, articles, interviews, music, videos, and events. I work with him two days a week, during which time he talks to me about the logistics of setting up a media studio. His son, Paul Thurston, knows a great deal about technology. He gives me suggestions for what to buy, and what kind of equipment would be best to have. I've been editing a video lately. I didn't realize how much I had forgotten from college! Fortunately, most of it is coming back to me quickly. Besides this work, I have enjoyed playing hostess to guests who come to our home, am helping teach the 5th - 7th graders at church, and have been doing odd jobs here and there in the graphic design area. I've been kept pretty busy, and that has been exciting and fun. I'm looking forward to what God has in store for me and for Mike.

We thank God for all the prayers for us and the people here following the earthquake. What a blessing all of the encouragement that we received was! Our God is good and wise and loving and powerful. The earthquake was a good reminder of what a firm belief in our Lord Jesus Christ can do. Following the earthquake many people panicked. They no longer felt safe in their own homes. Yet, during the earthquake we knew that come what may, we had nothing to fear although we didn’t know what physical harm may come. Rather, we know that we had placed our hope in our Lord and Savior. Our sins have all been forgiven, and we can rest assured of God’s grace. What a blessing that assurance is (kind of reminds me of a hymn)! So, in the midst of so much fear, we could calmly be a light as we sat outside in the middle of the night conversing with our frightened neighbors. When we went to the earthquake zone (within 10 miles of the epicenter), we had no fear. Our lives are, as always, in God’s hands. We never have any assurance of what this life will bring, except that God will be true to any promise He has made. As He has blessed us in so many ways, including through your prayers, may He continue to bless all of you, richly.

Blessings,

Mike & Tabi Boyce

Post-Earthquake Update

Greetings all,

First, thank you all for prayers, emails,Facebook messages, and phone calls. We really do appreciate your concern. God has brought us through the earthquake with no damage. Not a scratch or bruise! Our apartment doesn't have any problems either. It was a little scary while it was happening.

Immediately after the earthquake we went around checking on neighbors. Once we found out that they were physically ok, we spent several hours outside with them, conversing and praying.

We apologize for taking a while to be able to communicate. Unfortunately, we lost electricity, phone, internet and water. We now have electricity and water. We are right now at the house of the Swansons (where the phone and internet have been restored, but not electricity). So, we are taking the opportunity to call family and send out emails.

The epicenter was near Concepcion, Chile (a few hours south of us). The damage there is astounding. There is quite a bit of damage around Santiago as well. Not nearly as bad as the south, though. Our neighborhood seems to have minor damage only. So far, all of our friends that we have been able to contact are fine. Many are worried about loved ones in the areas more severely effected. Communication within Chile is limited.

We are trying to figure out how to help those in the areas with more damage. We will probably be travelling south later, to try to help.

PRAYER AREAS

- Praise for God's protection for us, and our friends

- Prayer for those in areas badly effected

- Prayer that we can be good servants for Christ, bringing help and hope

- Prayer for protection for looters and the like (there is a bit of disorder now, including here in Santiago)

- Prayer that people will turn to God in the crisis

We'll try to be in further contact later. For now we just wanted to get a quick email out letting you all know that we are ok and thanking you for your prayers.

Blessings,

Mike & Tabi Boyce