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SAMS IRELAND

• Thank God for the Christmas Cards being sold at £1.00 each to support and help fund projects of the Anglican Church in the Argentine Chaco.  If you would like to buy some of these cards to send or to sell please let us know.
• The new SAMS magazine Buena Vista is about to go out to homes and on the website.  We praise God for it, and His stories from South America.
• We continue to pray for the South American’s who are with us – Oscar in St Jude’s Belfast, Jackie McCallum in Eglinton, Saray in Primacy Bangor and Gerardo Gimpel in Knockbreda.  We pray that Gerardo’s wife Suyai might recover quickly from her fall and that she and their son Tomas might be able to join him this weekend as planned.
• We pray for the SAMS General Council meeting and AGM on 3^rd December, that God will always guide SAMS where He wants us to go.
• We thank God for, and pray His blessing upon all the many people and churches who support the work of SAMS, as we work together with others to fulfil the Great Commission and take the gospel of Christ to our own and other nations.

PARAGUAY

• Bishop Andres asks us to thank God for 6 people – children, young people, and adults, who were baptised in Concecpion on Sunday past.  Some of them are people that the church has been praying for, and getting alongside for years.
• 8^th December In the midst of a lot of idolatry Bishop Andres and the church are having a special event of worship to God, to which they will be inviting non-believers.  We join with them in praying for this event.
• Linn Tedman asks us to pray for the president, Fernando Lugo who has cancer at present.

SALTA ARGENTINA

Gemma Bankhead and Sonya Brown have been serving God alongside Cecilia in Salta Argentina.  We continue to pray for them, and for God’s work in Salta.

SPAIN

Sue Woodcock is undergoing chemotherapy, and the prognosis given by the doctors wasn’t good.  She writes,  “Thank you all so much for your prayers, messages of encouragement and offers of help in whatever way I may need.  This is just to let you know the latest on my health. Last week, I had a CAT scan and further blood tests, prior to seeing the oncologist on Monday 15th.  The results of the blood tests were good, and the CAT scan showed some positive improvement.  Reasons to celebrate, he said, but far too early to even think of changing the prognosis.”  Sue has just completed round 4 of chemotherapy.  We continue to pray for her and for the church.

CHILE

We pray for Alf and Hilary Cooper in Alf’s ministry as chaplain to the president, thanking God for this opportunity.  Alf asks us to pray for him as he plants a church in the chapel with 2 services, reaching the ministers and government.

Many of you know Esteban Alvarez who has recently returned to Chile after spending some years with SAMS here in Ireland.  We pray for him as he has an operation on his ankle this weekend.

Some news and prayer letters recently received into the SAMS office:

• Chris & Alison Hawksbee in Paraguay
• Andy & Rose Roberts in Brazil
• Vergara News from Argentina
• Paraguay Prayer Calendar November & December
• Linn Tedman in Paraguay

Snap

SAMS news & prayer

SAMS IRELAND

* Thank God for the Christmas Cards being sold at £1.00 each to support and help fund projects of the Anglican Church in the Argentine Chaco.  If you would like to buy some of these cards to send or to sell please let us know.

* We are grateful to the Lord for the South American’s who are with us – Oscar who is settling in to life in Northern Ireland where he is serving at St Jude’s Belfast, Jackie McCallum in Eglinton, and Saray in Primacy Bangor. We continue to pray for them and their families.

* We thank God too for the safe arrival of Gerardo Gimpel from Chile.  Unfortunately his wife Suyai was not able to travel with him as she pulled ligaments in her ankle and couldn’t fly.  Pray for Gerardo as he settles in and for God’s healing for Suyai so that she and their little boy Tomas might be able to join him soon.

* We continue to pray for Cristian Ascui, David Alanis, and Esteban Alvarez, all of whom served in Northern Ireland and have now returned to South America.  We pray for them as they settle back in again giving thanks or their time here.

PARAGUAY

* Thank God for abundant rain in the Chaco over the last few weeks after a prolonged time of drought and praying for regular rain.

* The Zeballos Cue sewing group are making cosmetic bags to sell at the church`s 3rd fundraising activity for their youth activity room. We thank God for the independence, empowerment and confidence that new sewing skills and sales are giving to several church ladies and for the sewing projects that teams going over from Ireland and the UK were involved in over the years.

* In their work translating and checking OT texts Tim Curtis, Asunción, Martin and Juan note: the intensive checking, constant reading through the texts is quite mentally tiring, so we would value your prayers for stamina. We continue to encourage local Enxet speakers to improve their reading. Some of the young readers visit us in the evening when supper for them (cooked by Tim) is also offered.

* We pray for Bishop Andres and Estela and all the team working with the children and young people in Concepcion Paraguay, with grateful hearts to God for the strength He has given them to show his love and teach his Word in so many different places all through the year.

* We are looking forward to having Gwen Carlisle and Mags Southern – head teachers of St Andrew’s College with us at Friday night live.  We pray for them and the other teachers with all the busyness of the end of the school year.  We thank God for his Word taught to the students during their 15 years at the school, and the difference this makes in their lives and in the country.

ARGENTINA

Gemma Bankhead and Sonya Brown have been serving God alongside Cecilia in Salta Argentina.  We continue to pray for them, and for God’s work in Salta.

• Barr Johnstons in Argentina

Some news and prayer letters recently received into the SAMS office:

• Ed and Marie Brice’s November prayer letter
• MISSION PARAGUAY 2010 Interim Report
• Projects funded by Mission Paraguay during 2010

Some news and prayer letters recently received into the SAMS office:

• Paul & Sarah Tester in Lima, Peru
• David & Gina Hucker in Arica, Chile
• Beryl Baker in the Chaco, Paraguay
  
• Martin & Carla Flores, in La Paz, Bolivia- please note that this is in Spanish

Alf Cooper was at the mine in Chile as the miners emerged last week and was interview on BBC 5 Live just after 5pm (13/10/2010): you can listen to it here.

Andy and Rose Roberts write with a brief message:

Dear friends,

Hope that you’re all well. Just a quick update about our Christmas Fund 2010 which we’ve now opened. Last year we managed to raise a fantastic £1665 with which we were able to buy a full set of new clothes for each boy (including a trip to the Shopping Centre and Macdonalds so that they could choose the clothes/shoes they would like), presents for the Christmas stockings, a Christmas party for the boys plus their friends from school and even money left over to put on a few trips during the holidays in January.

We’d love to be able to do as much of that again this year as possible! So, if you have some lose change left over or would like to contribute however much to making Christmas 2010 one to remember for the boys then please do get in touch with me. As always, we’ll be documenting and filming our activities so you’ll be able to see the difference you’re making in these young lives. Anything you have, no matter how small, will still be able to make a difference this Christmas.

I said in our latest newsletter that I was looking into the possibility of opening up a business account exclusive for the Christmas Fund 2010. I use to have one and in hindsight shouldn’t have closed it because unfortunately I wasn’t able to open one this time around. The banks have clamped down on who can open up a business account, plus the fact that we’re not actually a UK business thwarted my attempt! We didn’t have a business account last year and still managed to organize the money fine, so rest assured we’ll be able to do the same thing again this year. So if you’d like to make a contribution you can do that by an online transfer or cash/cheque deposit at your local Nationwide Bank. The details are – Nationwide Sort code – 07 01 16 Acc num – 09924296

Please do email me if you’re going to make a donation so we can keep track of things this end. Thanks again, Andy & Rose Roberts

Click here for more information about the CMS Latin Weekend: March 25th-27th 2011, at Hayes Conference Centre, Swanwick

Some news and prayer letters recently received into the SAMS office:

• Nick & Catherine Drayson in N. Argentina
• Barrientos in Bolivia
• Barr Johnston’s in N. Argentina
• Linn Tedman in Paraguay
• Mike Belton in Peru

Some news and prayer letters recently received into the SAMS office:

• Paul & Sarah Tester about the Youth Ministry in the Diocese of Peru
• Marcus & Tamara Throup in Joao Pessoa, Brazil
• Caroline Gilmour White in Asuncion, Paraguay
• Ruth & Efraim Vilella in Porto Alegre, Brazil
• Chris & Alison Hawkesbee in Asunción, Paraguay
• Cristóbal & Ale Cerón, Santiago in Chile
• Andy & Rose Roberts in Recife, Brazil, who also have a new video
• Ian & Polly Montgomery have updated their blogs http://missionmeanderings.wordpress.com
• Amigos del Peru http://amigosdelperu.wordpress.com
• The Leakes also have more news; http://leake.blogspot.com

From Alf & Hilary Cooper in Chile;

“Please pray for us as we are now directly involved with the Government to put an end to the Mapuche hunger strike.  Bishop Abelino Apeleo has been named as part of a Dialogue Group. Alf and Hilary”

2 updates on Terry Barratt’s health;

“Dearest friends,Terry is doing very incredibly well considering they took away half his stomach a piece of bowel and 4 tumours!  He is still full of tubes and can only take a sip of water once an hour, so he told me he is beginning to long for a cup of tea and a good breakfast!!  But I think he’s happy it’s going to be a crash diet for him and a way of losing some weight!  He has started to walk along the corridor and sit up.  He can only take very short visits as he gets tired quickly and finds it sore to talk due to the tubes.  He is so grateful to the Lord for the excellent care in the hospital and all your prayers supporting him.  Yesterday wasn’t such a good day, but this morning he sounded chirpier. Much love and God bless you all, Pancha”