Forward Motion!!!

It was almost two years ago that I accepted the assignment of developing LAM’s North American Alliance department in order to work with, assist and develop resources for missionary sending and supporting churches, but that was immediately sidetracked when I had to take over and re-structure our International Alliances Department. I am 100% certain that this was by God’s design and it gave me a spectacular overview and introduction to all of our international ministries, equipping me to advise North American Church’s on how to intelligently work with Latin partners.  As recently as two months ago the banner of International Alliance Director was definitively handed to a co-laborer, finally liberating me to peruse what I’ve been chomping at the bit to work on. The only question was where to begin...

Well the conference I attended last week was a huge encouragement in this direction. The "Interchange" Conference put on by Catalyst Services focused on coaching in the context of partnership development, training mentors of future missionaries and conflict resolution between missionaries, churches and missions agencies. If it's a surprise to you that there's conflict involved in CHRISTIAN missions, so sorry!  Actually, this conference touched most of the areas I have been, and am currently working in spanning our international alliances, the missionaries that work there and the churches that send these missionaries out. I also had the spectacular opportunity to learn from others that facing similar challenges as LAM, and those who are a few years ahead of us in developing their own North American focus and can help me avoid many of the pitfalls they have had to learn from. 

All in all, it was a VERY encouraging time for where I believe the Lord is leading LAM, and our role in assisting North American churches and Christian ministries assess, or re-think how their particular vision and calling at home, relates to the commandment of "GO AND MAKE DISCIPLES OF ALL NATIONS...". 

Please be praying for me as I work to create a master plan for this department even as I continue to work with many of the churches that have partnered with us over the years. I have already been blessed in being able to take part in re-connecting churches with Latin ministries they had lost contact with, mediate various issues between missionaries and their sending churches and assist numerous churches as they work through a re-structuring of their missions program. I feel like a kid in a candy store (or myself at Outdoor World) in what I believe the coming year may hold, but I also see an OVERWHELMING amount of work, and for this I need your prayers as well. Please pray for wisdom, endurance, discernment and the Lord's provision of an assistant (a supported missionary would help keep costs down) who could help me keep up on all that needs to be done. 

Thank you for your prayer and financial support as we enter into this new year. Check out or new web page, and please consider making an end of the year gift via:

• Online giving page: Abegg Online Donations
• Printable Mail in: Abegg Printable Donation slip

God bless and Merry Christmas!

Valley Forge at Sunset on my way back to Philadelphia. 

LAM Has a New Website!

It's been a long time in coming and desperately needed in order to better communicate with and to all of our partners, missionaries and those who simply want to grow in there missions understanding of Latin America or the world in general.

Personally, I am most excited about the "Partnership" section (which includes my area of responsibility in North American Alliances) and particularly the various resources we're beginning to gather to help our alliance members. Please take a few minutes to see what I've been working on lately and the direction we're going for the future. Here's a few links:

• http://lam.org/partner/for-churches
• http://www.lam.org/partner/for-colleges-and-universities
• http://www.lam.org/partner/us-partnership
• http://www.lam.org/partner/for-latin-ministries
• http://www.lam.org/partner/resources-for-responsible-partnership

You can find my North American Alliance Director Bio on the "team" page: http://www.lam.org/about-us/our-team

And don't forget the Abegg family Bio as well as our new donation/support link (use well and use often) J at: http://lam.org/missionaries/kevin-and-claudia-abegg

MISsionUNDERSTANDING : Partnership

I've placed a new post on our other blog: http://missionunderstandings.blogspot.com

MISsionUNDERSTANDING : Partnership

…something I believe needs to be re-defined in the North American Church's understanding of international missions, especially when it comes to our perception of the Latin American church's current and future contribution toward "making disciples of all nations…".

Too often there is the perception that North American Missions to Latin America consists of: "us going to help them because they need our help", or the other extreme: "Latin America is now evangelized so we should focus elsewhere". If we approach missions to Latin America from either of these perspectives we fail to recognize what God has accomplished through generations of missionaries and that the Gospel has not returned void but produced much fruit and new partners in the Great Commission…

See the whole article at: http://missionunderstandings.blogspot.com

Lessons We've Learned from our Kids #17

If you use a dry-erase board for Home Schooling your 7 year old, and there happens to be one permanent marker hidden somewhere safe in the same house, the 7 year old will find it and use it for schoolwork on the dry-erase board, leaving a record for future generations to enjoy.

This same 7 year old, using this same permanent marker, just may happen to “accidently” draw eyebrows and a mustache on his younger brother.

If you are going to carve something into mommy and daddy's office desk and then attempt to deny it, do not carve your own name.

Anything and everything can be a musical instrument…a VERY, VERY LOUD musical instrument.

On that note, for the life of me I can’t remember why we keep bongos in the house.

Back Pattio Update

Prayer Item: I received a call from the insurance adjuster who I’ve been working through in dealing with our patio and back door issue (see previous entry) . She called to give me the good news that we are not sitting on top of a sink hole. That is great news! (Sink holes have been known to swallow entire blocks of homes without so much as a single burp). The bad news is that the dropping of our patio was due to “organic deterioration erosion” or something to that effect which means that there is no assistance available from insurance (aka: “not covered”). They will be sending me the written report in a few weeks at which point I’ll have a chance to wade through their reasoning and give a response.

Praise Item: As we currently could not afford to replace the boy’s bedroom window on our own, we’ve had the hurricane shutters up to keep rain, bugs and anything else out until we heard back from the insurance company. Some dear friends however felt that we shouldn’t wait on this and blessed us a love offering of $400. so we could replace the window and air out the boys room. (A room housing two active boys who live in a tropical climate desperately needs ventilation!). At the time our friends did not know the replacement cost of the window, but including a few complications, the labor, materials and everything came exactly to $402! We want to thank these friends, those of you who have been praying for us now and all of you who continue to provide amazing prayer and financial support to the Abegg family.

Excitement, Cracks and Insurance

A few weeks back, around 10:00 AM, Claudia, Jeremy and Nico were at the dining room table doing their morning classes when the house gave a short, violent jolt very similar to the small Californian and Chilean earthquakes we used to experience. The jolt was immediately followed by the sound of shattering glass from the boy’s room where their sliding glass door had exploded sending glass debris throughout their room and 20 feet into the back yard.

The sliding glass door had exploded as a result of our cement back patio dropping up to 5” in places and creating giant cracks that now crisscross the entire slab. We thank God that this happened when the boys were out of the room (they could have been in bed or playing with Legos in their usual spot right in front of the door) and that nobody was hurt.

So we boarded up their room with the hurricane shutters (essentially turning their room into a dark cave), reported the insurance claim and started thinking of how to deal with this new challenge. In order to make sure that we weren’t sitting on top of a sinkhole the insurance company sent a geologist team to our house who spent two days hammering and boring holes, dragging measuring devices around every corner of the house and measuring things like elevation changes, water levels and who knows what else.

For now we need to wait for the report before any possibility of insurance assistance comes through, but here’s the catch (as I understand it): If there is a sink hole under our house, the necessary repairs will be covered (new sliding glass door & replace patio), BUT we can pretty much plan on never being able to sell a home that has a sink hole attached to it’s permanent record. If there is no sinkhole we don’t have to be concerned about being swallowed up by the earth in the middle of the night, we can sell our home in the future, but we are on our own with the repairs. (Oh how I love insurance companies). So... I’m praying for wisdom and discernment on how to navigate this and would ask you to do the same.

Thanks!

30, 60, 100 X!

In July the Abegg family took part in a reunion with the families of six life long friends from my UCSanta Cruz days ('88-'92). These men and their respective families have, and are serving the Lord literally in all corners of the globe. Dan McWilliams, the Intervarsity leader who put up with us all those years ago wrote about the time in his most recent news letter. Since I haven't uploaded any of my pictures or shared my thoughts on this time, I'll pass his along. (click on the image to enlarge). Praise the Lord with us in what He has, and continues to do through a group of radically different, goof-ball freshmen that He brought together in the very secular setting of Santa Cruz. He truly is a "God of Wonders"!

Reports from the Field - Medellin, CO

Being involved with both the North American and International Alliances department of Latin America Mission gives me a great view of many of the things that God is doing, but would never come out in the evening news or the Sunday paper. When I’m able I like to pass along the good news.

Alexis & Nicole Pineda serve as LAM missionaries in Medellin Colombia. They work with our partner ministry Open Arms Foundation reaching street kids with the truth and healing of the Gospel. In their most recent news letter they shared the following testimony:

Alexis and Daniela at the Girls’ Home

Daniela is now 17 years old. When she was just a baby, her father died. Since her mother was living in the streets at the time, she was then raised by her grandparents (her father’s parents). She had always thought that her grandparents were her parents, but when she was 11 years old, her grandmother told her the truth about her mother living in the streets and her father dying many years ago.

Daniela’s grandparents are Christians, and they always took her to church. Once Daniela found out the truth about her parents, she asked God to let her meet her mother (she had only seen her in photos). Daniela ran away from home several times in search of her mother. One day, a few days after she returned back home from the streets, her grandmother took her to church to be baptized. A month later, she ran away to the streets again. She was then 13 years old and already knew how to get around much of the city. That same day, she found her mother. She hugged her mother tightly and didn’t want to let go. Her mother then took her to where she lived in a motel room. A couple of hours later, some men arrived and raped Daniela. Her mother had sold her for just a small amount of Colombian pesos because she needed money to buy drugs. Her mother then gave her marijuana so that she would forget about what happened, and so that she would do it again. If she wanted to live with her mother, she had to prostitute herself to pay for food and her mother’s drugs.

After a period of time, Daniela decided to leave her mother, but she was already trapped by the life of the streets. She began to live in a little cave along the dirty, brown Medellin River. She worked at night and rested during the day. She took in some little street boys and took care of them and they took care of her. They called her “mom”.

She then went and lived in a motel for a while, and was found and sent to the Open Arms Foundation. She has been living at our Casa Helena Girls’ Home since February 2011. It has not been easy for her and she has wanted to run away and return to the streets several times, but she has persevered. During the early morning devotions, she started to ask for prayer for herself because she had such a strong desire to change but it was so difficult.

She then began to be more active in the Foundation church and to participate in the devotions. She wants to have a good future, and she says that Jesus has given her hope. She knows, however, that she needs to be reconciled to God, and she has asked for help in this. In August, Alexis began to lead Daniela in a process of forgiveness and reconciliation. The Foundation’s Robledo Church (located at the Casa Helena Girls’ Home) will hold a special reconciliation ceremony for her when she is ready. She is very nervous, but very excited, too.

This is just one example of what God is doing. Thank you so much for your prayers and support because you are helping give hope to many kids like Daniela.

Please keep the Pineda’s, those they serve and the many other ministries served by LAM missionaries in your prayers. Likewise, I covet your prayers for the work we do at LAM’s Miami Service Office in order to forge new partnerships, maintain the network we already have and support missionaries to, within and from Latin America.

In His Hands / En Sus manos;

Kevin S. Abegg

Hurricane IRENE

Could make for an interesting week in South Florida!