So for those who do not know, we did get the chance to head slightly to the south to a place called Pichilemu where we were going to work with Youth With A Mission, YWAM (JuCUM in Chile) and do some relief work for those effected by the earthquake. We were there from Monday 8th- Tuesday 16th of this month. On the first couple of days we went to one house where we could help some builders to rebuild an old families house. There was pretty much nothing left of this house, but we had to break down a few remaining walls and then we layed the foundations and made some walls. It was a really good time, and felt very productive, but then one of the men from the family got very upset because one of the rooms had been designed wrong and there was a mistake with where the doors were. At first I was kind of upset to see him like this, here we were rebuilding his house for him, for free, trying to get his life back on track and he was in fits of anger and tears at the first mistake. But God really was teaching me a lot through this time. How our motivation to do these things should be for him, and not for the appreciation or the gratitude of others. Like it says in Matthew 25, ⁴⁰"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' Whatever I do in my life, I do for Jesus. I may not always receive a positive reaction, but God will always see what I do, and he will always see my heart and he is all the appreciation I should need.

Whilst we were at Pichilemu, you might have heard, or maybe not, but we were in another pretty strong after shock. It measured 6.9, but felt like a 7.2 because it was very close to the surface and we were around 20km from the epicentre. At the time many of us were in one of the YWAM buildings where we were preparing a meal in the second story. The building we were in was not a stable building and we were told that it moved a lot even just in the wind. I found it a much worse experience that the first one because with the other one I was barely awake and did not really have the time to think about it afterwards as I just wanted to get back to my bed! but with this one it was in the middle of the day, and we had so so soooo many more strong aftershocks after that. It was also much more disconcerting as we were outside for many of them, and then you can tell that it is not just the building moving, but it is the earth. When your knees buckle because the earth jerks away from under you, I cannot explain the feeling. God was the only thing that I could cling onto in this time. He has been so present in this whole time. I have heard people telling me that I seem very strong despite these things happening, well.. I am not.. the only reason I do not fear is because I know God is with me, and he is in control even when we can do nothing but brace ourselves for the impact of the earth going crazy. In the words of our Bible teacher 'if I'll be a pancake, It's time for me to be a pancake!'.

Isaiah 54:10 (New International Version)

¹⁰ Though the mountains be shaken
and the hills be removed,
yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken
nor my covenant of peace be removed,"
says the LORD, who has compassion on you.

But enough talk about earthquakes.. life this week carried on as usual. We went to the hogar on Monday, and shared the last programme about the armour of God. Today we were talking about the helmet of Salvation. It was not too bad... but it was not great. There are many restless and frightened boys in that hogar, they are still not able to live in most of the building and so they are all squashed up in one half of it. I can also feel there is a spiritual battle there as we had a great time with the boys before we started, and afterwards we played and really had fun, but as soon as Lise began to speak it was as if they really could not stay focused. There was always something happening. We shared a prayer of salvation with them, and they repeated it. I am just praying that at least one boy said that prayer and really understood the message, and one boy knows that he is saved. Please pray for them and that the message will stay on their minds so they continue to think about Gods amazing grace, and come to accept him to their lives.

We also went to the homeless ministry last night, I was part of a team praying for the evening again. We are a large group and so we are able to do this each week I believe. it is something that I really enjoy a lot. God revealed so much hope for that place to us, and we were just declaring his name at four corners of the square we go to, and we were just feeling the power behind that. Although we can feel the heaviness of that area, I know that there is a lot of violence, sexual abuse, drugs and alcohol in these places, but even though we walk to these places God tells us that we do not need to be afraid. He is so much stronger than any power of hell.

At the moment the prostitutes ministry is not restarting, this is something we would love your prayer about as well. The leader of this ministry has lost her job, and many situations have changed which means that there may be difficulties when restarting the ministry. Pray that God will show where he wants it to go, what he wants us to do.

Also please pray for OM Chile who are searching for a new base for the IT and the offices. At the moment they are wasting a lot of money from travelling the IT to all the different ministries, and to the offices and to Spanish classes. Also we have three rented buildings, and this is obviously not the most cost effective way of doing it. OM would like to bring the boys house, girls house and offices closer, even in the same property. There are many people coming to work next year, which is really exciting, but at the moment there is no room for them! So prayers would really be appreciated, we have found a couple of places, but they tend to be way out of budget.

Thank-you for reading and praying for me :)

Wishing you all a great week

Emma xxx