June 2013 Prayer Letter

June 2013

Dear Prayer Supporters:

We would like to announce the engagement of our oldest daughter, Rachel, to Michael Glover from Phoenix, Arizona.  Their wedding will be September 7^th of this year 2013.  We are very, very happy for them to begin a new life together serving the Lord.  They will be married at Grace Baptist Church in Twin Falls, Idaho where Rachel has been teaching in the Christian Day School.  We are looking forward to being with family during this very special time.

Thank you to those of you who have responded to our furlough dates.  We appreciate the meetings we were able to schedule and ask your prayers as we try and coordinate the trips between the churches that support us in the east and in the west, as well as attending our daughter’s wedding. If you would like us to come and report please contact us at the email address at the top of this letter.

The men at Rayo Cortado have continued to stay enthusiastic and interested in sharing God’s Word evangelistically in a chronological manner to the lost.  People have really been responding to their teachings.  The desire and end result in missions is that reproducing churches will be established.  That means that the national is able to do the work of evangelizing, discipling, and forming groups who desire to be obedient to God and to the commands of Christ.  We co-labor with them in order for them to reach these goals.  It has been such a joy to see them so excited about what God is doing in their town, reaching out into the towns around them and people who live in the country.  Since Joe has been meeting with them, they have not missed any meetings on Tuesday nights.  What a joy to minister to people who desire God’s Word and to invest their time in the lives of people.  This involves meeting different people that have come from very difficult situations.  We thank God for their commitment to learn how to deal with all of these situations and allow God to truly “work all things together for good.”

Our co-worker Steve Diem has been making great progress in Villa del Totoral.  He has several Bible studies in town with men who are desiring to know what the Bible says and also another young man who trusted Christ as Savior who is being discipled.  At different times in this young man’s walk with Christ, Steve has asked Joe to share important principles from God’s Word and experiences from Joe’s life to help this young man in his new Christian life.  This young man has also invited his friends to some of the studies and is actively witnessing for Christ.  Also, Steve has been sharing the Story of Hope ( a walk through the Bible from Genesis to Christ) with  two older couples who desire to know the whole story before they make a decision for Christ.  As Steve has been meeting with them several times a week, he has also asked Joe to join him to help with the teaching in bringing out certain points that need to be emphasized.  We are praying for the salvation of these couples.  In between these studies we have meals with them so that Becky and Gail can get to know the couples and minister to the wives.

Praises

• Those attending the Bible studies
• The men in Rayo and their growth

Prayer Requests

• Salvation of those attending evangelistic bible studies
• Wisdom in the direction of the work here in Totoral

Your Colaborers in Argentina,

Joe and Gail Owens 

Family 2013

The newest grandson, Ryder Joe, and the proud parents are Jon and Heidi.  Heidi is our second daughter.

Jon and Ryder

Heidi and Ryder

Cousins meet for the first time!  Conner and Easton

Sisters get together for the first time in a while!

Our oldest daughter Rachel, soon to be married!

Edie, our third daughter, graduates with an Associates Degree in Business

Our youngest daughter on the right, Kelly, is one of our army girls.  She's a bio-medical technician.

Laurie, in the middle, is our fourth daughter, in the National Guard.  She is also married and has a son Conner!

This is Laurie in the middle with Conner and her husband Robin.  We managed to have four daughters with us one Christmas while on furlough!

Argentina 2013

Getting ready for Joe's birthday party!

A favorite meal for the argentines and us!

Joe enjoying preparing his "asado" for his birthday!

A toast for Joe's birthday (58) and many more years of service for God!

May 2013 Prayer Letter

May 2013 Dear Prayer Supporters, We will be planning to come to the states this year for a furlough and would like to know if any of our supporting churches would be interested in having us come and share our ministry and what God is doing in Argentina. This furlough is due to a very, very special occasion that we will announce in another prayer letter soon. This special occasion will take place in the west in September! We would like to coordinate our visits the best we can in order to minimize the trips between our supporting churches in the east and west. Please let us know as soon as possible if there is any interest on your part as we will need to decide which months we will be in the states. You can contact Joe at joeowensar@yahoo.com or call on Skype joe.owens. We plan two months in the states, three at the max.

Thank you so much for your prayers for the annual conference held in Argentina this year. God gave us a beautiful place, beautiful weather, and wonderful fellowship. We really appreciated the board members of our mission coming to visit us on the field this year. They are visiting a different area each year where BMW missionaries are located. Talking with the missionaries and seeing their ministries in person will help them as they make decisions as a board for the progress in missions work. There was a “passing of the baton” as our Area Director for many years, Rob Heijerman, has left this position to serve in Canada. We will miss Rob and Donna greatly. We appreciated their work and service for the Lord. We enjoyed getting to know the new Area Director, Don Phleger and enjoyed our fellowship with him and his wife Anita. We are looking forward to many more visits with them. We enjoyed hosting them in our home, as well as some other board members before and after the conference. We are thankful to one of our supporting churches, Grace Baptist Church, in Twin Falls, Idaho, for allowing and providing so our oldest daughter Rachel could come to the conference to work with the children while the parents were able to enjoy the preaching and participate in the various meetings. Her school and principal graciously gave her a week to be able to come and fulfill this ministry. We think that she did a tremendous job with the children and I know many people enjoyed getting to know her and appreciated her so much. This is a group picture taken, minus Joe, because he was transporting people to the airport.

The work in Rayo Cortado continues with the men being trained in leadership for bringing people to Christ, discipling them, and preparing them to work in other towns around them as well. They have really been enjoying teaching the men the chronological study of the Bible. There was great rejoicing as several decisions for Christ have been made as a result of these studies. We ask continued prayer for our co-workers the Diems as they are working in the lives of several families to bring them to Christ here in Villa del Totoral. The door continues to open up slowly in getting to know our own neighbors where we are living. One neighbor had been saved a year and a half before we moved here. He was anxious to find out who his new neighbors were and was so happy to find that Joe was not only a Christian, but someone mature in the faith in which he could ask many questions. This has opened up more doors with people that Christian knows in town. He and his wife are also from a town north of here, San Jose de La Dormida. This town has been on our prayer list for a while and so there may be some possibilities of starting a work there in the future. Gail has been teaching English to a neighbor lady and praying that she will be open to receiving the gospel. Gail also met a few more neighbors by way of a chimney fire in our home! Apparently, the chimney had not been cleaned and there was a dried wasp nest at the top. It set the chimney on fire and brought out quite a few neighbors to be with Gail until the fire truck showed up. Thank you for your prayers for our safety. Praise God there wasn’t any damage done to the house. Joe and Gail Owens

March 2013 Prayer Letter

March 2013 Dear Prayer Supporters, We have been greatly encouraged with the group of believers in Rayo Cortado as they continue to put into practice biblical ways of working in the lives of people. The men have been greatly encouraged by the response of the town towards them, as they first of all show people that they are genuinely interested in their lives as Christ did. The men have been able to begin Bible studies with other men in the town and as they teach the Bible chronologically, there is a great response because the people are interested in the whole story and not just fragments of the Bible. Also, as a result, they have more people interested in attending their regularly scheduled meetings. Gail continues to encourage the women to be what God needs them to be for their husbands so the work of the Great Commission can be fulfilled. Our goal has always been to train leadership in forming biblical churches that will be reproducing in the community, other surrounding towns, the province, and the world. The group in Rayo Cortado has been working in another community encouraging a family where the mother has left her husband and her four children. The families in Rayo Cortado have been taking turns helping to encourage this family, spending time with the children, helping with some of the household tasks and encouraging the 10 year-old daughter who has been left in charge of caring for her younger siblings. At times, this is overwhelming for this young girl who is normally a very happy child. She has made a profession of faith and is praying for her mom and dad’s salvation.

Slowly, doors are opening up in this community for Bible studies with men as the leaders of their families. In Villa del Totoral where we are living, we continue to pray that God will help us to work effectively with the Diems and to promote the unity needed to form the group of believers that God desires here. We are always impressed by the fact that God is the One who adds to the church daily. As we do our part in following up contacts who are open to talking about the Bible, God is always faithful in doing His part in giving us wisdom to share the Word to bring them to Christ. Steve has introduced us to a couple who are older than us, and as we visited them we were able to add to the testimony that the Diems have with this older couple. Please continue to pray for Steve and Becky Diem, our coworkers here in Totoral, that they will continue to be encouraged with the families in which they have established a tremendous testimony. We are praying they will be able to bring these families to Christ in God’s time. Joe also had the opportunity to again share the Gospel with two men in town. Joe continues to mentor Steve in pastoral counseling. They are working through how to deal with the problems you encounter when working in the lives of people. Problems bring people to Christ. The goodness of God can bring people to Him, but mostly it’s the destruction in their lives as a result of worldly living that drive people to look for help. Even though Joe and I are older and have more experience in some areas, we really appreciate the Diems because God has gifted them in areas that we are not gifted in. We have enjoyed learning from them and we have stayed encouraged in the ministry as a result of their testimony to us. Please pray for their family as they minister in a foreign culture.

We continue to remain in contact with former disciples in Buenos Aires to encourage them and help them in whatever way we can as they seek to disciple others. Please continue to pray for the Javier Bravo family as they continue nourishing the church they have planted. They actually minister in “restricted areas” in Argentina where Joe and I cannot go. They minister in “villas de miseria” (ghettos) where Joe and I are not permitted to go, by our Argentine friends, because there is actually no government control within many of these areas, and our lives would be at risk. Recently, Javier has been asked by several churches to help them learn how to use the Firm Foundations material in their evangelism and discipleship.

We would also like you to be in prayer for our group of Cordoba BMW missionaries. We have two other families south of us that are working in different cities in Cordoba. We had a group meeting for all of us here at our place the other day. Our desire was to encourage one another and move forward in the vision of planting reproducing churches that will co-labor with the Argentines. Our work is to train leadership so that we can encourage the Argentines to do the work of the ministry and pastor their own churches. We desire to train, encourage, and give them whatever tools are necessary for them to plant their own churches and fulfill the Great Commission by sending out their own missionaries. We would like to remind you that when this is accomplished, they will be able to go to countries where USA citizens are restricted in their access. Your Co-laborers in Argentina, Joe and Gail Owens

Outdoor oven for bread, pizza, empanadas and much more.

Happy New Year 2013 from Argentina

Dear Prayer Partners

Just received some great news this morning and something for you all to pray about. Jorge from Rayo Cortado stopped by on his way back from visiting his parents for New Year’s and shared how their end of year activity went. They were able to have a young lady who is a believer and also sings folkloric music come and sing for them on December 29. She also shared her testimony of how God had worked in her life to draw her to Himself and the difference her relationship with God has made in her life. Several others from Rayo also shared their salvation testimonies.

The group in Rayo worked hard on inviting people with whom they had previously had the opportunity of sharing the Gospel. They had between 90-100 people present. The singer arrived with her musicians at 11:30 pm and began the concert. The concert lasted until 2:30 am. There was a salvation message preached. Afterwards, several expressed an interest in having people from the church come and begin an evangelistic Bible study with them. One of them was the police chief from Rio Seco, another was a doctor from San Francisco de Chañar.

The thing that excited me the most was the change in the focus of the church in Rayo. They like doing the big events. This time they viewed the big event not as an evangelistic push in and of itself but as a door that allowed people from the community to come and meet the church and see how God was working in the lives of their members. They viewed it as a way to find out who in the different communities would be interested in hosting evangelistic Bible studies in their homes. They are putting into practice the chronological way of teaching the Bible which we have spent the last year in preparing them to teach. This way of teaching has been very well received in the communities and it is has really motivated the men.

Pray for them as they follow up on these contacts. Pray specifically that God would move in the hearts of those who have expressed an interest in opening their homes for the studies. Pray for those family members who will hear the chronological presentation of the wonderful salvation God has provided, the culmination of which we celebrate at this time of year. Pray for the men as they lead these studies. Pray for the women who have been challenged by their husbands at Rayo Cortado to prepare themselves so they can lead studies among the women to support their own husbands as spiritual leaders in their families.

Pray for Joe as he continues meeting with the men and providing the leadership training they need to form not only the church in Rayo but to form the leaders of the new churches that they are hoping will come out of these evangelistic Bible studies in Rio Seco and San Francisco de Chañar. Pray too for Gail as she continues to encourage the ladies to follow the men’s lead in these things.

Thank you so much for your faithful prayers for us as we continue to labor here in the heart of Argentina.

Joe and Gail Owens