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