Happy Christmas and a very Happy Hogmanay – and 2011!

Glory to GOD for all He has done, is doing, and WILL do!

Here’s our latest newsletter for the past couple of months…enjoy! And thanks for all your support…xx

Quinteros Clan SeptOct 2010

Our challenge constantly here in Sumumpaya is to be the feet, and hands, of Jesus. It is such a privilege, yet so very hard sometimes. Even so, God is so faithful and hopefully you can see that from our latest newsletter below!

Quinteros Clan News May-Aug 2010

Enjoy!

Today has been a day of settling in before the work begins tomorrow! We feel so blessed to have such a great group of people – friends – with us, believing in what we do, and in the faithfulness of God. And of course, the 13 people here on the ground are representatives of a much larger team back in Holywood, who have supported and encouraged, prayed and believed along the way – not only for the team in these months, but for Marcos and I over the years. You are all so special to us!

So, here’s to an amazing two weeks!! The team’s blog,  http://bolivia2010.wordpress.com/ will be updated daily – so please follow all the latest news!!

PEPE has finished the first semester and is now in it’s winter holidays (2 or 3 weeks long, depending on how cold it gets – the government decides!) but the Adult English classes have begun, thanks to 3 great girls from the UK…more about them later!

Just 3 days after Gwen’s return, the team from Belfast arrive! Please pray for them, as they get ready and the excitement grows for us all. It’s going to be a great two weeks together.

Thanks for always reading thus far…I’ll get this updated, and a regular prayerletter out asap!

Wendy helps with the children 2 mornings a week, and is so very humble as she does so. She never complains about the amount of times she has to take children to the toilet, or brush teeth, wash hands or simply help control the mayhem! Wendy’s official role in Bolivia is working with another mission organisation, but she finds the time to come to PEPE too. Thanks Wendy!

Joelle is half Bolivian, half Belgian! She teaches Christian Education one day a week in PEPE, while the rest of her time is spent studying Speech Therapy, which she will continue on her return to Belgium in the autumn. Thank you Joelle for all that you do!

And Mileydi, or Milly, is the psychologist who has been working so very hard, doing psychological evaluations of every child in PEPE, looking at their social, emotional and educational development. As you can imagine, this has been a large project to undertake, but the need is huge…Thank you Milly, for all the you do, both in PEPE and School support group too!

We are so grateful for each person who steps through the doors of the Centre, because each one contributes something to the life of this community, if they know it or not…Will YOU make the step too??

http://bolivia2010.wordpress.com/

She’s working as a missionary in a barrio in Bolivia, and trying to develop a new community centre there.

For her church isn’t something separate, but simply a part of meeting people’s everyday needs for education, medical care or employment.

It’s upside-down Christianity, says Paul: the church is part of the community centre not the other way round.

Find your way to Cochabamba: “city of eternal spring” in the middle of Bolivia, and then home in on the barrio of Sumumpaya on its western edge.

That’s where Gwen and Marcos Quinteros are involved in their mission: an integral church which takes account of bodies and minds as well as souls.

Gwen comes from a Christian family herself: her dad, Paul, has spent time helping Christians in Albania and New Zealand.

After summer holiday mission trips as a student at St Andrews, Gwen opted for a year in Bolivia, where she met her future husband Marcos.

The pair of them spent some time in Bible college over here before they went back to Bolivia as independent missionaries, living, as they’d tell you, by faith and donations.

The community centre in Sumumpaya stands as physical proof of their determination to improve the lives of those around them. It provides medical and dental help, pre-school education and after school support.

Women’s groups demonstrate the Quinteros’s belief that church is learning to knit; the new sports hall that football is church…so is volleyball, and basketball.

There is a room in the centre for worship, but for them church isn’t a place it’s a process, and one they’re convinced could well be applied elsewhere, not just in the developing world.

Paul left his home in Brassington recently, and went out to visit Gwen, Marcos and their two girls. He came back convinced that this integral approach, this upside-down-ness, would work well here in Britain.

We may have few cities which could aspire to eternal spring, but maybe Cochabamba has more than its climate to offer: it could contain a model mission.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/derby/hi/people_and_places/religion_and_ethics/newsid_8659000/8659883.stm

Thanks Dad for all your work to make our (God’s!) work in Bolivia known!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p007jhj2

Also, we are hoping to set up a new website, exclusively for the Centre. The address will be

www.integral-church-in-cochabamba.com

So watch this space – or that address - for more details, coming soon!