The apostle Paul wrote to the church at Rome, “…making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you” (Romans 1:10). Missionary travel—in New Testament times and today—is always a very uncertain thing. We have plans and ideas, but ultimately, we depend on God’s sovereign will to allow us to travel or to keep us from traveling.

Last month, we asked you to pray for our trip to the States. God granted us grace to travel easily to the United States in December without incident. We enjoyed two delightful weeks with our families in Ohio and New Hampshire. Last week, we participated in the GMSA annual missionary conference held in Sebring, Florida with about 75 missionaries and guests in attendance.

As we all left the campground Monday morning, several began to notice scritchy throats and stuffy noses. All of us were planning to return to South America in the coming days and weeks, and we all needed a negative PCR test result to board the plane. Tuesday morning, the first missionary couple scheduled to leave tested positive and had to postpone their trip (they had no symptoms). We both had cold-like symptoms, so we didn’t know how the test we had taken would turn out. Tuesday evening, we prepared everything to be ready to go to the airport for our 11:45 pm flight to Santiago and then rested, waiting for the results of our PCR test to find out if “somehow by God’s will” we would succeed in returning to Antofagasta this week. By God’s good hand, as we were about to despair that we would even receive the test results in time for our flight, we both tested negative and were able to board our flight. Wednesday morning we arrived in Santiago, running a gauntlet of paperwork, PCR tests, and customs. God was gracious, allowing us to arrive in Antofagasta Wednesday afternoon. Since then, we learned that Mark tested positive and so we are both quarantined in our apartment, not allowed to leave except for a medical emergency. We’re just happy to be home!

Victor and Nati, the couple from our church who was planning to be married today, were forced to postpone their wedding, and church services tomorrow may have to return to open air meetings (after just two Sunday morning services in the building). We appreciate your prayers for us and our church family as we seek to continue to meet and respect the ongoing restrictions the government hands down each week. Please pray for our church as they decide on January 23 to call Pastor Andrés as the lead pastor, an important step in our church’s maturing process. We appreciate your partnership and prayer with us.

This is our January 2022 email update. You can sign up to receive our updates in your inbox here. You can download a printable PDF here.