Southside Church of Christ World Missions
Lexington, Kentucky
Hello dear friends, I hope you are well with God’s help.
We traveled from March 7 to April 1 to the United States with the evangelist of the church of Christ the Los Nogales Masaru Guzman. I want to thank God for my dear friend Masaru. It was a great instrument and a blessing for all of us.
Read about their travels in the following file you can open and/or download:
Hello beloved friends,
We had an unforgettable experience in the city of La Serena. My children Marcelo and Matraca invited us to their house in the fourth region of Chile, the city of La Serena to enjoy a week’s vacation with my wife Lorena and my daughter Aylin.
When we arrived at Marcelo’s house on Monday, there was a meeting of “evangelical” pastors to share a Biblical devotional and pray. The pastors gave me the opportunity to share “my testimony” of how God called me with His grace.
When I finished sharing my testimony and the transformation of Jesus in my life, one of the pastors got up from the table, walked toward me, gave me a hug, and crying told me: “Peyuco (nickname for Pedro), the bandit from Los Nogales (where I am from), I knew you and I witnessed what your old life was like and how now God has changed you to be his instrument.” There was a moment of great excitement and rejoicing with everyone present. We got up to glorify God for his great love and mercy.
To read the full report, open or download this file:
Hola in Christ!
We are alive and kicking here in early 2024 even though it saw a lot of good and a lot of stretch in our physical and spiritual lives! Normally we send out the Christmas cards, the end of year emails, post on the gram and the socials but this year literally was a blur.
Over these last three months glory to God we have had 8 more baptisms. , I thank God because without the help of the church we would not be able to do a good job of evangelism, since they are the same brothers who make the contacts so that we can come to their house and talk to them about the gospel, it’s all a team effort.
But one of the best blessings was that Julio Cedeño, one of the Elders from the Northwest Church of Christ, our overseeing congregation of our mission work here, and his son also named Julio Cedeño (different middle name) an amazing man of God and fantastic brother in arms of ours from the Hollywood Church of Christ came and visited us in December and encouraged us, poured into our congregation here in Nogales and in the Church plant we serve in in the city in Antofogasta in the north of Chile. It is beyond what words can write to tell you the encouragement it is to us to have you all come and meet the people we serve and just encourage us and see the work up close. We loved getting to be blessed by their visit, their wisdom, their teaching and their love.
To read more from this report, open or download this file:
Josh Blackmer is a missionary at the Palm Beach Lakes Church of Christ. He was working as a missionary for 5 years in Paraguay. From there has began to travel to Isla de Pascua (Easter Island) and before the pandemic he contacted us. We were planning a trip to help him with the work he was doing there but
unfortunately it was not possible due to the pandemic and they did not allow us access to the island but we kept in touch until today.
In January we sent one of our evangelists Raul Diaz to help in the work that is being done there. We agree that we will make 4 trips within the year to continue helping our brother Josh. May God bless Josh and everything he is doing.
To read more about the work of Pedro Sanchez and evangelists at Los Nogales in Santiago, open or download this file:
Hola Brothers and Sisters!
Yes, this report is a month behind schedule and our apologies but that is due to the fact that these past three months have been some of the busiest we have seen in yet. Thank you for your patience and we are excited to share what has been happening here since August! God has been moving in big ways and we are doing our best to keep up and raise up workers along side us.
So many of you know that the large part of our work is evangelism, edification and restoration, most of that work is done through personal bible studies in homes or visits. Laura and I sat down and counted it out and over the last 3 months I have been studying with 32 different people weekly in homes in one or more of those three areas. That number has never been so high before and not without its fruits.
In the last 3 months we have had 17 new baptisms glory to God. 2 in September, 13 in October, and 2 in November. September we celebrated our churches 27th year anniversary as a congregation with a big congregational dinner, we were so blessed to have Brian and Michelle visiting us from Ecuador, they blessed us by taking my wife and I to the Southern part of Chile for a 3 day couple get away which was a time of prayer, renewel and fun! What a blessing, we also have our Chilean National celebrations 18th of September where Chile celebrates it’s independence and the whole country goes on a 5 day holiday in honor of that! So there are a lot of barbeques and time together in family. But Church doesn’t stop and as our church continues to grow and the demand for my time and the other evangelists time is needed
more in outreach. Yet God in his provision has also brought more great young men willing to serve to the fore front. So in October, I offered a Lord’s supper and devotional preparation training for men in our congregation who are interested.
There was a great turn out, around 14 men of all ages showed up. Several have taken great initiative and are doing a wonderful job. The Congregation in La Villa also held there annual evangelistic campaign where I was again honored to be invited to be one of the speakers and that campaign resulted in 3 of the 17 baptisms I am happy to tell you about.
Laura has also been very busy working on a series in Genesis for our women’s ministry here in Nogales. She has given three classes and is set to give the fourth at the end of this month. The series is called “Us” looking at the relational nature of God and therefore the relational dynamic we were created for with each other and God as being image bearers. It is very exciting work and our ladies are loving it. She is also working very hard as a tutor for our girls home school community, teaching our own two girls and investing in women in our church one on one ministry needs of various women just by having them in our home and listening to them and praying with them. This year she has worked very hard in building up
new leaders for our children’s ministry and has a great group of ladies.
For more news from Pablo and Laura Sanchez, read or download the PDF file below. Photos are included.
This year we have made 3 visits to Uruguay and, if God allows us, we want to continue next year.
A few months ago the church of Christ in Uruguay invited our Evangelist in Los Nogales, Raul Diaz, to carry out an Evangelistic campaign, then Raul went again, with Daniel Albarran, who is another Evangelist fellow of La Villa Church of Christ.
For the third trip they invited to me for helping them in their biblical organization with the future elders of the church. It is practically a new church with 12 old follow church members who stayed, the other fellows are all foreigners. The church in total is composed of 60 members, They have their own Evangelist, Manuel Herrera, and the church will send him to Chile for his training and biblical preparation.
To continue reading Pedro’s November 2023 report, read or download the PDF file below:
Southside-supported Chilean evangelist Pedro Sanchez and his wife Lorena recently celebrated 39 years of marriage.
He captioned this photo: “Aniversario 39 de matrimonio. Gracias a nuestro gran Dios.”
Members of the Iglesía del Señor en Chillán gather to celebrate Independence Day in Chilé, September 18.
Church of Christ in Chillán, Chilé, purchases land as first step to having it’s own place to meet and worship.
Southside-supported evangelist Luis Zepeda Mir reports that the congregation he serves in Chillán, a city about four-and-a-half hours south of Santiago, has purchased land in the urban radius as the first step in constructing a place of its own for the church to meet.
Translation of Facebook post: “All the glory to the Lord! There were many years of sweat, tears, difficulties, of working and working, of saving, but God has been faithful and we were able to fulfill this first dream, we already have our land! Now to fight for the next stages, to get up and build! God is with us! And he will give us the strength and resources to be able to complete this project so that the blessing of God continues to flow in Chillán, its surroundings and throughout South Chilé. Busy times ahead! But there will also be times of blessing and of breakthrough and conquest.”
The land is 14 meters wide by 29 meters deep. The church was able to purchase the land with money saved for this purpose.
Southside Church of Christ World Missions 