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>> (speaking in Spanish; Interpretation provided): My name is Yamile deSantos. And I live in
Argentina in the last city at the bottom of the continent and there is no more continent.
It’s Santa Cruz. We live in a time of rapid social, technological and scientific changes.
Nevertheless, in these changing times, we can count on God’s Word which never changes.
We find in the Word of God a fountain of living water. In which bubbles out the truths of
God that will satisfy every thirst.
Today, like no other time in front of – as we are faced with a rapid changing of diverse thoughts,
even inside of the church, we need to be formed and prepared beside men and women of God who have a very
clear vision and who are convinced of the completion of the work that he has begun to take the Gospel and to continue taking
the Gospel to every part of the world.
I’m Yamile deSantos. I was born in Argentina, 65 years ago. I came to know the Lord Jesus
Christ when I was only 15 years old. And I had a very genuine encounter with God. Together
with the filling of the Holy Spirit, I felt a very clear calling to serve the Lord in
full-time service. And when I was 16 years old, I began to go throughout the northern
part of Argentina preaching in the indigenous – with the indigenous people, teaching them
to read and to write. I also went to some of the neighboring countries, like Brazil,
Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia. But God had another calling for me, a different mission, one much
further away and it was in not a very hospitable place, Patagonia.
This is a desert area with temperatures of 20 degrees below zero Celsius and with winds
up to 120 kilometers per hour. There were many, many challenges that we faced. The climate,
the weather and the persecution of the Catholic church. And the lack of any economic support.
Nevertheless, we were faced with the reality and the truth that we had learned, that it’s
God who calls, he’s the one who upholds us, he establishes and we established together
with my husband, who was one of the pioneers of the evangelical work in the region of Patagonia.
We began pastoring a small church in the city that – the most southern city in the world.
We relied upon God’s provisions and we helped ourselves by preparing and selling food. And
God placed on our hearts the challenge to prepare leaders. And we were inspired by the
text that our brother has read in 2 Timothy 2:2: ‘What you’ve heard from me, this
give charge to faithful men.’
And that’s the way that we began to disciple, teaching the Bible, and living examples of
a pure life. And we began to form the character and we’ve been able to disciple over 100
pastors and many other leaders who serve in the breadth and the length of Argentina. They
lived with us in our home, they learned from living with us and they learned how God provides.
We were never lacking to be able to cover our needs. And to see each disciple, to one
person, and to be able to form each one of them in the character of Jesus Christ. To
work with them and to make them people who were prepared, to be able to share the Gospel
message and to form other leaders was not easy. Our formula was this: Conviction, understanding
and knowledge, plus being able to live out that conviction. And once they reached a spiritual
maturity that they were responsible and they were living the same way we were living, we
would send them out to other cities to serve their neighbors.
All of this introduction that we gave to them was always very simple and in their social
and cultural context. We were inspired by God’s Word, and we see that a good soldier
of Jesus Christ must always be ready to suffer - 2 Timothy 2:3. He needs to fight legitimately
and that means doing things according to the Word of God. He needs to work very hard in
order to be able to see fruit. And he must have a faith that understands this type of
formation, this takes time.
You can’t learn this from the chapter in a book. You can’t learn this in a theological
classroom. It’s the experience in the Word of God. Paul took 14 years and Moses took
40 years to be formed. So taking this vision of God that God showed us for the Patagonia,
we could conquer each city.
We now have a very significant congregation that has formed there which is our central
place of worship. We also teach the Word of God. We have a Saturday School for the children.
Now we have around 600 children. All of this helped us to form leaders and workers.
And we have extended to all the country, and even in other countries, taking workers and
leaders with this same vision to be prepared and they can prepare others.
The vision grew, and now we don’t only see – now we don’t only see disciples that
are close to us, but God also shows us the congregation that we need to also prepare
them, preparing them to evangelize, and we needed more tools so we began an alliance,
a strategic alliance with a theological institution. In that way we were able to go deeper in the
preparation of disciples, giving them the tools that they need for each ministry. We
have about 250 brothers and sisters that are studying and about 150 graduate every year.
And all of this is for the glory of God.
This vision of the whole discipleship and the formation of their life and their theological
preparation and their preparation ministerially, has resulted in the fact that every brother
and sister in the church feels like they are participating and they are growing in their
faith. The changes that take place inside of each person, their influence in their own
families, and the passion that they have for the mission touches all of the places where
we live and it affects the society we live in today.
After 50 years of service, I can say that hundreds of workers and hundreds of disciples
we have prepared with this vision of the whole discipleship. We see that they are pastoring
lively churches, they are self-supporting economically, and they have a missionary passion.
We think that the key to our success and the success of our ministry is that we have integrated
in a very vital way the theological formation, the life in the church, and the result has
been local leaders who are strong, but they serve in a global church. And they are prepared
spiritually and in their ministry. We are a movement that is open to the Holy Spirit.
And we believe in the power, the transforming power of the Word of God.
And we are concerning ourselves strategically with education. We have a center of education
that’s called Centro de Austro(?) which means southern winds. We have a primary school
and a high school. And since last year, we
have
also incorporated a 21st century university where we prepare secular jobs and careers.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ has a transforming power. Let’s allow our lives continually
to shine forth the glory of God. And let’s be sensitive to the Holy Spirit and everything
that we do needs to have the same objective, the salvation of humanity and to serve the
church, preparing her to serve the Lord with a global leadership that comes out of a local
church that loves the Lord
and invests its time in the preparation of leaders and gives them
the tools
that they need to prepare their
ministries and to perfect the saints. God bless each
of you.