Prestoncrest Missions

Church News

The month of March is always a busy time for the church in Santiago. March is when Chileans return from their long summer vacations and school starts. This month was no different and actually a little busier than usual because of a few special events that we hosted. One was a singing seminar for local congregations in Santiago that was led by Steve Austin. Steve is the son of our good friends Clyde and Sheila and a former missionary to Buenos Aires. He also is the editor of the songbook that we use and the director of the Gulf Coast Bible Institute where one of our Chilean members, Renzo Mayorga, is studying. During the seminar we learned new songs, talked about the purpose of our praise to God and practiced four part harmony.

Easter also came in March this year and we had our Sunday service as well as a picnic and an egg-hunt for the kids. The last Sunday of the month was our going away party for Mark and Denise Dean and their children. The Deans arrived on the field with us 9 years ago and returned to the U.S. last week. The church honored them with some videos about their time here, special gifts and many kind words of love and affection for their dedication to God and the Providencia congregation.

Thank you to all who prayed for Felipe Montecinos. His whole brain tumor experience has been a journey of faith for their immediate family as well as our church family. His surgery on Mar.7 went better than expected. The doctor was able to remove all of the tumor and so far, there have been no negative side effects. The biopsy came back BENIGN! PRAISES to our LORD! The family met with Felipe’s team of doctors on Friday, and it was determined that there was no reason for any additional treatment. He will only have check-ups twice a year.

Team News

The Deans lived with us for the last two weeks of their time here and Chile as they were finishing up last minute errands for their departure in addition to numerous lunches and dinners with Chilean friends and church members. Our children enjoyed having Pierce and Mikayla around the house to play with. It was a little cramped with four more people in the house, but we all agreed that it turned out better than any of us thought it would. We are still friends after two weeks of living together and we were even sad to see the Deans leave.

Family News

Kelley led worship for the month of March and has started up his small group Bible Study again in the home of church member Erika Labbe. The group took a break over the summer. Kelley has also started a new Bible Study with a couple from the last Marriage Encounter in October. Claudio and Pamela Zalaquet are both financial advisors and have two children. They have recently been attending church and have three or four couples committed to go to the next Marriage Encounter weekend in May. We have been writing their testimonies for Marriage Encounter. This is a long process that takes a lot of editing to get the final draft, but is essential to be the coordinating couple for the weekend. We took over the coordinating couple role for Marriage Encounter from Mark and Denise in November.

The kids are back in school and are enjoying being with their friends again. Duncan is in 5th grade and is playing soccer and recently started playing chess in an extracurricular class after school. Abby is in 3rd grade and is still in choir and started taking drama this year. I guess she is following in her mother’s footsteps. Victoria started pre-kinder and enjoys being an expert in English as most of her classmates don’t know how to speak English yet. Konner goes to pre-school 2 days a week to help him with his Spanish. The pre-school has decided to potty train him for us, which we encourage, but still have our doubts that he is ready as he comes home every day with a plastic bag with multiple articles of wet clothing from his potty training experience.

We recently met Julie’s Niemann cousins! We found out from our distant relatives in Germany that some “cousins” had also immigrated to Chile. Once we received the list of our relatives, we had been unsure of the best way to make contact. In a crazy “small world” experience, we met 2 couples through a mutual friend that know the Niemann family here. Soon after, Jorge & Soledad had us over for dinner and a comparison of family trees to discover exactly how we are related. Jorge’s great grandfather and my grandpa’s great grandfather were brothers. We can trace our Niemann line back to the early 1700’s in Germany. We hope to meet the rest of the family soon!

All in all the Grant family is doing well. We are keeping busy as usual and praying that the US dollar will make an incredible jump over the next few months. As is the case in other countries the US dollar is at its lowest rate in the last 10 years and fell about 15% in January.

Please keep our church family and the Dean family in your prayers.

Blessings,
Kelley, Julie, Duncan, Abby, Victoria and Konner Grant

Santa Magdalena Sofia 577
Las Condes
Santiago, Chile
Phone: 011-562-247-5715
Email: kjgrant99@gmail.com