Happy New Years Eve!

Hello all out there! We hope that the holiday season has been well for all of you, Things have been going well down here. We wanted to share a short film from a trip we recently took further south with Missy's Mom and Brother, and our good friends Rudy and Ida. Please Enjoy!



We are currently working on two separate video retrospectives of our year right now, one in video form and one in photo form, please stay tuned for those to come out in the next two weeks (We are very busy the next week and a half).

Thank you for all of your continued support!
Jordan and Missy Reid

Merry Christmas!

We made this video for our church (Riversgate Church) to show at their Christmas eve service, but the greeting goes just as much for all of you our there. We hope you are all have the best Christmas possible!

Blessings!
Jordan and Missy Reid

Photo Blowout!

We decided to post a bunch of photos right here to the blog!These are photos from the past two weeks or so. To see the rest please click on the Read More part at the bottom of this post!

We have been very busy lately, but thankfully this week has finally mellowed out. We will be hosting english classes and prayer night tomorrow night, and then things will go back to regular schedule on Sunday with church! If any of you have any requests for future photos or videos of something that you are interested in seeing please let us know! (email of comment)

Merry Christmas time all!
Jordan and Missy Reid

Missy X Jordan ( video collaboration )

We worked together on a video for the Christmas dinner that was held last night, Here is the first rough edit of the film.

-Jordan and Missy

Short Film

Jordan just made this short film made from footage shot between Concepcíon, and Tome, Enjoy!

-Jordan and Melissa Reid

Christmas time is nearly upon us!

Here are some of my Sunday school kids showing off this week's craft at our Christmas Party. They are a blast to hang out with each Sunday! Pray for continued guidance in teaching them about our Savior!

Christmas time is a lot different down here, it is really hard to get used to the fact that it is sunny and warm out down here, I think we are both really missing the cold from back up there.

-Missy

New House Tour, and Updates

Enjoy!
Jordan and Missy

View from our house

We had two days of heavy rain followed by 3 days of amazing sunshine. An Interview video will be up in the next day or two, Jordan is tweaking a few things, then it will be ready. Also feel free to check into our Flickr Page, we are always putting up more photos there, than we put on the blog

-Jordan and Missy

Birthday

Stay Tuned for another video to follow on Wednesday.

well how do you do?

new place in Tomé, its pretty cool.

********
Update, sorry you are still waiting!

Getting Up to Speed

Hi Everyone!

It's been a busy couple of weeks, but we thought we should get you up to speed on what life has been like down here in Tome! We are still getting the hang of everything, but we are learning Spanish like crazy people and (of course) practicing A LOT. We've been super blessed to make some very close friends down here already – Rudy and Ida – who speak English as well as Spanish. It has been an amazing help to us to have them around, not only to spend time with them (they are also a newlywed young couple) but also because they have taught us so much about the language. We are so sad to see them go – they are leaving in January to move to Sweden for a few years (Ida is from Sweden) and we will miss them dearly! If you think of it, pray for them! Their travels, their preparation, and their integration into the Swedish way of life.

Jordan has had the opportunity to travel a good amount to film different conferences, classes, and preachings the past few weeks as well. We go to Concepcion every Tuesday to film classes at a Christian University, Jordan also films the service every Sunday morning, he went to Santiago a few weeks ago to film at a conference, and has taken many day trips to get some footage from Dichato and the surrounding areas that are still recovering from the earthquake. In terms of reconstruction efforts, there are still thousands living in emergency housing, which are small 1 room houses that provide protection from the elements. They are sturdy, but some of these emergency housing communities still don't have running water! Pray for these people for continued provision and encouragement.

I (Missy) have begun teaching Sunday school to the church's children. It has been amazing already! Though small, the church has the desire to expand and grow their children's program. This week, we will be cleaning out an office space that we can use until February for a place to have children's classes each Sunday. I went to Concepcion last week and bought a few small games for the kids, and they loved it! We have many small children (about 3-5) who are too little to sit through even a children's Sunday school, so I bought blocks and toy animals for them to play with. Currently, most mom's just sit outside of the service and try to keep their little ones occupied during the preaching, so I am hoping that we can develop an area, and get one or two extra people to play with these little ones so their moms can hear the message. The older kids enjoyed playing with a Jenga that I found in Concepcion, and by tying it into the message of the week we were able to bring out more meaning and interaction. Please pray for continued guidance in how to create a space for these kids on Sundays, and that they might start coming regularly to spend time learning more about God!

We have also really enjoyed hosting the prayer night/English classes every Thursday. It has also become a bit of a “cooking class” time on top of that too – as everyone loves the cookies we've made, lemonade, hot chocolate, etc. that we prepare for the meeting and asks for the recipes. Some of the girls from the youth group have made it a habit to come early so that we can prepare the goodies for the night together – it is so much fun! We have English class from 6-:7:30 and then prayer for the church from about 8 – 9. We spend 7:30-8 talking, eating, and hanging out, and it has really enriched our experience here, and allowed us to meet more people from the church. You can pray for continued growth in the English classes/prayer time, as some of the people who come for English class have been staying to hear the devotional that Jordan prepares, it has become a very cool ministry opportunity for those who don't know the Lord but want to learn English and stay after class!

Along with all these other things we've been working alongside the youth leaders on many youth events, and Jordan has become quite a hit with his designing ability. He just finished working on a CD cover for the youth group kids who participated in our Halloween event – Pactoween. It's an overnight at the nearby camp that the church owns, and was an amazing time of fellowship, food, devotionals, and I shared my testimony.

Finally, we've had a great time getting to know the city more, and Concepcion as well – I went with Ida last week for a “girls day” and got to know the mall just outside Concepcion, it was really fun. We've also had fun fixing up the house, walking and playing (and bathing) the dog, and getting settled.

Thanks so much for all of your prayers, we have felt so guided as the Lord continues to challenge us in getting out of our comfort zone while also equipping us to do many things here in Chile. We are hoping to get more pictures and a video up, so hopefully that will happen soon!

Love and blessings to you all today,

Missy (and Jordan)

More Photos

 

 

interior

new videos coming soon
jordan and missy

Tour of our House

Missy y Imac

Video of the Home Tour coming tomorrow

Staying busy these days

Hello all!

Sorry that we haven't gotten out more updates, but we still do not have internet at our house, so when we are on the internet we are usually working on projects for the church or meeting with our pastors back in the States.

We are very busy down here with many projects, working with the youth, children, and in the service for the church on Sunday. We are also spending a lot of time with many of our new friends from the church, who have been so gracious to us. We are starting to get busier and busier with the church and other projects, so hopefully we will have more specific updates of things that we are doing in the coming weeks. We are also going to try to put up a video once a week of things we are doing around town, and also videos to just show you how we are living down here (stay tuned in the next few days for a video tour of our house! its completed we just need to put it online) Jordan has also gotten a small job designing a sign for a new ice-cream shop that is going to open in the next month.

Thank you all so much for your prayers, and asking about us, we really appreciate it, while it is an amazing place to live, some things are very different for us. A few prayer requests we have for you are:
1 - Language
2 - Missy's work with the children of the church is starting
3 - For our house down here to continue to be a good situation
4 - We are hosting prayer night on Thursday night


Thank you all again so much for keeping us in your prayers!
Jordan and Missy Reid


Sunset on the coast


Sunset near our house


Our new stove pipe is being installed!

Video Blog #2

Coastline

200th year of Chile

We have made it!

Well, after all the waiting and preparing we are finally here in Tomé, Chile! Now that we have been here for a couple of days we cannot even believe that this is reality, we keep telling each other that this place here seems like more of a dream. So much has happened in the two full days that we have been here that it is hard to know where to start.

Yesterday(Thursday the 16th of September) we went and visited a nearby town where people had been displaced, and both of our hearts just really went out to the people because we have slowly been realizing that many people here still have very little after the earthquake and resulting tsunami.

Over the next few days we will be celebrating with the people of Chile as the celebrate their 200th year of independence, we are meeting many people, and all of them are so kind to us. a few things that you can be praying for are.

-Peace to be with the people of this region. Many are fearful that another large earthquake might accompany the one from February.
-For communication between the two of us, and others to continue to go smoothly
-For good rest (the dogs here bark all night long!)
-Much energy! we have a lot of stuff to do

That is all for now! we will have more updates, pictures, and a video coming in the next few days!

Blessings!
Jordan y Missy

Flight Plans finally announced

Wow, the past week, and especially the past few days has been quite a whirlwind. About a week ago we decided that we should go ahead and pay rent for the month of September to "reserve" the house we will be renting in Tomé. After taking that step a few days later (September 5th) we found out that we had been blessed with enough funds to embark on our trip! Since then we have been scouring the internet for tickets that are both expedient for us to leave as soon as possible, while also being reasonably priced.

Well, today we found the tickets! Praise the Lord! Some good prices, and we will also be leaving very soon. In fact in less than a week from when we are typing this we will be in the air on our way to Chile. That is right! we will be leaving on Tuesday September 14th, and 7:30 am, our flight will take us from Portland to Salt Lake City to Atlanta then we will arrive (Lord willing) to Santiago exactly 24 hours later. After that we will have a nine hour bus ride to Tomé.


We cannot thank all of you for the support in so many different ways that has led up to us being able to head out on this trip, in perfect timing! We will be sure to keep you updated in the following few days before we take off.


Thank you all so much again!

Jordan and Missy

Video Blog #1

Another Support Raising Opportunity

Hello All!

First of all things are starting to move even quicker every day, we are a few days away from buying tickets, which right now it seems that we are being led to leave the first week in September. We have found some better prices, and everyone down there is telling us that we need to get down there as soon as we possibly can. We still cannot contain our excitement for going down there and serving the church and community, on a daily basis we are having many conversations with many people about our trip and cannot believe how positive their response is towards what we are doing.

On that note we have had a huge blessing in the form of Jordan being able to show his artwork at Village Coffee in Multnomah Village! August is one of the busiest months for the coffee shop and we feel really blessed to have gotten in there right before we head out of town.


If you are interested in purchasing any artwork from Jordan please let us know, If you don't have time to go into the coffee shop and look at the work we would be happy to send you a contact sheet or an email of various photos that are for sale.


We would also like to thank everyone who has given us support so far in so many different ways, It is so encouraging to see how God is working in many different ways.

Blessings.
Jordan and Missy

---Update---

The show is now down, we had a lot of great compliments on the work. Thanks to everyone who went in and checked out the work!

Several Ways to Keep in Touch

Hello All,

Time for us is flying by! We are staying very busy working, preparing, and trying to find time to relax and enjoy this wonderful time of life with each other.

We wanted to let you know that while we are away from The States there are many ways to keep up on what we are doing besides this blog. We will be trying to bring in many of these outside sources of information here to the blog on a regular basis, but you are welcome to check out these other places with more frequency if you would like.


Photos - We will be putting our picture on this new Flickr site we just made

Video - Jordan hosts his videos here on Vimeo

Facebook - Missy's Facebook account is here (Jordan doesn't have one)

-Jordan and Missy

Moving Ahead...In God's Timing

Well, Things are definitely moving along. Some days we wake up feeling like this trip may never get going, and others it seems as if the trip is right upon us. We both are so glad that we have waited for God's timing through this whole process as we have seen many potential issues work themselves out without any involvement of our own (other than prayer). It has been very difficult for us to wait as both of our hearts are already down with our brothers and sisters in Chile, and are anxious to get on the ground and start running.

We have had some real answers to prayer lately that include:
-Clear objectives for what we will be doing in out year living in Tomé, Chile
-A place for us to live that is already furnished right in the middle of town, within walking distance to the church
-Several donations to support us for our year away
-A good relationship and communication between our pastors here in Portland, and the pastor that we will be working for down in Chile
-I (Jordan) found a computer that is powerful enough to edit on, and got a good deal on it

A few prayer requests that we still have are
-Plane tickets, We still haven't found the right ones yet.
-That clear communication will continue to take place between ourselves, our pastors, and Pastor Luciano in Chile
-That the preparations for our house in Chile would go smoothly
-That God will continue to give us the support that is needed for our year abroad

-Jordan

An Exciting Letter

Well, it’s been awhile since our last update, and honestly it was mostly because we had little to update everyone with! We’ve been waiting for about a month and a half now for a letter from the pastor in Chile responding to the letter our pastors at Riversgate sent down there. I’m exciting to say we received a letter yesterday from the pastor of Amigos de la Misión church in Tomé, Chile! Pastor Luciano’s response to our letter was insightful, encouraging, and really opened up the communication between our church here in Portland, and the church in Tomé. How exciting it is to see how the Lord has orchestrated this relationship between churches already, though they have never met! It was also encouraging to hear how the church down there can use our help, and how excited they are to have us in Tomé!

Some of the things Pastor Luciano mentioned in his letter were specific ways that we can come alongside the church and serve. These included developing the children’s ministry, young married couples ministry, Missy teaching classes, Jordan working with media presentations and communication, and serving the youth group. It was really a blessing to see how Pastor Luciano revealed how both Jordan and I could serve together in some areas, and how our presence was valuable from the individual talents we can bring as well. What a step in our journey this is!

It’s hard to believe how the praying, seeking, asking, and waiting is really coming together, and I can only praise God for His leading in this area, and His challenges as we wait and grow and learn to seek Him more and more. I think that there are going to be some amazing learning opportunities in Tomé, but I also think about how the past 5 months have been full of learning experiences since I first returned from Chile.

Thank you all of you who have been praying for us, may you continue to intercede with us for the people of Chile who are still without some of the basic necessities. There is a fundraiser that Pastor Luciano is currently working on to buy hot water bottles for families without heat this winter (it is currently winter in Chile) to keep them warm at night. If you are interested in seeing some pictures from their hot water bottle-raiser, go here.

Can’t tell you how thrilled we are for this answered prayer, looking forward to sharing more as it comes…!

Missy

Updates Updates

Things are moving...maybe slower than we would like, but I think both of us can see the Lord's purpose in it as things come together. Already it has been a wonderful and exciting journey, learning more about Chile and what help they need, how we can be Christ to people and serve and love on them, and what it means to be "missionaries." I think that the Lord is teaching us so much through experiences and trials we have gone through even in the past few months. There is always more to learn about marriage, and being unified in the Spirit!

At this point we are still waiting to hear back from the church in Tome. Our pastors sent them a letter requesting a bit more information about what their expectations are of us, how we can come alongside them, and letting them know that our home church of Riversgate is behind us in prayer and support. This was exciting to send down there, but it does take awhile for mail to travel to Chile, so now we must be patient. :)

I recently received an email from Alejandra, our initial contact in Tome. Her and her husband actually left Chile shortly after the earthquake, and will now be going to seminary in the United States. Exciting for them, but it does make our trip a little different now that we don't have them to be our "go to" people. We are praying about someone in the church in Tome to kind of step in as mentor and guide for us, a person who is involved and knows the church well enough to be able to help us get integrated, as well as just be someone we can meet with weekly/bi-monthly to check-in and pray with.

Our tentative leave date is still late-August, but like all things this is very open and flexible. It is hard to not be down there right now, as winter is setting in and people are really in need of housing. The Lord's timing is much better than our own, however, and I'm sure we will get down there just in time for whatever He has planned for us. Just another reason to be praying for the people of Chile, and all that they have ahead of them in terms of reconstruction. If you are interested in donating toward materials for the reconstruction of Tome and Dichato, a nearby town, go to the 2010 for 88 website.

Thanks for your prayers for us and our brothers and sisters in Chile, we are excited for all that the Lord has in store, and how He wants to pour out His love on the Chilean people!

- Missy

Welcome!

Greetings! Thanks for stopping by our blog to check out what is going on in the life of the Reid family. The Lord has really done some great things during our first year of marriage, and it has been by His grace and plan for us that we have had this amazing opportunity to serve abroad in Chile.

Starting at the beginning, both Jordan and I knew we desired to travel and serve/live/work abroad in some form or another. After getting married last August, we began really praying about what that would look like and where the Lord was leading us. After waiting on Him and reading up about all of the opportunities out there, we began to look into moving to Spain. After a few months of research and working to connect ourselves with people or a business, it simply seemed “against the grain,” as if we were trying to pursue something instead of simply sitting before God and really listening.

In February, I (Missy) got the opportunity to lead a group of Capstone students down to Chile for a month long missionary trip. Jeff and Brian, the Capstone founder and missions coordinator, respectively, had decided that they were unable to go and a leadership spot needed filling 3 weeks prior to leaving.

The Capstone team's mission to Chile is in itself a story in which we can now, in hindsight, see just how great God's plans are. Brian and Jeff had looked into possible mission sites all over the world, and had settled on Chile because of the lack of missionaries that visited the country. The mission dates were also a piece of this miraculous journey that would eventually lead us to where we are now. The team was set to leave January 30^th from Portland, arriving in Chile the 31^st of January, and though it had been arranged that they would fly home February 28^th, Jeff changed the return flight at the last minute to the 27^th.

The mission trip was eye-opening, we visited three towns during the four weeks we were there and made some wonderful relationships in the different communities. Throughout the trip I spoke with our trip facilitators about the possibility of Jordan and I moving down to the town of Tome, Chile, and working. Both Jordan and I felt a strong pull to pursue living in Tome, and were looking forward to seeing what would happen next. After the earthquake, which hit only 4 hours after our flight left Santiago, plans changed in that our hearts were still desiring to travel to Chile, but this time in a different capacity. The team could not believe how protected we were in leaving Chile, especially when we thought back to how the date was changed last minute. Jordan and I felt as though coming alongside the church and the community and provide encouragement as well as practical support to Tome and the nearby town of Dichato would be a great opportunity to share God's love with people and help out.

So here we are, still following the Lord's leading as the call has become more and more defined. We are planning on spending one year in Tome, Chile while we help them in reconstruction, provide English classes, create outreach and ministry opportunities, as well as offer media work. We are excited to have this blog as an outlet to keep our friends and family posted with all the new and exciting steps we have ahead of us, as well as ask for your prayers! We will be leaving in late August, and are just in the beginning stages of asking for financial support to fund our time in Tome. Our home church, Riversgate, is going to be sending us to the Covenant church, Amigos de la Mision, of Tome. We cannot wait to see what the Lord has in store for this period of preparation, as we have already learned since opening this door in March. Thank you in advance for your prayers of protection, preparation, and peace of the Lord. We are so thankful for all of the support we have already found in friends and family, especially because this is just the beginning!

Missy