South American Journey - Punta Arenas

Tuesday we stopped in Punta Arenas, Chile a city of about 80,000 located right on the Straight of Magellan. The contrast with Ushuaiah, which is a tourist town, was striking. Punta Arenas is very much a place to work and raise your family.
The central plaza is dominated by this statue of Ferdinand Magellan. The Plaza is surrounded by banks, businesses, the Cape Horn Hotel and some restaurants. It was busy all day.

This little five year old posed for me. We ran into her in a candy shop in a mall just off of the square. She was ready to pose even though her little sister was afraid of me.

There were high school students all over the place. They start school at 8 AM and go to class until 12:15. Then most of them go home for lunch and return to school at 3 PM and go until 6:15. They are now in the second week of the school year that started on February 28. Their school year will run through mid December.

Our main interest in Punta Arenas was to see the town where our parents lived and served for ten years as missionaries. This church was an existing Anglican Church when my parents arrived, but they had not had a pastor in ten years because they did not have someone who could preach in English. The asked my dad to pastor and asked for special permission from the Anglican Bishop to allow him to do that.

Of course their primary purpose for being in Punta Arenas was church planting and they did that all over Patagonia. One church they started was the Playa Norte Baptist Church (North Beach). From all appearances the church has grown and added a significant building in recent years.

To me the legacy my parents left behind after thirty-six years of ministry in South America is churches all over Colombia and Chile. Those churches are filled with people who hear the word preached and souls are being added to the kingdom of God. Most of them have not even heard of Gerald and Virgie Riddell, but they do know the Saviour. The legacy that is important is the souls that are added to the kingdom.

"The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom listens for him and waits for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegrooms voice. That joy is mine and is now complete, He must become greater, I must become less."

John 3: 29-30