The warm welcome that Mr. McClellan has given to us, and it's a joy to be with you in Newton Abbey tonight and to take part in your sole winners convention. It's always good to come to a new fellowship just with the Lord's people here. I want to tell you just a little bit about how the opening in Argentina came about, and a wee bit about the visit that the Reverend Hanlon and myself had there back in the month of January. At the beginning of last year, we received a communication from a minister in Buenos Aires expressing an interest that he and his little congregation could join our denomination. We communicated with them through the most of last year, asking them questions about themselves, about the congregation, about their doctrine, their view on the scriptures, all of those important things. And those communications really came to the place where we felt if we were going to get to know the people a wee bit better, that a visit was necessary, we would have to go out to Argentina just to meet the folk and to see the situation there on the ground. As Mr. McClung mentioned, the board suggested that we should take the Reverend John Hannah with us, particularly thinking of the language. It's very interesting. Virtually the whole of South America, except for Brazil, speaks Spanish as its first language. There are some variations in the Spanish spoken in South America and the Spanish that's spoken in Europe. But nothing too significant, and his presence with us certainly was a great help, and particularly his understanding of Spanish culture, and even the experience that he's had of people being converted out of Romanism. So I'll try to tell you just a little bit about the trip that we had. I'll just try and work this technology. It's all right. It's the first time I've shown a presentation in this way, so you'll forgive me if things just don't go as smoothly as usual. But we did go out between the 13th and the 22nd of January. We spent just a little over a week. Just to remind you or to give you an idea of where Argentina is, just the red area down there at the lower part of South America, and we spent the most of our time in Buenos Aires. We basically spent the whole week. You can see Buenos Aires there, just where the star is, about two-thirds up the right-hand side of the picture. The Reverend John Hanna and myself, that's a little picture we took when we were out in Spain, visiting with him. Mr. Hanna, next year will be 40 years laboring there in Madrid, and the Lord certainly has blessed his labors. We travelled out via Madrid, You don't usually get your passport stamped when you pass through Europe now, but I particularly asked them, and the guy in the passport authority was willing to do it, and I appreciated that. It was the simplest way for us to travel, for me to go out and meet up with him in Madrid, and then there was a direct flight of almost 13 hours from Madrid down to Buenos Aires. We flew with Iberia, the Spanish airline. You can see there the distance from Europe all the way down into the southern hemisphere. And this is the international airport just in the morning that we arrived. We arrived very early on the Thursday morning. And remember that over there in January is the height of the summer time. It was their summer holidays, just about The equivalent of our July fortnight, almost everybody was off on holiday. But just to give you an idea of what the airport looks like, a very modern building. There's been a lot of expansion of it just in recent times. That's the main street in Buenos Aires. Those words actually read 9th of July. 9th of July is a very big date in the history of Argentina. The big date here, of course, is the 12th of July or the 1st of July, depending on what way you look at that. But out there, the big date is the 9th of July. This year is the 200th anniversary. Back in 1816, on the 9th of July, they gained their independence from the nation of Spain. So it's interesting, we took a Spanish missionary to Argentina with us on that missionary trip. Just to give you a look, down the 9th of July is the widest main street in the world. It's 140 meters wide. The places on either side where the trees are are actually separate streets, although they still view the whole thing as the main street of Buenos Aires. We stayed in a hotel just about halfway down that 9th of July. Very, very reasonably priced. We were quite surprised at how cheap it was, taking into account the quality of the hotel and its location in downtown Buenos Aires. I'm not sure what has happened to that slide, but it's like the hotel's down on its side. Just inside the lobby, to give you an idea of what things looked like, and that's not far from the entrance to the hotel that lit up at night, Eva Perón, she was the second wife of Juan Perón, one of the most famous presidents of Argentina. That's portraying one of the famous speeches that she made, and the reason that they put that up there, she's looking out over a part of Buenos Aires, where her greatest supporters actually came from. That's at one end of the 9th of July, and then the famous obelisk is at the other end. Back in 1536, that's the first place that the Argentinian flag was raised in the country, and there used to be a church that stood there, but that obelisk was raised to mark the 400th anniversary of the raising of that flag back in 1936. One of the things we did when we were there on the Friday afternoon, we took part in a radio program, a live radio program that's broadcast in the American International University in Buenos Aires, just to give you a wee idea of the buildings. That's the name of the radio station. They have communicated with us since. They would be interested in taking a program, either half hour or an hour, from Let the Bible Speak. We have passed those details on to the Reverend Curran for their consideration. One of the advantages of this particular radio station is it is an internet radio station. It broadcasts across the entire globe by the means of the internet, not just in Buenos Aires or Argentina. We have been able to tune into it. from We Came Home, going on to their website. So just to let you see inside the station, that is, on the right hand side, the Reverend Mariano Salguera. That's the gentleman that wrote to us, requesting that his congregation could join the denomination. He was brought up as a Roman Catholic, and by the age of 13, he came to realize that Roman Catholicism was wrong. He wasn't actually converted at 13. But he realised that the church that he was being brought up in wasn't teaching the truth of God. So he left the Roman Catholic Church. And in order to make it final, it's very interesting that even though you don't go along to the services, they still view you as a Roman Catholic. You have to actually write and have your name removed from the roll. So he was so convinced about the errors of Rome that he wrote to have his name removed from the roll of communicants. He was in Asturias before he actually came into the full light of the gospel and came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. So he's in the station there just with the Reverend Hannah, preparing for the broadcast. So many other people that took part. The lady on the end is a very well-known radio personality in Buenos Aires, in Argentina. She's a personal friend of the former lady president, and she's a Muslim. And the guy on the left belongs to Opus Dei, the very conservative Roman Catholic group. So they were some of the folk that took part in the program that day. We had a very good opportunity. They asked us why we came to Buenos Aires, why we were there visiting. The Reverend Sal Guerra wanted to know a little about the history of the Free Church, something of the Mission Board and its outreach. And the Reverend Han, in particular, because of the Spanish language, it was much easier for him to speak. Everything I said had to be translated on the program, but there was a great opportunity given even for the presentation of the gospel in the program. So just to let you see everybody that took part. The guy on the right, he's the personal assistant of the man that runs that program. And the lady in the middle, she was sent along as a translator. They didn't realize that the Reverend Hannah would be so fluent in the Spanish, so they had actually provided a translator for us. The folk were very keen to talk further with us. That was something that we were greatly challenged about. It wasn't a case that when the program was over that they couldn't get rid of us quick enough. They wanted to hear more about the church and a little more about what we believed. So they took us along to a nice cream parlor not too far away. And we had a very, very interesting chat with them. I'll tell you a wee bit more about that later. This is the famous St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Buenos Aires. It was founded by Scottish settlers back in the 19th century. The Reverend Saul Guerra, when he left the Roman Catholic Church in his teens, started to go along to this. a very famous Presbyterian church, and attended it for many, many years. In 2009, he and the folk that now meet with him left the famous St. Andrew's Church, and the reason that they left was because of the ecumenical direction that it has now taken. They were very unhappy with that. It is clearly an ecumenical denomination. On their website they unashamedly show the logo of the World Council of Churches, and that is printed on all of their own literature as well. But he wanted us to see the church that he had once attended, in a sense had been brought up in, and had spent so many years in. He wanted us to know just a little bit of the background. This is not far from the reception in the hotel, just around the corner in the building, in the hotel building. The reason I show you that, it was really our meeting place almost every day of that week or so. One of the main reasons we went was to spend time talking and discussing important issues, questioning the Reverend Salguera and the other church leaders a little further. We wanted to clarify for ourselves more of their background, how they were converted, how they run the church and what they believe and so on. So this was the little meeting place that we had almost every day. Our brother works for the government. He has a very good government job. That was the reason he chose that hotel for us. It's only about ten minutes walk from where he works. He lives about an hour out of the study centre, so it was easier for us to stay here and meet him. He worked up to about two o'clock every day. He has his own little private business as well, but He walked across every afternoon and we talked with him at great length. In the morning time, the Reverend Han and I would talk over the areas that we discussed the previous day and threw up a little agenda of the questions that we felt we needed to ask him to clarify for us that day whenever we met with him again. These are the other church leaders. The guy on the left, Teddy Kessing, he's a ruling elder in the congregation with Scottish background going back several generations and a great love for the preaching of Christ. The guy on the right is the Reverend Jose Luis. I can't pronounce his surname for you. He's a third generation missionary. His parents and grandparents have all been missionaries in Peru. He has a tremendous story, testimony himself, even though he was brought up in a Christian home. He ended up living on the streets. He had got so far away. from the upbringing that it had and then he was converted to Christ and because of the fact that he lived in the streets for those years, he now has a great burden and he carries on a ministry among many others of the street people and he identifies greatly with our evangelism and we had a very interesting time conversing with him as well. We kept minutes, a minute of the meetings that we had, the areas that we covered and discussed and we signed that minute together at the end of the week. Just as an agreement, it was an accurate account just of all the areas that we'd covered and the things that we had discussed together. A very encouraging aspect at the end of the week, we had a prayer time just in that little corner of the hotel. We spent time together in prayer and it was a real blessing and we certainly did know the Lord drawing near. And before we left we wanted to take the brethren out for a meal and we had a very nice time of fellowship with them. One of the other things that we did while we were there, this guy is called Gabriel Arambad. For a number of years he and his wife Victoria lived in Spain and they attended the church in Alcorcorn. They're from South America, from Uruguay. He had heard that the Reverend Hannah was coming to South America And they have been keeping in touch with the church in Alker Corn over the years since they've gone back to South America. Some of you maybe remember that he and his wife were part of the team that went out to Kenya to help with the painting of the school there a number of years ago. But he and his wife, Virginia, still have a great interest in the work of the free church. He was working just across the Plate River the Plate River is the main estuary that comes in from the Atlantic Ocean into Buenos Aires and he came across early in the Saturday morning on the ferry and he met up with us, he was very keen to see the Reverend Hannah and we had breakfast with him in the hotel and then he stayed the entire day with us. I was really like an outsider that day, they talked away nearly the whole day in Spanish together as we went around but we certainly were glad of the opportunity to be able to to meet up with her brother just to encourage him. Early on the Sunday morning, we were up and on the go. We left the hotel at 8 o'clock. We weren't back again until 11 that night. The sub-train in Buenos Aires, or it really means sub-train in, is the underground, and we took the underground out as far as it would go to the train station. We boarded the train, and then we took the train out from there to a station called Olivio's. It's really to do with the olive trees. On the way out we passed the very famous race course in Buenos Aires. And this is the Olivio's train station. We met our brother Mariano there. He wanted us to see just a little more of the history of that Presbyterian church and get an idea of some of the church services that take place. Just to let you see, behind those guys that are sitting there, there's actually a statue of the Virgin Mary. It gives you some idea of the grip of Romanism, and the superstition there is that even in the train stations, that's a place where they suggest there's an actual sighting of the Virgin Mary. But this is St. Andrew's, the Presbyterian Church, where it actually began. These were the small beginnings out there at Olivio's. In fact, this congregation is now very much into contemporary worship. It's more like a rock service or a rock concert, but there's maybe 400 come on a Sunday morning, and they can't meet in this place anymore, but it's just to let you see where the work of those Presbyterian settlers actually commenced. This is a monument to the Reverend William Brown, you can see his bust just there on the right. He was the original Presbyterian minister that went out as a missionary and commenced that work those many years ago. You can see that they still identify much or very much with their Scottish roots, the Scottish flag, the thistle and so on. And this is a school, they have a school associated with the church and it is in the school that they now meet on a Sunday morning in order to accommodate the congregation. You can see the platform and all of the trappings that go with their contemporary worship. So we went along that day just very briefly at the beginning, just as viewers of that congregation. We also went along to the morning service in the International Bible Church. It's an English-speaking church in Buenos Aires. The pastor is from South Africa. He was away on holiday at the time. We came into that service that morning as strangers, but they asked me if I would come up and give a little report, again tell a wee bit about the church, give them an idea just of why we were actually there. But it gave us some idea of the type of churches and the type of services that are available. And it isn't very encouraging to visit those places and to see just what is available for those that love the Lord. Martinaise is the place where Brother Mariano actually lives. We spent the afternoon out at his home. This is his wife Constance and the Reverend Hannah and the Elder Teddy fellowshipping in the afternoon. It was a good opportunity for us just to get to know these brethren a little bit better. They don't have a building of their own, which is a difficulty for them. They were meeting in a Methodist church building, and whenever the Methodist people found out that they were in contact with ourselves, they withdrew the use of that building from them, which was a great disappointment, a big blow. This is the Mennonite church in Buenos Aires, and they got the use of it for the service on the Lord's Day while we were actually there. Our brother Mariano preached at the service. It was a good opportunity for us to hear him, although he did preach in Spanish, so Mr. Hannah was at a great advantage there. He did suggest that he would preach in English, but we felt as Spanish was his first language and he is certainly a lot more fluent in Spanish, it would be much easier for him. And Mr. Hanna was very encouraged as he heard him preach that day and he gave us an English transcript of the message that he brought as well. We had the Lord's Supper together at the close of the service and this is us gathered with some of the leaders, some of the main folk in the congregation. They have approximately 25 or 30 regular attenders at their meeting, although there's up to 50 people that they have on a mailing list that they send out details of the meetings that they hold. This is the oldest coffee shop in Buenos Aires, Café Tortoni. Those people that we told you about in the radio station, they were very keen to meet up with us again. They had a lot more questions about the Scriptures and about the Gospel, and we met them on the Monday evening in the Café Tortoni spent maybe two hours in conversation with them. The girl was the Muslim, the girl with the dark hair. When Mr. Hanna was speaking in Spanish, sometimes you'd think she wasn't really listening, maybe wasn't very interested, and then several times she would interject with a question that indicated that she had been listening all along and had been taking in everything that had been said. The lady sitting beside me is an English speaker as well, English and Spanish. She was really the only one that I could speak to, apart from Mr. Hannah. He spoke to all the rest, but had a very, very good time again, speaking to these folks about the things of God. Something we found very interesting, as we made our way to meet those folk that night, we passed this group of young people, right in the middle of that main street, the 9th of July, and they were holding a Gospel Open Air service. They were from a more Pentecostal type of church, but holding an open air witness in the middle of the city, nonetheless. Just quickly to let you see, William Morris, William Case Morris, was a Methodist missionary to Argentina. He first moved out a year ago, but he spent most of his life in Argentina. We had the opportunity just to visit his monument. He did a great work, was very, very well known in the city. just some of the details of his life. Mr Hannan Eye at the monument, just looking out from the side. Unfortunately some of those details, this tells the story of his life, because of the weather erosion, weren't just as legible as you would like. But particularly he was known for his love for children, the schools that he started, the very poor children, the provision that he helped to make for them. This was the church that he built and the church that he preached in. You can see just to the right hand side there, there's a tree and then just beside the tree there's a plaque and then there's a little bust of him on the wall as well. So it just lets you know something of the missionary work that has been carried on there in a bygone day. Buenos Aires is a very cosmopolitan city. This is the synagogue. It has the biggest Jewish community in the whole of South America, the sixth biggest Jewish community in the world actually. You can see, that's a museum that they have for the Jews, the Ten Commandments up on the top, the scar of David, they've got all the trappings of Judaism, the Hebrew language, and you can ask Mr. Kenny to translate the Hebrew for you, the menorah, and then the representation of the 12 tribes of Israel. Something else connected with Israel, one of the biggest terrorist attacks, probably the biggest terrorist attack on a Jewish or an Israeli property outside the land of Israel happened in Argentina. That was the former Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, but it was blown up in 1992 by a car bomb. That's the Aurora Street where the Israeli embassy was, just to give you a view along the street, and a car pulled up outside the Israeli embassy. That's where it used to stand. It's no longer there. It was blown to pieces. 29 people were killed and many, many others were injured. That just lets you see the shape that it used to have as it joined the building beside. And there's the names of all the people that died in that act of antisemitism. It's a very big Irish community. It just gives you an idea of the flavour, the number of communities there are. the souls, we're thinking of the Soul Winners Convention and a vision for souls, and South America is certainly teeming with vast multitudes of people from very many prominent nationalities around the world. Molly Malone's. It's sad that the things in Buenos Aires that are associated with Ireland are all to do with drink. The pub and John Jemison's whiskey, those are things that are all very prominent. in Buenos Aires. And there's also a very strong Welsh community, which is of great interest to me, having lived and laboured in Wales for nine years or so. Last year was the 150th anniversary of Patagonia, and it's a great Welsh community. It's down in the southern part of Argentina, gives you some idea of the size of Patagonia. And that's actually the flag of Patagonia. The Welsh flag has the Welsh dragon in the middle of it. Well, that's the Argentinian flag with the sun dial or the sun disc taken out of it and the Welsh dragon placed right in the very middle of it. Here's something of the scenery. It's a beautiful area. This is the folk and Patagonian Welsh costume. The word on the left there, Iscoil, is the word for school, and the word on the right is one of the the Welsh words for the actual nation of Wales itself. So they very much celebrate their Welsh community. It's known as a Wales beyond Wales, the Welsh language. They speak Welsh down there just as fluently as they speak it in actual Wales itself. And there are Welsh chapels, the non-conformist places of worship, many of them crying out for help as well, some of them evangelical, and there would be an opening to go forth there and give some help with the furtherance of the gospel too. Just to let you see, as we come nearer and nearer, this is one of the most famous plazas, Plaza de Mayo, in the center of Buenos Aires. This is a demonstration for the war veterans of the Falklands War. They think they're not being properly looked after by the government, That's the Pink House, as it's known. That's the residence of the President, and that's where they think they can make their greatest impact. There's all sorts of demonstrations, a lot of unrest, even against the new government that has come in, the new President that has been elected. That's the Roman Catholic Cathedral, in that plageau de Mayo, in the very center of Buenos Aires. The building just beside it is where the Roman Catholic Church has all its offices. That's where the present Pope would have lived as well. He had apartments there when he was both the Bishop and Cardinal of Buenos Aires. Just to let you see the two of them standing side by side. Pope Francis is an Argentinian. The pie graph there in green shows you how many Roman Catholics, basically three quarters of the population of Argentina is Roman Catholics. And there has been, they call it a revival of Roman Catholicism since Pope Francis came to power. Far more Roman Catholics are now going to Mass, and that for us of course is a cause of great sadness. The charismatic churches too are very, very strong in South America as a whole. But that is true, show of faith is really just like a show, like an entertainment, many of the churches there, which is the reason why they attract the great crowds that they do, and the Jehovah's Witnesses also. So let's just say, as we think of going forth, that these other groups and cults haven't been slow in going forth into these countries and into these areas to spread their false message too. long until we were heading back to the airport, and this is part of the flight home. I took that from seven miles up. We actually are flying over Rio de Janeiro there, Sugarloaf Mountain. You can get a view of it there just on the left-hand side. I said to Mr. Hannah, looking at the flight plan on the screen in front of us, we're going to be flying near Rio de Janeiro. I didn't think we'd fly just as near to it. The captain announced it, and always liking to have a few photographs, I got the camera did the best I could. Just to finish with this, folks, that's a picture we took of Buenos Aires in the last morning as the sun is rising. Just the pinkness in the background is the rising of the sun. And we pray that this is a new day dawning for us as a denomination and as a mission board. It's very much the early stages. The folk need a lot of help, a lot of guidance. They're very keen to learn. They want us to help. It's a work that really will have to be carried on, to a large extent, under the supervision of the Spanish Church, with her brother, the Reverend Hannah, giving a lead in it, and then supervised by the Board itself. He is going to carry out some Bible study courses with the folk. He is a correspondence course in the Westminster Confession, the Head Covering the Church, all of those important areas. and he's going to go through those, he's going to carry out some Skype meetings, connect up with them at their midweek meeting and so on, and try to keep up the connection. But as things develop, and we pray they will, we've had a communication from them this week that another congregation from the outskirts of Buenos Aires is interested in joining with them as they apply to join with us as well, so we'll be receiving some applications from them as well in the not too distant future. But if things do develop as we would like, there will be the need for labourers to go forth, some folk to go and work with them and work alongside them and to help to guide them in days to come. So that's something in particular we would ask you to pray for just in that regard. But I do appreciate the opportunity given by your Minister tonight just to come to make known to you a little of the work and what has happened there, the inquiry and the interest that has been expressed from those folk to our board. Thank you very much.