Who would have imagined in 1976 the incredible missionary journey that we have traveled? That was the year we landed in Buenos Aires, Argentina and within in a year we found ourselves in the city of Córdoba to begin planting churches. After planting 4 churches in that city and one in Mexico City we moved back to plant a church in the northern suburbs of Buenos Aires in 1987.
After living in Santiago, Chile for 8 years the national church of Argentina asked us to return to Buenos Aires and assume the pastorate of the church we had planted in 1987. Today we enjoy God's blessings and our three Sunday services draw close to 1,000 people and people are saved in almost every service during the week.
Currently we are faced with two enormous challenges. First, we have been in construction for over two years on our 1,500 seat sanctuary and still have considerable work to do. Secondly, for the first time in 15 years we are schedule for a full itineration in the USA during 2011. You can help us meet those challenges in several ways. In regard to our construction you can: 1) Pray for favor with permits and contractors 2) send an offering to our account and designate it for class 60 and 3) communicate with us about a MAPS construction team to help speed our construction rhythm.
We will be located in the Dallas area during our time in the USA. If you are a pastor you can help us meet our itineration challenge by scheduling us for a service or by simply adding us to your list of monthly support of missionaries and ministries.
Most of all we want to thank you for your prayers, love and support. You may contact us at don.exley@agmd.org and thank you in advance for your prayers for us during our 2011 itineration.
In 1974, the Exleys were approved as candidate missionaries to Argentina.
In 1974 Don and Melba with Alicia began their first itineration. This was the next step of the call to missions that Don had since he was 15 years old.
After traveling to different churches to raise monthly support for their ministry, they went to language school to learn Spanish. Finally, on June 10, 1976, the Exley family arrived at the Ezeiza airport, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Ten months after arriving in Buenos Aires, Jason was born. Alicia by that time was only 4 years old.
In June of 1977, the Exley family moved from Buenos Aires to Cordoba with plans to start a church there. The Assemblies of God had 4 small churches in the city of Cordoba with a population of one million souls.
The first challenge was to find property to plant their first church in Argentina. Where? How? Don remembering these times said, "I was so young and inexperienced in church planting that I had to depend on the advice of other pastors and missionaries. Of course God's direction is always the bottom line in church planting."
While looking for land with two other pastors, God showed Don the place where he was to plant the church. Land was bought on Ave. San Juan where they later erected a Good News Crusade tent. But first, every night for one month outdoor evangelical meetings were held in a park one block away.
Every night involved hard work: putting up the platform, the sound equipment and chairs and then taking it all down and loading it up for storage until the next night. Afterwards, they returned to their house to prepare dinner for all the Bible school students who came to help plant the church and who lived with them that summer.
Today, Christian Center is a strong church in Cordoba, Argentina. For years, this congregation has been number one in the country in offerings to missions. It has sent out more than 35 missionaries to different parts of the world; taking the gospel to the world.
After 3 years in Cordoba, the Exley family returned to the United States for one year and then moved back to Cordoba in 1981 to continue church planting.
The neighborhood, Los Sauces, on the outskirts of the city would be the next location to start a church and once again property was purchased.
The outdoor crusade went on for weeks, with the same hard work of setting everything up for the service and taking everything down afterwards.
The following year, God led them to Maestral Vidal Street in Cordoba where they planted their third church. God provided a financial miracle for the purchase of this property and now it is a great church that has also planted several churches. Today in the city of Cordoba there are over 70 Assembly of God congregations.
During that year, God spoke to Don and Melba's hearts to give one year of their lives to plant a church in Mexico City. But before they left, they helped start another church in the Barrio of Coronel Olmedo in Cordoba. Also, around this same time, they helped plant a church in San Marcos Sierra and another one in the city of Catamarca in the province by the same name.
The Exley family arrived in Mexico City to become part of the "dream team" formed by missionaries but for various problems, the team didn't come together and the Exleys were left almost alone to plant churches in that city of 24 million people.
After struggling for several months on a property purchase, a tent was set up and the evangelical crusade finally was able to begin. Today, under the leadership of a national pastor, the church has over 2,000 members and a large Christian school.
Finally, in June of 1985, the Exley family went to the United States for one year. So, after one year in Mexico and one year in the states, the Exley family moved once again to Argentina and moved from Córdoba to the city of Martinez, a suburb of Buenos Aires.
They immediately started to look for adequate property to plant the church, Christian Family Center. A friend told Don about a property located on Edison Street. So, Don went to see the land with his boss who was visiting at that time. They decided that the land would be ideal to install a crusade tent and start the first services of the future Martinez Christian Family Center.
On January 17, 1987, with 51 people in attendance and with the help of a group of Bible school students, they celebrated the first service. Services were held every night that summer in spite of the storms and strong winds that nearly took the tent down on several occasions.
Soon, there were baptisms, Bible classes, special speakers, and finally, preparations were started for the construction of the church building.
The congregation was immensely thrilled to see the first stages of construction and the walls going up. Everyone helped out, and with a lot of sacrifice and many hours of hard work, the construction started to take form.
At the same time, the congregation started to take on more responsibilities in different areas and the new believers were strengthened in the Word and in spiritual growth.
Also in 1989 Don began to serve as Area Director for the Division of World Missions. This new responsibility was to supervise and pastor AGWM missionaries in the Southern Cone of South America and that added much to the work load. He resigned as Area Director in December 2009 after serving 21 years.
In 1991, the Exley family left Argentina for one year in the United States and then moved to Santiago, Chile upon their return to South America.
In February of 2001, the Exley family returned to Buenos Aires to resume the responsibility of pastors of Christian Family Center of Martinez. There were hard moments and great challenges, but with the help of the Lord and the marvelous people at CFC, the church was strengthened.
Right away, construction was started on the third floor. More class rooms and church offices were built. The congregation multiplied and a second service was added.
After 5 years, a third Sunday service was needed and was started on June 11, 2006. During the month of June the church and many special speakers celebrated the 30 years of missionary service by the Exleys.
Plans have been drawn and construction on the new 1,500 seat sanctuary was started in the summer of 2007.
