01 May 2008

Dear Friends,    

CAYUMBA - La Iglesia Bautista Belen

     The works continue to go well. We recently celebrated our one year anniversary at our mission work in the village of Cayumba. We enjoyed a wonderful day of worship, song, food and fellowship. The service was very well attended. We thank the Lord for all who worked hard to make it a special day.

     Please continue to pray for the work in Cayumba. Cayumba is different in many ways than our work in Húanuco...  primarily due to the fact that the people are different. It is hard to imagine that simply driving two hours down the back side of the mountain can lead into such a different lifestyle and culture as we see between our two mission works. While our work in Húanuco consists primarily of what are considered “mountain folks”, Cayumba is a village with a purely tropical climate and is much closer to the Jungle way of life.

     One of the biggest challenges we face at the work in Cayumba are Christians who are living with those that they are not married to. We have several who attend the work who are in this situation, and for this reason we cannot baptize them, and they cannot join the mission work. Many if not all understand that this is wrong, but getting them to act in faith and make the necessary changes in their life is proving to be difficult. For our anniversary service I preached on repentance, and the change that is expected to take place in the lives of God’s people. During the invitation, one young lady did respond to the message and request prayer, saying she knew there where things that were not right in her life and she wanted God to help her to change. However unfortunately none of those who we are praying for about either getting married or repenting of their immoral lifestyles made any indication of their plans to change.

     Ministering to the children is always a blessing. There are about 35-40 children who attend each week in Cayumba. Through the children’s ministry the Lord has opened doors for us to minister to their parents. The father of one of the teenage girls who has made a profession of faith has started coming faithfully. His name is Billy Graham. Brother Graham’s testimony is that he was saved as a young man, but he has not been in church for many years. He can play the flute, and has made a couple different types of flutes that he plays himself. He is a real blessing to the church. Brother Graham asks for prayer for his wife. She is not saved and does not attend the work with he and his daughter.        

HÚANUCO - La Iglesia Bautista Calvario

     The work in Húanuco continues to go well.  One of our recent blessings has been a man named Victor Tonconi. Many of you probably remember from our last letter that we are asking for prayer for Victor’s wife Saded. She has had kidney failure and has been receiving dialysis every other day for several weeks. She says to thank all of you for your prayers. Her swelling has gone way down but she is still not able to walk much.

     Bro. Victor has a real heart to serve the Lord. Not only does he have a wonderful singing voice that he uses to sing specials in church, but he also has a heart to reach others with the gospel. Victor announced that he was going to begin going to the park on Sundays afternoons between services to tell others about the Lord. Originally I thought he was only planning to pass out tracts and invite people to church, however he plans to do more than that. - he told me he wants to do some open air public preaching. For this he is asking for a self contained PA system that he can take with him that will include a microphone and speaker. I want to encourage him in anyway I can, and will be talking with him more about what we can do to help him. At this time he says he would like to join the work but has not yet done so. Please pray with us for this good brother and his wife.

Mother’s day is always a really big event here in Peru. We trust all you moms had a wonderful day there in the States as well. Here in Peru, father’s day is not a big deal... but Mother’s day seems to be equaled for them only by Christmas. We honored all of the moms in church and passed out flowers. We were also surprised by the news that Kike’s wife Celina is pregnant. Recently one of the other ladies, Soyla, had announced that she too was pregnant, and we have been praying for her for a couple weeks.... But we were surprised and happy to learn that Celina was also expecting. 

     Due to the news about Celina.... Andrea told me that we could not keep it a secret any longer that she TOO is pregnant! Yes that’s right, Andrea is also eight weeks pregnant. We had kept it a secret until now, but with the news of Soyla, and Celina... It was not something we could keep quiet any longer. The announcements of the three expecting mothers made Mother’s day extra special this year. Please pray for them that all will go well with their pregnancies. Not to mention the fact that these three ladies are our Sunday School teachers in Húanuco and we will be needing some others to work with the children in about six or seven months!     

JANUARY / FEBRUARY /