Morning Dedication

My sweet friend Molly posted this on her blog a couple of days ago, and I have reread it many times this week. I love the words. I hope it will bless you as much as it has blessed me. This is from Valley of Vision.

Almighty God, as I cross the threshold of this day I commit myself, soul, body, affairs, friends, to Thy care. Watch over, keep, guide, direct, sanctify, bless me. Incline my heart to thy ways. Mould me wholly into the image of Jesus, as a potter forms clay. May my lips be a well-tuned harp to sound Thy praise. Let those around see me living by Thy Spirit, trampling the world underfoot, unconformed to lying vanities, transformed by a renewed mind, clad in the entire armour of God, shining as a never-dimmed light, showing holiness in all my doings. Let no evil this day soil my thoughts, words, hands. May I travel miry paths with a life pure from spot or stain. In needful transactions let my affection be in heaven, and my love soar upwards in flames of fire, my gaze fixed on unseen things, my eyes open to the emptiness, fragility, mockery of earth and its vanities. May I view all things in the mirror of eternity, waiting for the coming of my Lord, listening for the last trumpet call, hastening unto the new heaven and earth. Order this day all my communications according to Thy wisdom, and to the gain of mutual good. Forbid that I should not be profited or made profitable. May I speak each word as if my last word, and walk each step as my final one. If my life should end today, let this be my best day.

Ambo

Last week I went with a group from College Street Baptist Church in Walhalla, South Carolina to the Huanaco area where they have been working for the last 4 years with the Ambo-Pasco Quechua people. For a week we lived on a farm, just outside of the province capital, a “large city” of about 16,000 people. From this base, we worked with two pastors in Ambo, pastor Sobrado and pastor Baldeon. Both of these men have established, growing churches but they have the vision and the heart to plant churches in there surrounding villages that have no body of believers. We went with pastor Sobrado (and his whole famly) to visit a village that has been on his heart (I do not remember the name and I’m pretty sure it is not on any map) and it took us about 3 hours in the truck to get there. Pastor Sobrado also has a list of 4 other places that he would like to plant churches in the next year. Another day we went with pastor Baldeon and 4 members of his church, to a town called Quio where he would like to start a work. Our whole group spent the afternoon just walking around and talking to people, going into their homes if we were invited. We were able to share the gospel one-on-one with many people in the town and two people prayed to receive Christ. Finally on the last night we had a big evangelical service in conchamarca to support the ministry of the two small evangelical churches there. It was really neat to see two different denominations come together for the purpose of reaching out to their town!



In my research of how the churches have grown I found that there are over 100 churches in this province and at least 18 new churches have been started since College Street began working in this area. None of these churches were started by them but were started by pastors that they have been training and encouraging! This is so exciting and exactly the way we want things to happen. When College Street stops coming altogether, the local church will still be reaching out to the areas around them where people are lost, planting churches, and teaching new believers. Please pray for Pastor Sobrado, Pastor Baldeon, and their congregations as they plant churches in new areas.



Random funny story: When we were spending the day in Quio, it had been raining a lot (and rained almost the whole time we were there) and I happened to be looking at a flock of sheep on the side of a nearby mountain. While I was watching a large chunk of dirt/grass broke off and the two sheep standing there tumbled/rolled down the mountain for about 50 feet. When they finally stopped, they stood up and started looking around as if to say “What just happened?” It was really funny, I wish I had a video to share. Oh well.

Getting Started

Before I start this post I want to apologize for the inconsistency of our posting to the blog. We have been in a state of transition for a long time but now that we are settled and starting our respective jobs we will be posting regularly about what we are doing and specific ways that you can be praying for the work in Peru. Thank you so much for those of you who haven’t given up on us and actually see and read this post!

Mindy and I have moved into a wonderful apartment in an area of Lima called San Isidro. It is on a quiet street, gets lots of sunlight, and has a back yard. We absolutely love it! Our first two weeks in Lima have been spent getting settled in, going through more orientation and training (survival training), and getting to know our team. We were especially blessed to be able to get here just in time to join our team for the annual prayer retreat. The retreat was at the beach and was a great opportunity for all of the new people to meet and learn from the veterans. Before you start feeling envious you should know that we all came home covered in flee and mosquito bites.

This past Friday, Mindy and I went on our first trip. The purpose of this trip was to prepare for two groups of International World Changers (IWC) that we will be hosting this summer. Two of the project coordinators, Chad and Kathy, came to Peru to check out the site, plan the ministry projects, and figure out all of the logistics. This is a big job because there will be around 70 high school students each week plus around 15 missionaries and 15 interpreters. That is a lot of people to move around the mountains! We will be based in a small city called Canta but the students will be working in schools, hosting plaza parties, doing construction projects and more in villages scattered in the mountains all around Canta. It was really good for Mindy and I to see an area where we have churches working and to visit a local church and pray and worship with the members. We also both got some (a lot) of practice driving a straight shift truck up and down those narrow, dirt mountain roads. If you have been to Peru, you know exactly what I am talking about!

Tomorrow I will be leaving to go with a team from College Street Baptist Church to go work with the Ambo Pasco people. My role on this trip will be to talk with the local pastors and find out how many new churches have been planted and how many people have been baptized. This is really exciting because we get to see how the churches that College St planted have started other churches. The group will be doing evangelism, encouragement of house church leaders, discipleship, and pastor training. I am really excited to be able work with this team and to start on my first research project.

Prayer Requests:
• For the World Changers coming this summer
• For the College Street Trip
• That God would send us more people interested in summer missions
• That Mindy and I would continue to learn how to do our jobs
• That our relationship with God would grow and deepen everyday and that it would be the center of all that we do.

Arrived!

Thank you all who prayed for us as we said goodbye to our sweet friends in Guatemala and traveled to Lima today. Out trip went very smoothly, and we arrived on time with all our luggage! Some of our team was at the airport to meet us and bring us to our new abode, which we love. We're looking forward to putting our own touch on it this weeks as we settle in. We'll definately post more later, but we've been up for 17 or 18 hours and traveling and are ready to get some shut eye. More to come soon!

Mindy (for both of us)

Prayer Requests

It's just almost time! We leave in less than two weeks for Peru! We are so excited to join the REAP North team, settle into the apartment and dive into ministry!Please pray:

• For smooth travel and as Ryan, Brittne, John, Christine and I go to Peru, Aaron and Stacie go to Argentina and Jessica goes to Ecuador.
• For continued language learning as I have by no means mastered Spanish, but have made good progress.
• For relationships with my new REAP North teammates and for Peruvian friends.
• For overall adjustments into life in Peru.

We will update the blog with pictures as we settle into our apartment and life in Lima! Love to you all!

Firsts...

With my 26th birthday on the horizon and this being my first Christmas away from home (ever), I was definitely a little nervous about what the homesickness would be like this holiday season. I got up early on my birthday so I could talk to my family first thing in the morning before school. As good as it was to talk to my family, I cried a little while talking to them, and then again when recounting it to my friends before school. I had a normal day of classes and then enjoyed a great Christmas lunch provided by the school. My afternoon was spent talking with family and friends, and doing a little bit of homework. Northing extremely exciting. I returned home to have dinner with my Guatemalan family, and knew that I was going out with some of the girls after dinner for dessert. Little did I know what was planned. Just after dinner, I was on the phone with Shelley when I heard tons of voices behind me singing, “We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy Birthday too!” I absolutely love Christmas caroling. I love caroling, I love when carolers come to my house, and I love being surprised! We went to another house for a birthday celebration on the roof complete with ice cream and cheesecake! Christine’s parents arrived from Colorado the night before and brought birthday and Christmas presents from my family. What a treat! I am so thankful for my missionary family in Guatemala. They made me feel so special on a day that I didn’t want to a huge deal out of because I was afraid of being homesick.

My great friends at my birthday celebration!

We spent Christmas day with a fellow missionary family in Antigua. The Stamps’ were so great to have us over for Thanksgiving dinner and still invited us back for Christmas day too! It was a great laid back day grazing over the food, hanging out together and taking turns calling home to talk with our families. I don’t think I took my camera Christmas day, so I don’t have any pictures to share. If I find some…I’ll post them later.

Stacie and I at Lake Atitlan.

My Christmas treat this year was a 2.5 day getaway to Lake Atitlan. Talk about beautiful! A bunch of us headed to the lake for the weekend, but stayed in different hotels because they were so fun. Aaron, Stacie and I took our time exploring some of the pueblos around the Lake Atitlan on Saturday, enjoyed some touristy shopping and complete relaxation. These were some of the most relaxing and restful days that I’ve had since arriving in Guatemala. If you should ever get a chance to come to Guatemala, don’t miss Lake Atitlan…especially at sunset!

This has gotten quite long, but I wanted to leave you with one of my favorite images from Lake Atitlan.

“I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; you faithfulness reaches to the skies. Be exalted, O God, above the heaves; let your glory be over all the earth.”
Psalm 57:911

Playing catch up

My Dad politely pointed out to me the other day, that Christine and I haven't blogged at all in the month of December. Oops! I think where we last left you was at Thanksgiving a month ago and we were about to head out of town to the beach. All 13 of us who are studying in Antigua left Thanksgiving afternoon for Monterrico beach for 3 days of R&R.
We had such a great time cooking and eating American food, playing at the beach and in the pool, and speaking English for 3 full days. It was a much needed break from the first 6 weeks of language school. We stayed in this great house (above) that the Lord provided. The top floor is an open air, covered patio with a view of the ocean. It was so peaceful and tranquilo. For some, this was their first Thanksgiving away from home, and while we didn't cook the traditional Thanksgiving dinner at the beach, a sweet MAC region couple invited us all over for Thanksgiving dinner and prepared a feast! I always like Thanksgiving, but I don't remember the last time I was so excited to see cranberry sauce and a honey roasted ham! It was absolutely delicious! The Stamps have been kind enough to invite us over again on Christmas day.

Speaking of Christmas, we had the opportunity to hear Handle's The Messiah in Antigua about 3 weeks ago. I wish you could have all been there to experience it with us. We went into a gorgeous 5 star hotel that had lit candles and white christmas lights everywhere and walked to the back portion of the hotel where there are ruins of a cathedral. This was the most professional group I have ever heard sing and play The Messiah and I don't really have adequet words to describe how good there were. It was an awesome way to get into the Christmas spirit, and be reminded of the real reason for Christmas.

Not everyday is like the events I've just described. I promise! I thought some of the special events would be more fun to share about than the normal day to day routine.

Spanish is coming along for Christine and I. We have started learning the Subjunctive Mood which is the last major part of Spanish and is also really complicated. We don't have a similar tense or mood in English, I don't think, so it's kind of hard to wrap my head around. With time and practice it will come.

We have just under 3 weeks left in Antigua, which is a little intimidating. I only have 10 days of class left, and there is no way I can possibly learn all that I want too. Please pray for continued focus for us as our time here comes to a close. It's becoming more difficult to focus on studying with my birthday, Christmas and New Year's being so close. Also please pray for our group here as we are far from our families during the holidays. This is a first for most of us, and while we have a great place to go, and people that we love around, it's not the same as being at home.

Merry Christmas to you and your family! I hope you have wonderful day off from work, being together with your families, and celebrating Christ!