Disclaimer: My blog is really long and random, feel free to skip around, do not feel obligated to read the whole thing! Love you guys!
As I am sitting here writing…I am thinking how blessed I am to have a computer that now works, while I am listening to an amazing CD – Klaus that my mom so graciously gave me. Such an incredible CD…you should check it out. Wow, I feel like I have so much to write about, even though it has only been one week. Last night, I was just overwhelmed in a good way about how many crazy many ministry opportunities God has given us here. I was in the clinic last night around 10:00 working with Nancy on finishing making crafts for a school activity that we had today. Anyway, as I was leaving I saw a woman in the lobby, and I just felt the need to share with her the gospel. Anyway, I proceed to go back into the clinic (to be honest not really wanting to share and wanting to go to bed more), and I come to find out she is a neighbor of a lady that is dying of cancer. Anyway, she had come to help bring her neighbor to the hospital because she was having difficulty breathing. Just as I was getting to start to talk to her, the doctor called her in to help. I was like great…..there goes that opportunity. Then I thought, I will just write them a letter….so I wrote a letter. Then the doctor came out to talk with the security guard and I, I started talking to her about the patient and had the opportunity to go in with the doctor. What I saw, was so incredible saddening….probably an 80 year old struggling to even breathe. I have never heard someone breathe so terribly. My desire was to share Jesus with this family. Then the atheist doctor asked me if I wanted to tell them anything that would bring them more peace. Well of course…..I was able to pray with them for their mom who was very much dying. Also, I was able to share the gospel with the other two well adults. God even uses atheist to open up doors to share the gospels with others. Incredible……..anyway, I was able to get their address…so that soon as in the next week I can bring them a meal or something. I left the hospital thinking a few things…..one that I am a little scared about all of the smoke that I am around in the volunteer house…….but mainly thinking of how many amazing ministry opportunities there are here. Hospital ministry (chaplins), teaching abandoned kids, getting to know the faculty, working with the kids outside the community etc. I am overwhelmed by all the opportunities God gives here. I was thinking to myself part of me never wants to leave from inside the actual orphanage….because most likely I would not be in the clinic past 10 at night if I didn’t live here. Then God gave me the thought…what if we could raise up leaders here to have specific ministries here. A group of teenage Christians here that could share the gospel with those in the hospital and pray for those that are in such desperate need of prayer. That would be so much cooler and the gospel could spread even faster in that way. Anyway, please be in prayer of that for ministry teams to start………I think we are just around the corner for that to start. Wow…that is only like 20 minutes of the week…I still have much to write about, but right now I have to go teach English. I will come back soon and finish the rest of the week.
Okay, I am back, I am going to write from Tuesday night backwards. Anyway, this week has been a little weird in the fact that we have not been working at the schools this week because of random closings, volleyball tournaments, and exams. This has given me some extra free time to get ready other things. Nancy graciously decided to invite some volunteers to go with us to the market. I was being selfish and wanted for us to just go….but it turned out to be really neat. Which brings me to the point there is new volunteers in the house right now. It is hilarious how God always gives you the desires of your heart. I was just telling Nancy how I missed people from Mexico because I used to work with them all the time in Mission Arlington. Like literally the next day, a volunteer came from Mexico. She is the sweetest older lady and she is going to teach me how to make taco shells. I AM SO EXCITED. TACOS are my favorite food. Anyway, so they went with us and we bought things to make tacos and bought a ton of cookies and juice bags for the rest of the month of October for the public schools. Once again, I was being selfish and Nancy was being generous, I bought ice cream and coke to make coke floats. They do not have just plain ice cream in Ventanilla where we live ……..and I was thinking Nancy and I could make a quick coke float while we were waiting on the other volunteers and she said we should share. I am so glad Nancy was keeping me in check for all my selfishness, we ended up making coke floats outside of the grocery store with the other volunteers. The new volunteer from France said it was one of the best days of her life! I guess she like the coke float haha. Then we got to take over the ice cream to our neighbor’s house and let them experience their coke float as well; it was so much fun. By the end of the day I had had 3 small coke floats. Of course, I had to drink them with all of the people who had never had them before. The people from Peru absolutely loved them. Anyway, it was a great day of shopping for cookies, taco things, and drinking coke floats. More than that it was cool just getting to share life with others and continue to build relationships. Two funny things that happened yesterday as well, was when I was buying 1,500 packages of cookies, I broke the glass window at the kiosk and had to pay for it! That was quite embarrassing but luckily it was only about 7 dollars. Also, when we were at our neighbor’s house, or otherwise known as the “chicken shack” to some, we went into the kitchen for the first time to wash our dishes. They have just recently purchased a microwave, meaning that at times I might be able to buy freezer food and use their microwave to heat up some things like chicken nuggets. I was super excited. I feel a little dumb that this whole paragraph has been about food……but when you live in the middle of a “desert” sometimes the small things in life excite you. Anyway…
To more important things, house church went amazing this past Sunday! We found out kind of last minute that we were going to have to meet outside because the dentist had to vote, and she decided to not to give us her key. I was kind of irritated to be honest because all of our chairs and everything were inside there. I was thinking maybe we should not invite any new people and just let the normal people come since we will be outside literally on the ground. As, I am writing this I see that Nancy has given me much great advice this week. She said we should still invite them as normal. So we did! The most came than ever, 26 people came. More people came because we were outside, even people from other towns! It was crazy. Nancy, kept on inviting people as they walked by and more and more kept coming. It was such a great day. We were outside for about 2 hours on 3 blankets, and it was so fun to see Dad’s coloring crosses, people from rich towns come sit on blankets in the sand to hear about the Savior. INCREDIBLE. I have a new motto, “blankets, sandwiches, and Jesus” is all you need for people to come hear about the Savior. That morning on our way to buy the lunch for house church, I saw a huge line of people, the thought came to me that maybe it would have been more beneficial for us to spend our time with these people that were forced to stand in line because it was election day. In Peru, it is mandatory to vote. Well anyway, after church Nancy and I decided that we would take the extra bracelets with the arrows that share the gospel to all those that were forced to stand in line to vote. We were there for about 2 ½ hours getting to give bracelets to everyone and their mom and sharing the gospel with them. Even the army that was there guarding the doors and the police officers. It was so neat. I think it really touched some people. I have already received a thank you e-mail from one girl thinking her for the paper bracelet I gave her. We are hoping those will be seeds planted on fertile soil. God is always flinging open opportunities for us here. We can’t keep up with God. He is so good and so faithful! Saturday, I was kind of having a lazy day, but then I got movin’ and went to Liz’s house to see if she would help me grade tests in Spanish. We ended up getting a little side tracked and watched a great movie together “Letters to God” (thank you Katie, loved the movie)). It was good to get to spend some time with Liz because normally our schedules are too busy to ever even see each other. Then one of the coolest things happened after that. Alvaro, the religion teacher who became a Christian about two months ago came to the community for us to plan his class together. We went and downloaded the mission Arlington curriculum. We downloaded the last 8 lessons for the last 8 weeks of this school year. Then we planned together. I showed him how to use the felt board, verse games, jeopardy, and everything. He says it has been going awesome this week. That the kids love it! He says his class that he normally has with really bad kids responded to this great. He is super excited. From now on, we are going to plan together every week. Praise God, TRUTH is being taught now to the high schoolers. He is going back to the basics…the life of Jesus and sharing the gospel. How neat to see God use a new believer share with the lost. God has just been pouring out the blessings. Which leads me to this past week. About 40 children, gave their lives to the Lord. The Holy Spirit was moving in a miraculous way. We were talking about in one of my classes how Jesus has ultimate power over evil and he showed us that when he defeated death and rose again. Then, I was sharing the gospel like normal, and one girl asked how can I ask Jesus into my heart? Then it all started. About 10 kids decided to put their faith in Jesus right then and there. I talked with them individually and they made decisions each on their own. Then I was telling my other classes what happened in that class and more wanted to give their lives to Christ. This kept on happening in all of my classes. Also, some kids just had tons of questions and wanted to get them answered or just wanted to confide in me about problems in their life. It was such a sweet sweet week last week. This Saturday we will be starting a new believers Bible study since now we have about 50 believers in the community. The kids are really excited. It is so neat to see God drawing people to himself. I feel like we are at a turning point here. Kids are finally starting to understand the Truth! I feel like kids and adults are about to start to come to know the Lord in a more massive way than before. I am just waiting to see what God does. Mission Peru here we come!!! God has really been giving me a vision for this area in Peru.
Okay….so I left of this blog like three weeks ago and SO much has happened since then. I can’t even remember all of it. I am so bad at blogging, please forgive me. Anyway, trying to think of the highlights to tell you from the month of October and the first part of November. Wow, time flies. Anyway, God has been at work still drawing people to himself, I think about 60 have come to know him total in the past month. It is so cool to see God doing an incredible work bringing people to himself. Every kid that accepted Christ prayed with their own words. It was so incredible to see the faith of these kids. One of my kids that is in the second grade, but is old for his grade prayed this prayer (translated in English)
God,
I know that I have sins. I pray that you would free me from my sins. I want to be with you. I don’t want to be with the devil, I want to be with you. I want to be with you, and I don’t want to be with the devil and I want you to free me from my sins. I believe in you that you are God and God’s son and died and rose again, free me from my sins.
Amen
It so touched my heart. The kids are really learning the truth. One kid came to me after he accepted Christ and was super worried that the devil was putting bad thoughts in his head, but we got to talk about the assurance of his salvation. I have watched one of my worst girls attitude completely change after she accepted Christ. Last week, a girl came up to me and asked me if I went to mass. I told her no, and she asked me why and I told her that I did not believe the things they taught. This girl had accepted Christ a couple of weeks before. We talked about how the Bible is a much better of a teacher. She said well then if I don’t go to mass, can I come to the volunteer house and read the Bible with you because I am scared to stay in my house alone. Then she said she does not have a Bible, I proceeded to give her the one I had in my hand and challenged her to read the book of John, 1 chapter of day. She was so EXCITED! Then she started reading it right then and there. So, I changed my mind and told her to read 2 chapters a day. She said when I finish this, do I read all the rest, meaning all the rest of the new testament and then start at the front. I told her to tell me when she finished, and then we would talk about the next book to read. Kids are still asking all the time for the picture Bibles that so many of you graciously sent, but so cool now to see Elementary kids now wanting to read the ACTUAL BIBLE. One of my other elementary kids, told me how he had read the whole picture Bible and a lot of the stories I taught in class were in there. I explained that of course because I was teaching out of the book of Matthew. He then proceeded to ask me for a Bible so he could read the stories that we have been learning. He is hungry for God’s word. God has been showing me through my mom, the kids hunger for the Word, and just what I know about how powerful that the Word of God that is extremely important for these people to read his Word. I am assuming most of the people that are reading this blog right now are American Christians who likely have 5 Bibles sitting on your shelf at home collecting dust. I am saying that not to stereotype but because I was guilty of the same thing. People here are dying to read the Word of God. They literally are also dying spiritually because they have never heard the truth. I would encourage you, a challenge to clean all the Bibles out of your house besides one that you read and give them to someone who doesn’t have the Word of God. I am going to share a few more Bible stories with you as well. After, I got done teaching the big boy bible study, a boy followed me to my house and asked about proclaimers. Wendy Ball so graciously got us in contact with these radio boxes that read the new testament in Kechua, Spanish, or English. He was wondering if he could have one to give to his grandma who lives in Cuzco who speaks Kechua. He explained that she could not read, but would love to listen to the Bible because she goes to church and really wants to read the Bible and for other members of the church that have the same issue. I was so thrilled that even teenage boys were interested in people reading the Word of God. Nancy brought more back from the states last week so hopefully we will be able to send one of them with him to Cuzco. Another girl asked me for a charger so she could plug in her proclaimer because her hand got tired of winding it up. So encouraging, it just shows me that is actually listening and really wants to continue. Sorry, last Bible story. I was at my favorite restaurant the chicken shack, when I felt like God really wanted me to share the gospel with a man that was sitting there. I shared with him, then went over to his wife and kid in the car. The real reason why I was supposed to share with this man was so I could talk with his son. His mom proceeded to share with me, that her son loved to learn about God. I asked if they had a Bible and they said no like mostly everyone says around here. I gave the little 8 year old a Bible and you should have seen his face light up! He was ecstatic. Pray that God’s word would fall on very fertile soil with all the people that now have Bibles.
Sorry, my blog is so random. I was thinking I don’t think I have very much to write about, but then I am remembering so many things that have happened over this past month! So Crazy! Okay, next random story….. Well, apparently China messed up in producing these stuffed animals puppets for Bembos which is like the Peruvian McDonalds. The wrong tag was on the wrong stuffed animal probably because the Chinese people that were doing it don’t know Spanish. Anyway, a friend of Miguel’s brought it to the Community to do. He brought 90,000 stuffed animals to redo. The process for this is to open the bag, take off the tag carefully off of all 90,000. Then retag all 90,000 put them back in bags, heat seal the bag, and pack them. It took about 4 days, with a couple of nights as well. It was really so much fun! I LOVE factory type work. Why? Because you don’t have to think, you just do the same thing over and over again. I am sure it would get old after a while, but I really enjoyed it. Highlights of staying up all night one night putting together stuff animals: 1) Got to share the gospel with the man that brought this work to us. He seemed really open to it, talking about how I have a joy etc that he has not seen. I explained it was the Holy Spirit. Then he proceeded to ask my age and he was trying to see if I could date him…it was really funny. Turns out he is 20 years older than me. After he found out it would never work, then he proceeded to show me pics of his kids. One of his kids being my age. Pretty comical! 2) I got to hang out with some really awesome university students and to get to know them better like all night long haha 3) I got to hang out with the director, Miguel, which was cool since normally I never see him because he is so busy. I have really good memories of that night getting to joke all night long with some new University students that I had not known before, but I was super tired the next day for class.
Okay, man I am jumping all over the place, but way earlier in this blog, I talked about the new Mexican volunteer and making tacos. Well, the day after we went shopping for taco things, there were a few things that we could not find in the market such as sour cream. Nancy and I had the privilege of being able to attend some of our missionary friend’s Bible study in the city of Surco. Surco is more like a downtown dallas (the nice part) compared to Ventanilla being more like the outskirts of Dallas aka the ghetto. Anyway, I say that to say that Surco has some really neat things. After Bible study, we went to an international store called Wongs. The Wong’s in Surco is the best Wongs I have ever been too. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I found TACO shells for the first time in Peru. My parents had sent me 36, but those weren’t going to last too long. I was so EXCITED! The people in the aisle probably thought I was a pshycho! Not only that but I found pickles, ranch dip, sour cream, and pretty much all of my favorite foods. It was like God was telling me, see you can live here forever. I have PROVIDED everything for you. Of course, I was already planning on staying in Peru before this shopping trip, but God was just confirming his goodness and his faithfulness! He was like see Lauren I give you the desires of your heart even down to the ranch dip. It was a really neat night followed by going to Chilis! To most who are reading this, this probably seems very shallow, but the small American things are so appreciated when you live in an orphanage way outside of most modern civilization. It is just so neat to see God provide things that aren’t even necessary but are just fun. Anyway, back to Tacos. We cooked dinner for the entire volunteer house and EVERYONE came, which normally does not happen. It was a huge hit. I was thrilled. Then the next weekend, I was able to cook Tacos and brownies for my good friends Mario and Merby and hang out at their house all Saturday. I met some people playing volleyball with them. One of the girls I met has already come by the community for help with English. It is just so crazy how everywhere we go, we meet people that want to learn about the Bible or English. Either way a good opportunity to share the good news. I also made Taco’s last weekend for the Dentist and her friend. She loved them. She is super skinny and she ate 3 tacos. So, tacos are a huge hit in Peru for me and the Peruvians. So glad I found out where I can buy taco shells!
Another fun thing that Nancy and I were able to do was take like one of favorite two people in the Community out for their birthdays. Their birthdays were on the same day, they both are amazing Christian girls. One is a very new Christian and the other one has been one for about a year and is literally leading many to the Savior. We took them to dominoes! We had a great time with them. They loved the pizza! Then that night with one of them we had a sleepover in her house. She had a great time and so did we. Speaking of birthdays, another one of the university girls’ birthdays was recently. I had sent her sisters to go buy a cake, but living in the community nothing stays a secret. The tutor of the house wanted to use the cake that I had bought for a small little birthday party for the entire house. I was irritated at first, but God turned into a really cool thing. Instead of just having a little small party for her, her whole house threw her a huge party. Then I was able to spend a really good time talking with the house parent of that house which I hadn’t talked to her in a long time. It was SO GOOD! She just talked to me about her life. Please remember to pray for the house parents. None of them except one are Christians and they are going through their own set of hardships. Even though I am busier than I have ever been since I started in Peru, God is like multiplying the time. It is incredible. I never want to be too busy to talk to people. I never want for the kids in the community to feel like I am too busy for them. I know they have felt that way at times, but lately I have really gotten to have some excellent one on one time with people. I one night got to talk to one of the Doctors for like 2 hours, it was really good because I am always trying to build relationships with the doctors, I have gotten to spend a lot of quality time with another university student that works in the pharmacy (he actually helped me in the Public school while Nancy was gone, AMAZING!), got to spend a lot of quality time with the girls that work in the kiosk. People are opening up about their lives finally it seems and man these kids are going through some hard times. Most of the times, I feel myself getting used to living with these kids and really forgetting about all they are going through. But then I am forced to remember when a girl shares with me that she has been sad since the day her uncle killed her dad. Intense. These kids need the peace that only Jesus can bring. I got to go to a church service with one of my favorite friends Alfonso. Although, everything that happened at that church service I do not agree with, it was a really sweet time of fellowship with Alfonso. We studied the Bible together and then we went to Dominoes which was super fun!
Senor de Milagros – God always uses what Satan means for evil to bring something good out of it. If anyone is reading this from Peru, I am not writing this to be offensive, just want to share some cool things that took place in the community. A big festival took place one weekend at the community. It is called “Senor de Milagros.” This was a HUGE event at the community where all these people came in and spent tons of money. Senor de Milagros is a 2 day festival to worship a picture of Jesus. Legend says, that hundreds a years ago back this same picture healed people etc. That is legend! Anyway, now every year in Peru there are huge worship fests of a picture. It broke my heart when I heard that this was going to go on in the community. Before, I even said anything about it; teens had already asked me about it, asking if I believe in it. I said no and they said we don’t either, the Bible says not to worship idols, we just believe in God. I decided that week to teach the Bible study over Exodus 20 about not having idols to the high schoolers, and it just so happened that week’s lesson for my religion class was about Mary washing Jesus feet. I was able to incorporate not worshipping idols into that lesson as well. The kids on their own brought up Senor de Milagros. I was just talking to them about idols in general. It was incredible to see God working in their hearts. Almost every kid disagreed with worshipping that idol of Senor de Milagros. Only like the 1st and 2nd grades did not understand until I explained about it being wrong. Besides two university students, none of the other kids wanted to be a part of it. It was just obligation. It was just so neat to see how God was showing these kids the Truth even when they were being forced to do something that they did not want to do. We talked about how; it is one thing to go to the ceremony and another thing to actually worship the picture. It was such a neat time to see how God is continually revealing his TRUTH to the people in the community. I purposely did not attend this event, but I feel confident in knowing that the majority of kids in the community did not worship at all this idol, but knew that they were only supposed to worship Jesus Christ himself. God is at work! The most convicting part of the whole thing, was as I was drilling into these kids about idol worship. God showed me a ton of idols that I had in my life. No not pictures, but fb, talking with friends over Him etc. He majorly laid some things in my heart that had to change. Right now, I am working on letting God remove idols out of my life. It is crazy being a teacher because normally I learn as much as the kids do or more! It was a humbling experience for me when I realized I was so upset about this idol worship ceremony that was going to take place when I had several of my own idols in my life.
As I mentioned, I taught the story of Mary at Bethany when she anoints Jesus with perfume. It was such a neat time in my classes because we acted it out. I had a kid be Jesus and I as Mary and I actually washed their feet with perfume and my hair. Hopefully, the point was shown that Mary truly loved Jesus with everything she had. Let’s just say I took lots of showers that week!
Right after Nancy left for her time in the states, I decided I have to get everything ready for the rest of the year to surprise Nancy and just so I can have sanity! One of the girls in the community helped me a ton, another house helped me cut string, and my English house helped me cut string as well. After about 60 hours or more of collective work! I finished with the help of many all of my religion class lessons, church lessons, bible studies for the community, English lessons, and public school lessons. All I have left is to get Alvaro’s lessons in order (the new Christian teacher) and the new believer Bible study in order. It was a huge encouragement to me to finish these things. Speaking of schools, we are now in all of the schools finally. We have had two sessions of High School ASP with Pedro Planes and about 50 high schoolers have come. We are hoping for more, but 50 is a good start. We also changed our schedule at one of the other schools so that we will be going into individual classrooms. I am excited about this new plan so that the kids will understand better in smaller groups. Please pray for discernment for us as we plan for next year and actually being in the schools actual schedule of classes. Please pray that Nancy and I will know exactly what schools to be in and how to be involved in each particular school!
House church is going phenomenal. I am falling in love with the children of Puente Piedra. I was late 2 Sundays and did not have time to go around and invite people, but they came anyway even bringing new friends. They are so consistent and so faithful to bring new friends. Last week as I was inviting people, I found out where some of our kids live. They actually are the kids of the owners of all the little shops nearby. It was so humbling to know that kids from stores all over are coming to church. Some really neat people have come to church lately. The girl that sold me my cell phone came and also my good friend and taxi driver came for the first time 2 weeks ago. We also had a really neat Christian family came, the kid brought his mp3 with Spanish Hillsong on it! It was super sweet. Also, one week an elderly Baptist pastor came. God is really working in this house church. Please pray that Doris the Dentist would be able to take over this house church soon, so another one can be started!
Last weekend on Sunday, I saw lots of people that looked like they were from Cuzco. Normally, there are hardly any parents from Cuzco because it is so far away. Well, I walked by two ladies that seemed familiar, and they were people I knew! It was SO CRAZY! Almost a year ago, when I first came to Peru I went on a walking tour and I met these two ladies in this remote mountain village in Arequipa and spent a ton of time talking with them and gave them salvation bracelets. I was able to reunite with them, they asked for more bracelets. I gave them the arrow salvation bracelets this time. Honestly, I was really tired and wanted to take a nap instead of talk to these people from Arequipa but God continued to open up incredible doors. I was able to meet some more people and give out more bracelets. Before I knew it I had the opportunity to share the gospel to this huge group of people from Arequipa that had come on a field trip with one of the schools to the Community. I even got to give the mayor a salvation bracelet. God is so cool. It is so crazy how many people in Peru God has put back in my life when I thought I would never see them again.
One more random story…..a lady came in the clinic last week. Her daughter had escaped from the community. The interesting part about this lady was she was deaf, mute, and could not read. Years ago when I was five I took sign language lessons. I was able to communicate with her in sign language and share the gospel. It was so neat. God is really impressing on my heart about learning all sorts of languages so that you can communicate with anyone that comes into your path the good news of Jesus. But first, I must conquer Spanish. haha
So sorry, my blog is so long…..Almost done. Nicolette’s wedding! One of our friends from Australia that has lived at the community for four years and has been the tutor of the Santa Rosa house had an emergency with her fiancee’s health and they needed to go back home. They had planned to get married this January in the community, but they had to go back home yesterday. So what happened….did they have to cancel the wedding?!? Of course not, they just had to plan it in three days and transport the ENTIRE community to their wedding 2 hours away. It was quite an adventure. It was a beautiful wedding, everyone pitched in and literally the entire wedding was planned in 3 days. Nancy and I were able to help by going out late the night before to buy sandals for the bridesmaid. It was quite a comical 2 ½ hour shopping trip bargaining with little vendors in the market. Nicolette was an awesome help to the community, so selfless, we are all sad to see her go, but her wedding was amazing!
Okay a few last thoughts that I would like to leave you with. This past week, God has just shown me that he is a God that GIVES AND TAKES AWAY! Blessed be HIS name! I was just reminded of God’s great faithfulness. I was talking to one of my dear friends and it became apparent to me for the theme of my life this year and for so many others that are close to me that God gives and He takes away, but he is always still faithful! Blessed be his name. For a short example, God took away my homeland the USA – but brought me to even a great country Peru! He took away my favorite ministry at the time apartment ministry in the States, but GAVE me a ministry to 1,000s of Peruvian people. He allowed many of my good friends to go on with their own lives, but GAVE me a great new support system and great new friends and even reunited with me old friends form the past. At first I had a great sadness here, but HE GAVE me a great joy. I could continue for pages about the faithfulness of God, but you get the point. He is so GOOD and Faithful. There is no need to worry about the problems that you might be facing (easier said than done) because He is an incredible God, who will prove to be faithful up till’ the very end!
PERUVIAN CHALLENGE: Last but not least. I would like to challenge all of you who are reading this blog not to buy Christmas presents this year for your friends or family members. I am going to take part in this as well and use that money to help people hear the gospel around the world. I am biased with Peru, but use the money to help reach people for the Lord in whatever country. I know this is asking a lot, but God is calling believers to be RADICAL! People are dying to hear the word of God. Peruvians are so hungry for the word of God, but unfortunately Bibles cost money, Peruvians are hungry for actual food as well. There are so many needs. I would challenge you to have a different Christmas this year! The challenge is NO PRESENTS – but to use the money that you would spend on PRESENTS to help bring the PRESENCE of Jesus into people’s lives all around the world. If you want to take part in this challenge and want to help the people of Peru, you can give to Southmont Baptist Church. 2801 Pennsylvania Ave Denton, TX 76205
YOU GIVE AND TAKE AWAY! LORD BLESSED BE YOUR NAME!!!!
