Lauren in Peru: New Believer's Christmas Party

This was such a special and fun night for me to get to celebrate what was half the group's first Christmas as Christians. We had a Peruvian dinner that consisted of Aji de Gallina, Chicha Morada, and Papa Huanicina! It was delicoius! Then we did the Candle and Carol's service together. After that we had a prayer time. That was my favortite part of the night. Then I gave gifts to each of our peruvian new believers. We are able to do things like this thanks to the ministry money that Southmont gives us which helps us so much!!! Each person received a different Christian CD in Spanish, the book by Andy Stanley "How Good is Good enough", another book different for each person, and a devotional book. I am most excited about the devotional book. We are going to do it together all year long. Each page has the reading plan for the day to read the Bible through in a year and then a place to write a prayer for that day, write what you learned, God's promises, and God's commandments from that reading passage, and a daily Bible verse. I am hoping this will really help our new believers spend there own personal time with Jesus. We started it on January 1st! There is a really neat Christian bookstore in Lima that sells all original things. There is a huge problem in Peru with piracy so it is so refreshing to find a place that sells original things. We were able to buy books like "Get Out of the Pit" by Beth Moore in Spanish, or "Wild at Heart" etc. The book "How Good is Good Enough" is a great book that explains that by our works we will never be good enough for God it is only through faith in Jesus Christ. I told each of them to read that book, learn information from it, and then give it to a non-believer. After a time of unwrapping presents, we played NERTZ! The night was a blast. So thankful for this group of new believers (our missional community). I will post a few pictures but cannot post the majority due to confidentiality reasons.