New Team Member

I have a team member!!!! I am so blessed to announce that Nicchola is my new official team member to help me with the mission of reaching all for Christ in Ventanilla. It has been so neat to see God work in this process. Nicchola became a Christian in June 2011. This past spring, he told me that He knew God was calling him to be a missionary. I felt that it was a perfect match for him to be a missionary with me since I no longer had a team member. We work well together, he can minister to the men way better than I ever could, and he is a Peruvian so he can help keep this work very reproducible and give me the Peruvian opinion on what we are doing. Nicchola prayed about working with me, I prayed about it, and so did many people at Southmont. God has made it clear to me, Nicchola, and the Southmont mission’s committee that he is the one for the job. I am so thankful to Southmont Baptist Church for prayerfully making this decision and being so faithful to find me a helper so I can have a teammate to continue to do what God has called me to do in Ventanilla. All glory to God.

Nicchola's Birthday Party

This past Saturday our discipleship group and some of our neighbors celebrated Nicchola’s birthday! It was so fun to get together with some of our closest Peruvian friends to celebrate Nicchola’s birthday. Nicchola has touched so many lives by ministering to so many people here in Ventanilla, and it was a great time to celebrate the life that God has given to him. We played games, ate cake, and I learned how to salsa – only the basic steps. It was a great time of fellowship!

New Bible study in the orphanage!

We have had the privilege of starting a Bible study in the orphanage that I used to live in. We are so grateful for this opportunity. We have met for 2 Saturday’s now. We have only had about 40 kids come the first time and 25 the second time. Please pray that more would come, that God would convict their hearts the importance of learning about Him. We meet on Saturdays and that is the only day that they have free time and are not in classes. Please pray for more children and teens to come and that a revival would start in that place. Please pray that the Christians there would be committed to Jesus, and that those that do not know Jesus would come to know Him.  

Update on Huaral

I am so excited to say that we have had the opportunity after the great turnout for the Easter event to move to a more central location for people to come. It was beautiful. We had a great first Bible study with about 25 kids and 3 new adults. The kids had a great time. It was neat to see the kids we have been working with be able to teach the new kids the songs and the games. It was also so exciting to see the old kids we have been working with be so excited to go and invite people. It was such a sweet time, and we are looking forward to God doing some really big things in this mountain town.

A birthday party for a sweet 81 year old woman

We had the beautiful privilege of celebrating our neighbor’s 81^st birthday. Senora Eliza regularly comes to our Bible study in the street. She is such a precious lady. She told me that she would not be here for actual birthday, so we had decided to celebrate a different day. When I went to her house to ask her, how her birthday was the day after. She said, “My birthday, I didn’t even know it had passed. I just knew it was April 14^th, but I didn’t know it had actually happened.” She hadn’t done anything for her birthday and no one had remembered to tell her happy birthday. Her grown son lives with her and her brother lives on the same street and no one had wished her a happy birthday. This hurt my heart. It really is so true here that people are truly forgotten about. I have hope though, because I know that God does not forget about his creation, and he continues to pursue each and every one of us to have a relationship with him, to be adopted into his family. The next day the entire Bible study came up to my house and we all celebrated her birthday and ate cake. It was beautiful to watch. I believe this may have been one of the first times in more than 80 years that someone has celebrated her birthday. 

DBU in Peru

I had the privilege of meeting with Grey Hoff from Dallas Baptist University last week to help recruit for potential prospective DBU students. I worked in the DBU admissions office for 2 ½ years, so it brought back tons of great memories. I love recruiting for DBU because God used DBU to really change my life. I love the amazing Christian values of DBU and the motto of the school to make servant leaders to go into the entire world.  The reason I am in Peru right now started out with DBU taking people on a mission trip here. It was so refreshing to get to hang out with someone from my alum university. DBU is such a Christian family environment so it is super easy to connect with people from there even if you did not know them well before. I was so blessed to get to hang out with Grey. He was such an encouragement and lot of fun to be around. It was really neat to get to recruit for DBU in Spanish. I was able to talk with a ton of potential prospects. The coolest prospect encounter of the night was a lady that came after the “official time” was over. I was tired, and to be honest I was ready to leave. She started asking questions about religion. She told me she had been looking for Jesus. I was able to explain the gospel with her. It was definitely a God thing. After the fair, Grey, two translators, and I went out to eat for Grey to try some typical Peruvian food. I am so thankful to have had this opportunity to partner with DBU in this way. 

Jackeline became a Christian!!!

SUPER EXCITING NEWS! Jackeline from our Ancon Bible study decided to follow Jesus a couple of weeks ago. We have been meeting with her for a year now, and she is a natural leader but she just didn’t understand the gospel. A couple of weeks ago when we went to Bible study, she told us that she had a conversation with Jesus. She had asked him to forgive her of all of her sins. I said well that is good, but have you asked him to take control of your life. She said of course I did. When she was explaining her conversion experience it was clear that she really had made a commitment to give her life to Christ. I could already see fruit of the Sprit working her life only after 3 days of her knowing Jesus. She is a huge control freak, so for her to give control of her life to Jesus is so huge. I think that is the reason that she waited so long to come to know Christ because it scared her to give control of her life to Jesus. I am happy to announce she is now a believer; please pray that she will continue to grow in her faith and be a radical follower of Jesus. 

She has such character and is so hilarious! So glad she is finally a Christian!

New missionary friends - such a blessing!

I have had the privilege of having some really great times lately with some new missionary friends in Peru. I have been so blessed to meet and hang out with Bryan and Delana Davis. They are missionaries that work in the jungle of Peru, but are here in Lima for 3 months because they are going to have a baby in May. They are such a neat couple. I love how down to earth they are. I love how they are so flexible and how they are always joking. It is always so much fun to hang out with them. The first time we hung, I went to meet them at their apartment and then we had lunch and ice cream together. The second time we hung out, I took them on a tour of some of my favorite spots in Lima since they have been working in the jungle since they got here. They are such a blessing to my life, and I am so glad that God used mutual friends that we had to connect us together.

I was also very blessed to finally get to meet up again with Mark Clancy and his new wife Kami Clancy. She is so sweet. It was such a blessing to get to hear how they met, their engagement, and their marriage story. It was so neat to talk with them just about life here in Peru and being a missionary. They were a huge encouragement to me as always.

I also have been super blessed to get connected with IMB missionaries here in Peru. One day Nicchola and I were on our way back from delivering food to someone and we saw 4 white women walking towards the orphanage. I thought, I wonder who those people are and I wonder if they are volunteering in the orphanage. I wasn’t sure if they were Americans, but I was curious to find out who they were. When I stopped to talk to them, I found out that they were with the IMB. They serve at the baby house in the orphanage every Friday.  It was such a huge blessing to get to meet them. Since then, they helped with the huge Easter event we did at the orphanage, which would not have been possible without their help. Tammy Llorens, one of the ladies who is just precious, invited me to her house for a hangout time with all the IMB missionaries, and then after I got to hang out Amanda and Christie (semester missionaries) who are my age. It was so fun to get to talk to single Christian girl missionaries from America about life, missions, and funny stories. I am so excited for this new connection in Peru. I have a great respect for the IMB, and I am so excited to make some more friends here.

Easter 2012

God did some incredible things during this Easter season. I will let the pictures do most of the explaining. We were able to do Easter events in many different locations. One of the cool things about this Easter is that we acted out the Easter story in several locations using kids/ adults from our neighborhood. They did a really good job. We also got to show the Jesus film in 2 locations. Below are the pictures that explain Easter!

We had four different sessions in the orphanage with all the houses. Over 500 of the children and teens came.

Sweet volunteers from the IMB that helped us so much.

Making bracelets - each group did a craft.

Coloring pictures of the crucifixion

In each session we sang songs, watched the resurrection drama, did crafts, and each child received a snack. It was a great day. The Lord did amazing things.

Cesar - the roman guard

Anthony - The angel

At Calle 10 explaining the button bracelet they were going to make. 

About 35 people came to the Calle 10 Easter celebration. We had several new adults which was exciting. 

This older man was so sweet, the bracelet he made he was going to take home and give to his wife. 

We had a lot of fun at Calle 10, singing, making a button bracelet, eating sandwiches, and watching the resurrection drama. 

We watched the Jesus Film kid version in our neighborhood. I am so thankful for Campus Crusaders for Christ ministry for making this great video. It was such a great time. About 100 (at least 20 of those being adults) people came from my neighborhood. We even had several adult men come, which is a rarity and a blessing. We also had homemade popcorn and soft drinks. 

We showed the Jesus film in Huaral. About 80 people came. There were about 40 adults and 40 children. Since it is a mountain town it was a huge privilege to have a movie displayed on a big screen. Most of the people that were there have probably never seen anything like it. We were blown away with the attendance. 

The family that we work with went and invited their entire neighborhood, and then John  the day of the event stood at  a  major intersection which is a broken bridge and invited everyone that passed by. It was super cool to see the results of the family we work with inviting their friends and neighbors. As a result of this we have the opportunity now to expand our Bible study to the entire neighborhood. 

On Sunday, during our normal Bible study time in my neighborhood, we had the resurrection drama, made crafts, sang songs, and ate sandwiches together again. It was our last and final time to do the resurrection drama!

About 60 people came on Easter Sunday. 

For our discipleship time, we took the Lord's supper, read a lot of scripture, and  listened to a few songs/ music videos pertaining to Easter. It was a sweet time together.