Soma Church

Doing crafts in the neighborhood!

God has an amazing way of working and doing things even when we personally are not on board. My very good friend, Amanda Wissmann – a missionary here in Peru, had asked if she could bring a team to Ventanilla to do some work with us. There plans had fallen through for them for three days of the mission trip, and so they wanted to see if they could come work with us. This was only 2 weeks before they were supposed to be here. We had just finished with a huge public school campaign and a huge event that I wrote about in a previous post, and I was just tired.
I talked with my mom about what we could do, and she said just do a simple thing in your neighborhood. Take out a ball, sing some songs, share a Bible story, and use the left over crafts. The team that came was incredible, they were just willing to be flexible, do whatever was needed, and came ready to work. They were so excited to go and invite people in the neighborhood to come. A ton of moms in the neighborhood came, even adult men, and tons and tons of children. We had about 130 people every day for three days. We had really needed to get to know our neighbors and this was the perfect opportunity and start. We made tons and tons of button bracelets that the last team FBC Mansfield had spent so much time putting together, did tons and tons of crafts, talked with people, played, and got to share a Bible story and the gospel every day. We were there every day right outside our house in a little garden area for about 5 hours. It was Beautiful! A huge blessing was Nicchola, a new believer, shared the gospel on the first day with the crowd. The second day, I literally saw a miracle occur.
This miracle reminds me when Jesus multiplied the fish and the loaves. We had decided that we were going to make arroz chaufa, which is like a Chinese dish of fried rice that is VERY popular here in Peru. Honestly, John and I had made enough for about 50 maybe 60 plates of arroz chuafa. God multiplied the food, we had enough for 130 people!!! We had I think 1 or 2 plates left over. I remember even trying to make a couple of plates into smaller portions so that there would be more and then I ended up mainly just spilling it on the table. One of the girls on the trip told me that we would probably just make a mess that way. Looking back, I realize God was doing something that only He could do. I did not need to get in the way. It was so incredible to see God multiply the food. Everyone was served! All Glory to his Name!!!
The third day, the men of the team in the afternoon did a leadership conference for our believers. I did not get to be a part of it, but I heard it was incredible. These men are worship pastors in the church, and they taught our believers mostly all of them new believers some really incredible things. It was so cool because outside there was a huge group of people from the neighborhood that the women were working with and inside our house was a group of believers learning new things about the Lord with the men from the team.
God used this group of people to really encourage me. I was so tired when they came and did not want to do another big event, but God had other plans. Way BETTER Plans! The team so encouraged me with their beautiful loving, serving, joyful, ready to do whatever spirit. They did so many little things during the week that I noticed that made a big impact on me and really encouraged me. Things maybe not noticed by others, but they did it because of their great love for Jesus. Things like putting away dishes in our house for us, sweeping our dirty floors, ladies that were pregnant on the team meticulously cleaning trash off the ground, standing on the street corner trying to invite as many people as possible, praying for a lady who was having stomach pains, wanting to go out and knock on doors and invite people, playing with a special needs child for as long as he wanted to play, playing with the kids even when everything was all packed up and done, and so much more. They were so kind to us and blessed us in so many ways. It really blessed my heart so much when they prayed for Nancy and I; what a blessing to have other believers pray for us. I know people pray for us all over the place, and it always encourages me and humbles me to know that people take the time to lift us up to the Father. As a result of what God did through this team, we have kids knocking on the door all the time wanting to play and study the Bible, kids singing Christian songs in the street, and some times of gathering with these kids to play with them and continue to teach them the Bible. We hope in the near future to start a weekly Bible study with our neighborhood. God did an incredible work through this team, and I am forever grateful that God’s plans and desires are so much better than mine. All glory to Him for the great things He has done!

Kelly Dillon, Wendy Ball, and Ica!

Wow! What a blessing that for the second summer my dear friend Kelly Dillon came to visit us. God always uses Kelly in an incredible way and it was SUCH a blessing to have her come down. It was a short visit, but SO much was packed in. Kelly is an amazing Spanish speaker and more than that God just works through her in incredible ways. She arrived on Saturday morning. We went to the grocery store and went to the market to get some yummy breakfast foods. We had a fruit smoothie and Kelly ate some Peruvian fruits. She loves adventurous fruits! One of the fruits she picked out was cactus. I didn’t know that so that turned out to be a little dangerous. After catching up and a quick nap, we headed out to Huaral. Kelly graciously taught the adults in the Bible study on last minutes’ notice.

Kelly loves Peruvian fruit. She LOVES this fruit called grananilla which looks really gross in the inside but actually is delicious!

Huaral!

Just eating a little chinese food! Yum!

Kelly was so awesome and brought church planting books for us in Spanish.

Sunday we headed out to our normal Sunday Bible studies. It was a delight to have Kelly there and be a part of them. Then we headed back home because Kelly was going to teach our first Christian conference and start off T4T for us. Training for trainers. Wow, what a blessing. The way she taught the principles all backed up by tons of scriptures was AMAZING. God really showed me how I should be teaching by how she taught. She did not talk very much at all just let God’s Word do the talking for itself. She always lets God use her in that way, her words are few but when she does say something it is profound. We realized after about 4 hours and not even being halfway through that we would need to come back the next night to finish the conference. Everyone was learning so much, including myself.

Our first Christian T4T Conference.

She used the projector that Southmont donated to teach our new Christians some cool stuff from the Bible.

Monday – July 4th, we went to Real Felipe a Peruvian fort on US Independence’s day, kind of ironic. We went there to meet our friend Wendy Ball! She was in Peru visiting as well. We had a lot of fun touring the fort, taking funny pictures, hiding in the prison cell etc. It was good to see Wendy too! Then from there we headed to a beautiful lookout point and got to see the beautiful ocean! Wow, I had never been there before ,and it was gorgeous! Then we came back for the second part of the T4T. Wow, what an incredible night it was. Everyone shared their testimony. The majority of people did not leave till’ about 3:00 am. Some of us were still sharing our testimonies until 6:00 in the morning. It was a great night. God’s Spirit really moved for sure.

Hanging out with Wendy Ball and Karina!

Tuesday – Poor Kelly got up early to meet with John (one of our Peruvian Christians). Last year Kelly spoke with John and God worked through her and used her to be the turning point for John to decide to follow Christ. John was so excited that Kelly was coming and had been really looking forward to it. John talked to Kelly for several hours that morning. Then John and I made a Peruvian dish for Kelly to try. Then another lady that came to know Christ last year after Kelly got done explaining the gospel with her came by to get to see Kelly as well. It was so neat for me to what God did through Kelly last year and for me to get to see her follow up with those people again this year. Then we headed to the bus stop because we were going to go meet Kelly’s boyfriend and some other missionaries that live in Ica Peru. Bus stops in Peru are always an adventure; the bus that we were originally going to take did not have enough passengers so we had to wait about a 1 hour and ½ to get on the next one. It was a nice bus ride, only about 4 hours long, and I took medicine so I did not get car sick at all!

It was so neat to get to meet with some other missionaries in Peru. They are doing church planting as well. They have a wonderful family with 3 children who are actively involved in their ministry. It was so great to be around a family who is on mission together for the Lord. We went and visited an amazingly delicious chocolate factory and went to a neat little coffee shop to have brunch together. We also then went a place in Ica where there are these HUGE sand dunes. We wend sand boarding. I only did it like 3 times because I was terrified, but it was so fun to see everyone sand boarding and to experience the beautiful sun which we do not get hardly any of in Lima during the winter months. It was a great day filled with laughter, conversations, and fun. Then we headed back that same night back to Lima where sadly we had to say goodbye to Kelly and her boyfriend John because they were going to Bolivia.

Waiting for the bus to Ica!

The precious missionary kids in Ica!

Sandboarding! So much fun but SCARY!

I am so blessed that Kelly came to visit us. She always teaches me when I am around her, encourages me, and is just a great friend. I am so grateful that she has taken the time to come visit us 2 years in a row now. Although we did not have a ton of days together, we packed in a lot in those days, and had a fabulous time together. God is so GOOD!

FBC Mansfield

FBC Mansfield June 18th -25th

Jessica, Scott, Lucy, Jeanette, Josh, Tyler, Jeanette, and Lourdes

Wow, what a privilege to have had FBC Mansfield with us for a week in June. The team members were Lourdes, Scott, Tyler, Jeanette, Jeanette Dickerson, Jessica, Lucy, and Josh. God used them in INCREDIBLE ways! It was so neat to get to partner with my cousins, the Dickersons, and their church. It was also so neat to see this team not only invest in the kids at the schools but our Peruvian friends who were working with us as well. There are so many good memories that happened during this week. I am humbled and blessed by the fact that they followed God’s call to Peru and work so hard to share the gospel in schools all over Ventanilla and invest in the ministry that God has given us here.
They worked long, long days and did a great job!

Saturday – June 18th,
I was so excited for them to finally get here. I rushed to the airport to pick them up after a hectic day of trying to finish everything. Nancy and our Peruvian friends stayed here cleaning up the house and setting up “camp,” cots all over the living room for the team to sleep on. They were troopers because those cots are not comfortable at all, the floor would have probably been better. Anyway, after a long day of travels, they were all in good spirits with great attitudes. Jessica even said, it is not that late. We should play Nertz. She must definitely be from the Creech family. That night we just basically got settled in and then went to sleep to get ready for the week!

Sunday – June 19th
We had a fun and encouraging day of house churches. We went to Ancon to visit Jackie and her daughter, our normal Sunday morning Bible study. It was so encouraging because Lourdes and Scott, two Spanish speakers, taught the lesson. It was so nice to have a break from teaching and have someone fresh teach. Then we decided to take a quick little tour down to the beach since we were in Ancon, a beach town. We took some fun pictures, while a couple of people accidentally got soaked! Our next Bible study in 3 Regiones was such an encouragement that Sunday. We had about 12 people come which is a lot for that location! We played volleyball and once again Lourdes helped teach the lesson which was so encouraging. It was so neat getting to see the team just invest in people at that house church. Some were playing volleyball, others watching little toddlers, others investing in Peruvian adults that were there. It was a beautiful time for me to see God use the body of Christ to minister to others. It was also a huge boost of encouragement to me see a lot of people come since attendance is normally so low there. Then we came back to the house to PREPARE for the week. I was so blessed and encouraged because there were still a lot of things Nancy and I had not been able to finish for the week. Everyone in the group jumped in and took a job and got it done better than Nancy and I could have done it and SO MUCH FASTER. Wow, it is incredible to see the Power of many! 8 more people getting stuff done was just awesome to see! So many little things that had not been finished got finished so much faster than I could have ever imagined. Then we went over the job assignments for the next day!

Combi ride to house church! Always fun!

Just took a little stop by to see the ocean since we were so close!

Singing give me a J chant! We had more kids there and adults than usual. It was such a blessing to have the group there. They played volleyball with the kids and they LOVED it!

Playing the Hand game which shares the gospel at our second house church!

Getting ready for the week!

This was the itinerary for the 30 minute to 1 hour sessions we did 11 times a day:

Sing Open the eyes of my heart and Give me a J Jesus Chant (and might I add we made fools out of ourselves by doing crazy dance moves to the songs – It was great! Josh and Jessica even had some Christian break dancing going on!!!)

Act out the Follow Jesus skit – a skit showing Jesus calling Mathew, the tax collector, Simon, the zealot, and the fishermen. The team did a fantastic job acting and Nancy did a great job putting together an awesome soundtrack. Every time I watched it, I was impacted.

Then Lourdes would do a fantastic job of presenting the gospel with really great illustrations one of them using hula hoops to show how we can not to get to Jesus based on our works but only by faith in Him.

Then Liz would do a great job as well explaining the different symbols for the salvation bracelets. Then we would quickly go around and put on bracelets on all the students.

Then we would pass out the crafts to make in about 5 minutes sometimes. The crafts ranged from butterflies, to pencil worms, to coloring sheets, to sun catchers, and more. It was just a hodge podge of things leftover from previous mission trips. It was a blessing to get to use all leftover stuff for the whole week.

Then we would pass out snacks. Then start the whole process all over again.

We normally did that 11 times a day for 4 days.

Simon the Zealot

Jesus calling the fishermen!

Jesus calling Mathew, the tax collector

Monday – June 20th
Wow, what a miracle from the Lord that day was. The day started out beautifully, the school was actually opened on time at 6:30 in the morning like they told us it would be. Everything was set up and ready to go before the students got there, and the administration like clockwork brought the groups on time to the event. That is unheard of in a Peruvian school. It was obvious that God was doing a work. The team did fabulous!! The thing that really ministered to my heart that day was everyone did exactly what they were supposed to do to make things run so smoothly and they were so ENERGETIC. They were dancing, acting crazy to get high schooler’s involved, and it was just a beauty to watch. Also, it really blessed my heart to watch the older last 2 grades of the high school students get super involved and sing all the songs super loud with us etc. It was just a great day. In the afternoon, we got to go to a tiny elementary school next door and work with about a 100 kids. It was so neat though because we had it split up into 3 periods and we really just got to spend some quality time with some great kids. After that we went to pass out fliers for the Thursday night event. Then we came home to package 1000 button bracelets for the Thursday night event. It was an incredible day! The Lord did amazing things!

A little impromptu Christian break dancing

Lourdes sharing the gospel using an awesome Hula hoop illustration.

Sharing the gospel again using symbols.

Tyler playing "Open the eyes of my heart" He was always doing something. EVERY tiny little break we had he was playing with kids or teenagers. Never saw hin sit down. He is one of the most selfless and serving people I have ever met.

Tuesday June 21st – We did the same thing but at another school. Once again the team did an incredible job! They did a great job being flexible with time schedules since there were a few kinks in the day of getting the students to the patio on time etc. We stayed at that school all day because elementary was in the morning and then high school in the afternoon. A huge blessing for me to watch on Tuesday was seeing the FBC Mansfield team play and hang out with the kids even during recess and lunch our only break of the day. Some were singing, others playing sports, some signing autographs (a typical gringo thing that Peruvians kids ask for all the time). Another blessing of the day was some Peruvian students at the school who helped pass out fliers that night. It was a great day and by the end of Tuesday the team was professional at doing 45 minute backyard bible clubs for 100 students at time! All Glory to God!

Wednesday June 22nd– Started a very rough. We showed up at the school and they said we know nothing about you guys coming. You do not have permission to do this. Yep, I went into a panic. First of all, we had gone to that school 3 times to get everything ready to come. We had a stamp from the school okaying us to come and do this program. Of course, the principal and the vice –principal were not there that morning. I frantically came back to the house looking for that paper that I had misplaced. The paper was nowhere to be found. When the staff members called the principal he said he knew nothing about it. I was so frustrated and mad to be honest. In all the craziness, God did a HUGE miracle. The team was praying and Nancy calmly talked to one of the staff members and they agreed to let us do it. I honestly did not do the right thing in that instance, I was so defensive and demanding that I was right and that I had the paper, permission etc. It was so neat to see God use Nancy do the right thing and talk to the staff again and they let us do it even though they knew nothing about us coming. Anyway, all of that to say is that, God was still at work and miraculously we got to work with the high school that day. The afternoon was confirmed already for the elementary and they were ready for us. That night we prepared the skit for Thursday’s event, passed out more fliers, and then finally went to bed.

Blessings from that day:

Recess time: Dancing - made up impromptu Christian salsa dance moves to Spanish Christian music with kids on the patio

Lourdes talking to Nicchola about the gospel during lunch

Nicchola accepting Christ as his Savior! That was the BEST part of the whole week. Nicchola is our Peruvian dad that I have written about before on this blog. God had planned out this week specifically for Nicchola. I had wanted him to stay and work with us all week so that he could be around other Christians. That was a miracle within itself. Normally he has to work every morning from 5:30 to 7:30 something that he cannot get out of, but he was able to get out of it for that week. He even stayed with us at night. That week was such a blessing for him. I asked him what made the difference this week. There were three things that he said to me. That it amazed him that people would give up their time, leave their kids and families to come for only reason to share about Jesus. He said he kept hearing Lourdes message over and over again about salvation. Also, he was acting as part of the team but he himself didn’t have faith, so he decided to accept Christ as his Savior. This was the BIGGEST blessing of the whole week. Since then he has been very involved in growing in his faith. He attends 2 Bible studies a week and has started to share his faith as well. Can’t wait to see how the Lord will continue to use Nicchola in Peru. I am forever grateful how God used the FBC Mansfield team to really impact Nicchola’s life eternally.

Thursday June 23rd One of the craziest days of my life!
We had the morning session at an elementary school just two blocks away from our house. Then the FBC team packed up the stuff like in 5 minutes literally and we headed to another school to work with about 900 children if not more and ate lunch on the way. We worked with them in this huge outdoor patio stadium. I had to leave with Nicchola halfway through to get ready for the Thursday night event. At one point and time I was told they worked with 400 kids at one time! They did such a great job. It was a huge school with elementary and high school combined. Wow! I am so blessed that God brought down such a great team who was capable of handling crazy situations.

The Thursday night event was the hardest ministry event I have EVER been a part of, not at all because of the team but because so many things were out of my control and I made a huge mistake by inviting too many people and not having enough workers. We had invited about 12,000 people to this event. I would say about 1,500 people showed up. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong! The popcorn lady showed up 3 ½ hours late…after the event was over, there were no lights like had been previously promised, the security was not there on time, one of the buses was late, people started showing up an hour early, the bus drivers were con men and conned me big time, the people were out of control and would not listen, people were mobbing the team members for crafts, the electricity went out – so the sound system would not work for the drama, one of our main Peruvian leaders backed out, kids and teenagers were leaving and running towards the street, so maybe you kind of get the mental picture of how it went. Although, I just listed the negative things about what happened; I want to list the many amazing things God did that night.

First of all, the team just did an excellent job even though most of them could not speak Spanish they did a great job handling mobs of people coming at them for crafts and snacks etc.

Scott and some Peruvians Christians decided that during this chaos they were going to share about Jesus the whole reason for the event, so they had gathered a very large crowd around them and started to share the gospel with these people.

As people were leaving during the chaos, and I was apologizing for the disaster, they were encouraging me and thanking me. A Christian family said we will be praying for this event. Most of the Peruvians did not seem to think that it went bad. A lot of the students actually had a great time.

The team still did the skit about the resurrection of Jesus.

No one got hurt.

Everyone got safely home

The Peruvian Christians did a great job trying to manage the people and tell people about Jesus.
I learned a lot of very valuable lessons

The team had so much grace on me and worked so hard during the event, helped clean everything, and had such great attitudes after it was over.

A teenager that came to the event came to our house afterwards because he was helping clean up everything. The late popcorn lady had actually invited him I think. He became a Christian that night at our house. Two Peruvian Christians led him to the Lord. He is now a part of our weekly discipleship group and comes to our house all the time!

Friday June 24th
Free day in Lima. We had a great time just going to the downtown square, going to the market and getting some souvenirs, and eating at my favorite restaurant in Peru: Tantas. It was so nice just to get to relax and do some sightseeing. God also had a plan for the waiter that day at Tantas. More to be told about that in a later blog!

God did so many incredible things through the Mansfield team. About 4,900 students had the chance to hear the gospel during the school events. Then about 1,500 people came to the event, not sure how many actually heard the gospel, but I know God is big enough and powerful enough to reveal to them the reason why we were there that night. God did things during that week that really are just miraculous. The things that happened that week are humanly impossible but God did the impossible! All Glory to His Name.

Planning Craziness

Nancy getting ready the fisherman's boat for the "Follow Jesus" skit

Going around in a moto taxi to a bazillion schools inviting them to come to the Thursday night event. We may or may not have been eating pringles on the way there!

Getting the symbols ready to tell kids the good news about Jesus!

Putting together worksheets for the kids for the rallies.

Wow, it has been forever since I have last written. God has done some crazy AWESOME things. I wanted to write first about the week before the group got here! Because of a change of ideas on transportation and just the last minute details that there is always to finish before a huge event takes place we were swamped with work to do. We called some of our good Peruvian Christian friends and man did they ever come through for us. 2 of our friends came over and stayed several days before the group even came. Then a lot of other friends came for several days in and out to help us get ready. In that time period, we made all the props for the 2 dramas, bought all the materials for the week that was missing (sound system things, t-shirts for the event, foood etc), stamped about 6,000 fliers, passed about 8,000 fliers, went to different schools and stadium to confirm the event, went to school upon school passing out the fliers for the event, got all the bags ready for each day of the week, and whatever other things that had to be finished to get ready for the group. The beautiful part about all the craziness was watching the body of Christ come together. Our Christian friends really pitched in and helped us out in a true time of need. Also, our Peruvian dad helped us so much get ready for the group to come in. Below are some pictures that kind of show what was going on during that week before the group got here. The things that were accomplished that week are literally humanly impossible to finish, all glory to God for giving us the ability to get supernatural work done in such a short time period!