FBC Mansfield!

In the middle of June, we had the amazing privilege of having a team of 12 incredible people from First Baptist Church Mansfield come and serve with us. Let me just brag on them a little bit, they had great attitudes, they worked so hard, and they really invested in the people they came to minister too. They shared the gospel intentionally, they were always playing with kids and talking with them, engaging people, ready to work or do whatever was needed. They were incredible. Also a huge blessing was the majority of them spoke Spanish and spoke it well. Thank you FBC Mansfield for letting God use you in such incredible ways. Hope we can continue this partnership of working together here in Peru.

Each day the team did different activities mostly carnivals in the neighborhoods we are already working in, but also reached out to some new neighborhoods. I will let the pictures explain the rest.

We had our first carnival in Calle 10. We had a great turnout. Karah like always jumping right in there talking and playing with the kids. 

The team acted out the story where Jesus tells his disciples to, "Follow me"

Lourdes patiently working with the kids to make cute crafts

Tyler helping the kids play the baseball game. They thought that game was so COOL!

Michelle helping people catch fish for their prize. 

Jeanette playing with the kids the get the ball in the cup game

Kristi and Sally patiently painting beautifully the children's faces. 

Anna playing ring toss

Then we had a youth night Friday night. Where people showed up of all ages. From little kids to Adults, since we couldn't turn them away, the team just went with the flow. They did great. There was about 55 Peruvians plus the team crowded in the ministry center living room. We had pizza, played games, and Patty did a great job of sharing her testimony. A cool God thing is Patty is from Peru! It was a great night. 

Playing soccer to get rid of some of the mass amounts of people crammed in the living room. 

On Saturday, we went to our friend, Mili's neighborhood. She is a part of her discipleship group, and we did a carnival for the people that live near her. 

Angela helping give people their stickers to play the game.

Nathan playing the tire toss game

Patty and Karah playing hit the spot game.

Neal playing the famous baseball game.I bet he picked up those bottles at least 800 times over the course of the week.

Then Saturday afternoon, we went to Fernando's neighborhood, who is also a part of our discipleship group and did a carnival in his neighborhood. He has a weekly Bible study in his neighborhood so we were hoping to encourage that. 

On Sunday, we went to Marta's house to have a prayer time praying for a group of kids we work with that we were not able to work with directly with the group. It was a beautiful and powerful time. Then we went and checked out the local market. Then we had an awesome carnival in our neighborhood. 

Karah and Nathan did a great job leading us in Spanish worship for our discipleship time on Sunday night.

Neal taught a very good lesson about salvation being through grace through faith and Patty translated the lesson.

Sweet Anna helping with the fishing game! I can't believe she is only 12. She inspired me so much watching her minister to others. She is so bold. On Monday, we went to check out a HUGE market and then had a carnival in our friend Jacky's neighborhood. We go and teach her and her brother the Bible weekly and are trying to encourage her to start a house church in her house. This was a good step towards showing her neighborhood she is a Christian and willing to teach others about Jesus. We are hoping this will be the start of a great work in Ancon.

On Tuesday morning the guys had a time of discipleship with some of the Peruvian guys who are involved in our ministry and the girls from the group did arts and crafts with the women and did a Bible study with them. Then in the afternoon, we went and did hospital visitation (sharing the gospel with the patients and praying for them) and gave out care packages and Bibles the team had brought. It was a beautiful time. Part of the team's taxi got lost so they went back to my neighborhood and did a spontaneous backyard Bible club with the kids in our neighborhood. This just shows how great the team was, when something didn't go exactly as planned, they didn't stress out about it, just looked and did the next ministry opportunity.

Huaral - we had a great turnout in our last carnival in Huaral. It was a great ending to the week, plus we got to go visit the beach before, and have a great adult Bible study led by Lourdes. 

The group

Cousins

Hanging out at the water park 

We got to have 2 fun days of tourism in Lima before the group went back home. We went to the water park, shopping, the governor's palace, ate all kinds of good food, and played games. So grateful for teams like FBC Mansfield who invest in us (the missionaries) and the Peruvian people.