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!