Hello from Lima, Peru! I’m currently writing to you with my back up against a palm tree and a nice view of the pacific ocean while wearing shorts and flip flops. Sounds like some real suffering for the Lord huh!? (please don’t hate on me for rubbing that in a little bit!) We are staying just a 15 minutes’ walk from the coast this month and my team and I are working with “RAMAS”, a Christian outreach organization that’s main goal is to reach people in their local community with the gospel through a variety of different ways. This organization was formed by a group of YWAM leaders and it seems that they are consistently looking for new, open doors to plug themselves into. The word “ramas” in the Spanish language translates to “branches” in English. The idea behind this name is that we are all like different branches of a tree connected back to our common God and redeemer, rooted in Him. Although our brothers and sisters in Christ may sometimes appear to be very different from us, we are all commonly connected to Him as His sons and daughters.
Cesar (the founder of RAMAS), his wife Mayerlin, and their son Cesar the 5th
This past week, we have been working with a new Christian and Missionary Alliance church plant. This new church plant is the fruit of another church in a different part of Lima. It has had services led by Pastor Victor for about 5 months now, and our main objective this past week has been to reach out to the neighborhood here and tell them about the open doors of this new church plant. We put together a pile of Christmas candy bags containing a variety of different treats, hand written notes, and a flyers containing the churches information. We distributed them at a busy central park with a large playground. The gift bags were thankfully received by several families and individuals throughout the park. It was a cool opportunity to love on people and try to share the joy that’s found in knowing the Lord. When Peruvians see a group of westerners, (some of us over 6’ with other unusual features like blonde hair and blue eyes) we are certainly noticed, and we have a great opportunity to show them we are Christians by our love!
We also attended a prayer service at the church this past Wednesday evening, and helped out a bit with the Sunday service this morning. Our team led worship with a few praise songs in both Spanish and English, and Kaelyn shared her testimony of finding her true Identity in the Lord. We’ve really felt welcomed by the congregation and Pastor Victor says he really appreciates our joy and enthusiasm to help out.
Our team at the church with Pastor Victor on the end along with his wife and their daughter, Christina on the other end
Our first week of ministry here in Lima has been a bit more free and easy going than an intense, busy schedule with long days of ministry. This has allowed for some time of reflection on the things that this world race journey has been teaching to me. Adventures in Missions really strives to provide an environment that promotes spiritual growth and personal development. We have debrief times to reflect and share about the things we’ve learned and also have “journey marker” meetings every week that also stir up a spirit led lifestyle and thought process.
At the end of month one, I was asked about one thing that I’d like to grow in throughout month 2 in Ecuador. After some thought, I told myself I’d like to try to be more intentional with the people that God presents into my life. I most certainly made new friends in Colombia, however there were more than 20 men involved with the drug rehab program at Ciudad Refugio. It was easy to be friendly to each of them with a smile and a fist bump, but was I genuinely intentional about their well-being with a heart that truly cared for them??
We moved onto Cuenca, Ecuador for month 2 of ministry, and on the very first day, the Lord began to show me just what being intentional looks like. Josh Woolley, a missionary originally from Virginia, walked into the room and pointed to me saying, “You’re coming with me”. We had plans to paint a mountain schoolhouse the next day, and he was simply running to the store to get paint. He didn’t need my help, he simply wanted to get to know me, and wanted to begin building a friendship. That following Sunday, Josh took my teammate Isaac and myself out on a hike in the Cajas mountains to simply hang out and enjoy some guy time together. Josh and his wife, Karri, also had our whole team over a couple of different nights throughout the month for dinner and to play games. We were also welcomed with open arms by so many others within the church; Bob and Lori, Javi and Carol, Ed and Miriam. These people were all so intentional with each of us!! They cared about our well-being, wanted to hear what we had to say, and poured into a relationship with us in so many ways. They saw us like the way that Jesus sees His children.
One of our fun nights of games and fellowship with Josh and Karri back in Cuenca, Ecuador
This beautiful environment made for a great example to follow out into our own day to day ministries. Youth that came to the Friday night group at church, kids we picked up from the Mercado for kids camp, students at evening English class; they are all our brothers and sisters in Christ and it’s a beautiful thing when we come to that realization and begin to see them through the same lens as their good and perfect Father. I’m so thankful that the Lord desires to have an intentional relationship with me, undeserving as I am. A caring, intentional heart is a beautiful thing, however, it definitely makes the goodbyes a lot harder! (Miss you kingdom life ministry/ Impacto Iglesia International folks!
At the end of month 2 in Ecuador, we were again asked about one thing we’d like to grow in throughout the next month. After a debrief talk led by our alumni squad leader, Madison, I thought being more interruptible might be a good thing to focus in on. Even on the world race, it’s easy to create an agenda to try and stick with rather than keep an eye open for ministry opportunities and open doors to bring God’s kingdom here to earth. I’ve had a long running tendency to move along pretty quick in life, but in the big picture, it’s likely that the Lord’s leading is worth pausing for a moment!
Upon our arrival in Lima, we had a free day due to our hosts not being quite ready to be graced by our presence yet. ; ) Some of us took advantage of the situation and signed up for an instructed surfing session! We had a blast out in the ocean and with the help of our great instructors, the four of us that went surfing all got up to surf some waves. Following our session, Madison struck up some more in depth conversation with our instructors and began to share with them about Jesus, the gospel story, and who we are in Him! We were damp with salty water and had showers waiting for us. It was well past lunchtime and we were all ready to go get some food. She could’ve used either of these things as easy excuses to stick with her own agenda and continue on with the day, but she chose to interrupt what she could be doing with an opportunity to bring God’s kingdom here to earth!
Not actually us pictured surfing here, but this is a neat shot I grabbed of the beautiful coastline here!
This is the first month that Madison has been with our team as our alumni squad leader (she moves around between the squads 3 separate teams throughout the first 5 months), but she continues to be a positive light of what being interruptible can look like. We will be walking down the street with a purpose to get somewhere, but if there is someone in need of prayer along the way, you can bet she’s going to stop so we can hello and ask if we can pray for them! Just this week, we were on our way to go get candy for the church’s Christmas bags, and we stopped to pray for a man on the sidewalk who appeared to be blind, missing an arm and a leg on one of his sides. Probably considered an outcast by most, he was so joyful that we stopped to say hello and share some love. He was also a believer and in turn, he prayed for us as well after we’d finished praying for him. What a blessing!
I said I’d try to grow in being intentional with people in my life, and God gave me such great examples to consider from everyone at Kingdom Life Ministries. I said I’d try to be more interruptible for God, and he’s given me more cool examples from the fearless Madison, and new opportunities to take hold of each day. I know that Jesus is the ultimate example to follow after displayed throughout the bible, but these situations played out before me have also been great learning experiences. I continue to learn new values throughout this world race journey and I’m so blessed to have such a great teacher looking out for me to guide me and go before me. His presence is so apparent and I’m thankful for that! I surely don’t have it all figured out yet, but I’m a work in progress and have a pretty great teacher to learn from.
Next week, my team and I, along with a couple of our hosts, Darwin and Margaret, will be taking a bus ride each day to a more impoverished neighborhood further inland where we will be working with another church and holding a kids/youth camp there. It’s the end of the school year here in Peru as summer is just beginning, so hopefully we have a good turn out. I’m looking forward to this week of ministry with them and pray that it all goes well!
The following week of Christmas, the organization here is taking time off for family get togethers. My team and I are planning to take the opportunity to make a trip and visit the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu! We’ll be staying in a hostel in Cusco and it will be fun to have some team adventure time in spite of the fact that we won’t be home for the holiday. I’m looking forward to getting to witness this wonder of the world and maybe witness to some fellow English speaking tourist while we spend our time there!
Our team continues to grow closer and closer together. Each of us bring something a little different to the table, but together we make quite the crew. We have a lot of fun together and prove this community living thing to be pretty great. We are on our own for meals again this month so we continue to pool our food budgets together to go a little further at the grocery store and have some fun making some quality home cooked meals together. We share our living space with Darwin and Margaret and they’re also a blessing to be around. Darwin is very musical and we’ve had fun with some evening worship led by him and his guitar.
Darwin with the selfie and his lovely wife on the end of the table. They are great so much fun to be living with this month!
Overall, things are quite well here in Lima. Thank you all for your continued prayers!
Psalm 32:8 – I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.
