Hey friends here’s a blog before I leave Lima Peru. This year has maybe been one of the best years of my life. Id like to give brief overview of everything that has happened starting from the beginning of the year. GOD has blessed me with many new opportunities to experience working for him here in the mission field.
My introduction to mission work started in Puerto Rico January 4th 2019. I made the choice to quit a good paying job that I loved to go work for Jesus.
I had fun serving with PCCR “Plain Compassion Crisis Response”. They’re an organization from PA, if missionary work is on your heart check them out. It was the first I’d met or spent this amount of time with people willing to go so far from home to help people they didn’t know. It was refreshing to be surrounded with such a community of like minded people with the same goal. We stayed busy replacing hurricane damaged roofs.
However God helped me slow down from my previous much busier factory life starting at 3:20AM. He was preparing me for my second mission trip where there was much less physical work involved. Gods work is often being more intentional with people your surrounded with. Building relationships and creating community with not only strangers you meet on the mission but also the team you’re serving with so that your JESUS light attracts everyone around you, wherever you go. This had to happen and was hard for me because my identity was in my work. I still love to work hard just not too much or too hard.
During this time in February God blessed me with the opportunity to join a tour of the Holy Land. I spent a few days at home before and after the 10 days in Israel. The tour was hosted by a great young evangelist, passionate and determined to share the gospel wherever he goes, he poured his time and love into the group. The group was made up of mostly young but all great people from all over the states, Canada, and Australia. It was a great experience to feel such an intense presence of the Spirit while there and see the places where Jesus walked and talked. It really made the bible come to life for me.
When the mission in Puerto Rico was finished I helped clean up to leave and got home around mid May. I spent the summer back home doing what I love; construction and building pole barns, until I left in October.
Now here I am back on the mission field with Adventures in Missions, doing the World Race. I signed up for it “accidentally” before leaving for Puerto Rico in January. I thought I was filling out a form with my info simply so an adviser could call me back and chat about the world race is really about, or tell me I’ve been rejected like other organizations because of my criminal record. I was already enjoying myself a few weeks into my first mission before getting the phone call stating that I had been accepted to do the World Race. This showed me that God had a different plan for me. I didn’t hesitate to accept the call. It’s a plan I feel like I didn’t have completely figured out at that point.
Now here I am in month 3 in Lima Peru. The host name here is RAMAS, translates to branches in English. Their goal is relationships and branching out working with other ministries, working as a unified body.
Our last week of ministry here was in Ventanilla a small section of a larger city. Ventanilla is one of many, basically its own village hanging on the side of a brown sand/rock mountain. They’ve built huts in the valleys going up the sides of the mountains. These people have water pipes installed in the streets, going up the sides of the mountains. Streets are pavement at the bottom and sand with rocks farther up. They only get water once a month. This part of Peru is true desert, it gets chilly at night but is hot during the day. It’s located about an hour city bus travel from RAMAS. Pastor Roberto and his wife left a good life from another location in Peru to serve at this church. I missed the first day of ministry there, I’ll tell you why in minute. We spent a few days building a kitchen addition to the church. Dug trenches in the sand to set in prefab pallet walls. He had some plastic sheets that looked like metal for the roof but no wood long enough so it’s still missing the roof. They want a place to feed all the children there. We also helped put some Christmas packs together for the children. They love to dance so we joined in their dance session before handing out gifts. On our last day there we were invited to family with 3 children for lunch. How humbling to be fed by someone with so little yet willing to give what they had.
New Life Community Church. The Church we worked with in Ventanilla.
Dancing with the kids in Ventanilla
Now for why I missed the first day ministry in the last week. On our day off, we as a team spent the day at the beach where I had my day pack stolen literally off the back end of the towel I was sitting on. I thought I had everything in it; passport, wallet with D-license, phone and a few other smaller things. The next day our team leader and I spent most of the day in the city waiting on my new temporary passport at the US Embassy. Killing time we talked about things from home, with where the conversation went she asked me the question “have you stood for truth”? Yes, I have stood up for truth but it also made me think of all the times I could have and didn’t.
Christmas we had the week off an had the opportunity to travel to see Machu Picchu, one of the 7 ancient wonders of the world. Hidden away at 10,000ft above sea level in the Andes mountains. What a great experience even though it rained all through the tour. I got a glimpse of the motivation it took to build a city like it in the mountains and tried to understand what life must been like there long ago. We spent Christmas day traveling and hiking 7 miles to our hostel in AGUAS CALIENTES and ate dinner together as family on Christmas eve.
The ancient Incan Ruins of Machu Picchu
The team together on Christmas Day
I think this mission so far has helped me not just realize how many poor people there really are but what we typically define as poor. Every country so far has had what I think we would call really poor people at home, because of their lack of material possessions. At home I think its easy to forget that there may be just as many spiritually (really) poor people everywhere. We just don’t think about it because they’re not begging for food. Maybe we don’t notice when we see people struggling with one of the many addictions we have in America often created by wealth, because we struggle in those areas ourselves and don’t realize it. We think we’re rich but really we’re spiritually broke, or we think we’re poor but are stuck in our own little world inside our big fancy house. I believe this mission has helped me broaden my perception of POOR.
Its December 31st and were finishing a 16hr layover in Madrid Spain in Europe, our first stop from Peru. We’ll welcome the start of a new year of life in the air on a 7 hour flight to Duabi to get on our last plane to Johannesburg South Africa. Then we have a short bus ride to Lesotho where we’ll spend our first month of ministry in Africa.
Keep praying for us as we embrace being official overseas missionaries after tomorrow, and over the next three months in Africa.
I wish you all a late Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. God Bless.
