Yes, I'm Still Here!

I know.. I know.. why haven't I been blogging the past several days??? Well, truthfully we've been pretty busy practicing the same thing - storying the bible - and learning more about how to accomplish the mission (advancing the gospel and church planting through discipleship) in the field. The scripture we use for this concept is from 2Timothy 2:2 "And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others."(NIV)

As I told you before, we have been breaking up into small groups and storying the bible to locals on a nearby street called Mendiburu. Last Sunday we had "house church" at the mission office and invited our contacts on Mendiburu to join us for further storying. We were blessed that two men showed up and were enthusiastic participants. Since the whole session was in Spanish I stayed a bit lost, but two bible stories were told and discussed. It was really a very special experience knowing that God had been working to make that moment happen.

We are hoping that several locals who are either believers or just curious about the stories they've heard from us will begin a house church of their own. As stated in 2 Timothy, believers in this group will be discipled and "reliable men" will become the leaders who are "also qualified to teach others." The road is still long for this neighborhood and the formation of a regular house church. That's why we are so dependent on prayer from home to help make these things happen.

This is the same process we will be going through out in the villages of Peru. Entering the lives of the villagers, storying the bible, encouraging believers and adding to their number by sharing the gospel, encouraging house church meetings and discipling reliable leaders among the believers so that they are qualified to teach others all they have heard.

Our formal training ended today and our storying in the neighborhood will wind down as we go on a final prayer retreat this Thursday through Saturday. Next Monday we fan out into several villages in Peru and begin our mission. Since this blog is getting a little long (and if you've made it this far I appreciate it!), I am going to give you details of my team's village tomorrow along with our initial contacts so that you can begin committing those names and location to prayer. You who are our prayer partners (WBC, family, friends, or anyone following this blog) are as important to our mission through your prayers than those of us who have boots on the ground.

I want to end with an update on one of our contacts from the storying efforts in our neighborhood. His name is Marcial and he is a young security guard on our street, where the mission office is located. He was included on the prayer list in a previous blog. Marcial is such a sweet kid and he has been very interested in the bible stories we've told him - he's also been very patient with us since we have used him for practice on nearly every story! Yesterday Marcial asked us for a list of the stories we've shared with him and the bible references, so we went and bought him a new bible and marked the 8 stories we've shared. Special gifts from members of WBC made this possible. Here's a picture of (left to right) me, Marcial (with baseball cap), and Martin, our translator.

Thanks to all.

Greg