Update

It looks like my blog is turning into a weekly update! We are keeping pretty busy, so finding time to blog is getting more and more difficult. In this past week we took a trip to Chosica, visited a hospital (involuntary visit), celebrated Martin´s birthday, made no-bake cookies at Zoila´s house, searched for a baptismal (including testing out a local river), and danced for the locals in the town square (yes.. that´s right.. danced in the town square). We also had several storying meetings: 2 in Puerto Nuevo, 2 at the Almonicids (including celebrating the Lord´s Supper and training), 1 at Zoila´s in Huaripachi and 1 at our hostel. We also had several discipling meetings throughout the week with various believers. Here are the highlights:

While traveling down the mountain to the town of Chosica, Brittne got a severe ear ache due to congestion and rapid altitude change. By the time we got off the bus in Chosica she was miserable and needed attention, so we headed to the hospital where she got treatment. Martin was an expert at cutting through the crowds and confusion of being in a foreign hospital.. I was no help and just tagged along to watch the show! I could blog for days on what we saw, the crowds of people, the lines they had to wait in, and the cost.. but suffice it to say that you get what you pay for! I made a phone call back to the states from my cell phone to check on the medicine (injection) they wanted to give Brittne and that probably cost more than the entire visit!

During this past week Brittne made no-bake cookies for the Huaripachi meeting group at Zoila´s. It was a great time to fellowship with them outside of bible study... and the no-bakes were a hit! I left early to search for baptismal possibilities in the city. We have several believers who have not had the opportunity to be baptized yet and it has been put on my heart to find a suitable place so we can make that happen. I found a gorgeous location in a nearby stream coming down from the mountain (see pic). The stream is rapid, but clear, and there is a small tranquil area that I thought might be suitable for emersion. Well.. I put on some shorts and wading out into the water to test it out and before I could turn around my feet were numb from the cold! Since we want to baptize and not practice cryogenics, I had to look for other options. I think we have a good alternative, but we´re still working out the details. Please pray for us in our efforts to provide an opportunity for the unbaptized believers here to observe this ordinance. Last Sunday we observed the other ordinance, the Lord´s Supper, and also trained the church here on how to administer it themselves.

Martin celebrated his 26th birthday this week and Mike Weaver surprised him with a visit and (more importantly.. sorry Mike!) some of Kathy´s brownies from Lima.. OUTSTANDING! Brittne and I also had Salvador bake one of his cakes (keke) for Martin, complete with candles.

OK.. now about the dancing. The kids that are learning english in our classes have also been learning a traditional dance for an end-of-vacation festival in the main town square. I have to say that these are the sweetest kids.. they are great to teach and it turns out they are good dancers too! Now let me be clear.. we did not teach the dancing! A young fellow named Wilmer was in charge of getting them prepared for the festival. Wilmer has also been instrumental in arranging our english classes and sports outings with the kids. We would often stay and watch them practice at the school where we were teaching, so we got to know them pretty well. The festival was last Thursday and the kids did a great job performing. I was in the back of the crowd taking pictures and movies, when at the end of their performance the kids came up and grabbed Brittne and pulled her out in front to dance with them. Then they got Martin! I thought I was safe (hiding behind the camera), but a couple of the little girls came screaming up to me and grabbed my hand.. how could I resist! It was a hoot.. none of us knew what we were doing, but we all had fun. I have a video of Brittne, but I promised I wouldn´t post it.. for now!

The serious work is also getting done here as well. We are getting more folks into the meetings, although we would still like to see more. We´ve had some great storying sessions, training sessions, and discipling meetings with the locals. Those attending our meetings are hearing the gospel in our stories and discussions. We´re throwing out those seeds everywhere we can! Please continue to pray for those who hear, that they will understand and accept it.

I am being kicked off of the computer again, so I will just ask for continued prayers for the meeting groups here and all we encounter. I´ll post more specific prayer requests later.

In Christ,
Greg

In His Time

The past week has been busy for us and I apologize for not adding an update to this blog site sooner than today. I can´t thank all of you enough who are following the blog and keeping track of what the Lord is doing here in Matucana. Again I want to thank all of you for your comments and especially your prayers for me, Martin, and Brittne as we continue to do follow His will. We are filling up our week with house church meetings, ministries, and discipling meetings, as well as spending time meeting new folks and inviting them to any of the above!

The good news is that our church meetings, where we story the Bible and use discussion to create understanding, and discipling meetings, where we help believers grow in faith and evangelism, are going well. Brittne and I are both meeting regularly with a few believers one-on-one or in small groups.. and poor Martin has to be at them all to translate, although Brittne´s spanish is really getting good. My spanish is not so good.. "bad" would be a better word.(Rosetta Stone here I come!).

In our storying sessions, however, we are experiencing a frustrating lack of attendance.. rain or no rain. We canvassed the town and outlying areas inviting folks to either of two meetings we had yesterday - all giving us enthusiastic responses - and nearly noone showed up! But God works in His time and in great ways. Just as Andrea commented on the last blog, sometimes no-shows are a blessing. One of the meetings yesterday (at Zoila´s house in Hauriqiña) had only two ladies present (Zoila and Jessica), both non-believers, but we are able to story and share the gospel with them in a more personal way since it was just the two of them. Jessica told us that she is feeling a peace in her heart and we think she and Zoila are close to a decision to accept Christ. We scheduled a special meeting with them this Wednesday, so pray for their decisions.

The next meeting of no-shows was at the Almonacids where only that family showed up, so that turned into more of a training session for them. We need lots of prayer to get more folks to attend these meetings so they too can hear the Word in stories and the gospel message. While numbers are not the goal, we do need for more folks to hear the Word, it´s our obligation to share the gospel - God will do the rest in His time and according to His plan. Pray for our wisdom in finding ways to reach more locals with the Truth, and our patience and understanding that He will lead us to them and them to us.

Our English classes are still going well.. many more in the kid´s class than the older class, but we are continuing to story from the Bible and teach vocabulary, songs, etc. The kids here are really great and they enjoy us being here.. as we walk through town we´ll almost always hear of them call our name from down the street just to say hey! They gave Brittne and I a gift (wrapped and everything!) during the last English class - very special!

We are continuing to spend time with Salvador, the bakery owner, and he is sharing more time with us. A few days ago he took us to his fields up in the mountains near Matucana.. his family´s land there is basically the whole side of a mountain! The picture I have added to this blog is of me and Salvador (that´s Matucana way down in the background). Yesterday we were to hike to Antankallo, an area waterfall attraction way up in the mountains, but the weather was threatening, so we decided to go around town and invite more folks to the meetings. Salvador led the way! He helped us meet a number of folks in Huaripachi and a new area to us called Puerto Nuevo. We will be discipling there this afternoon and setting up for storying sometime next week. Salvador is known by just about everyone in the area and he helped to communicate our mission to the folks we met along the way.

There is so much more to tell you about our activities here, but no time now. I need to prep for this afternoon´s discipling session. The topic is prayer.. especially personal prayer time. Most of you know how important personal prayer time has been in my own life this past year, so I´m excited to share this priviledge with other believers. In your own prayer time, please prayer for the following:

1. Elisabeth and Jose Almonacid, their daughter Keyla, daughter-in-law Janadit, and their son, Jose (Jr.) who we met last Sunday and discovered that he is strong in the faith. Unfortunately he works in Lima and is only home for brief periods.
2. The new believers as they are discipled, Ketti, Luiza, Julie, and Isabel.
3. A good Christian man named Augosto and his family, son Gabriel and daughter Hephzibeth, that we met at the hostel. He´ll be working in the area for about a year and is getting involved in our meetings.
4. Hostel managers, Maribel and Emilio.. Maribel has shown great interest in our storying and discussions.. we think the Lord is working in her life toward a decision.
5. Zoila and her husband Luiz.. she was mentioned in the blog above, along with Jessica.
6. The people in the Huariquiña area (where we are making very little progress) and those in Puerto Nuevo, a new promising area.
7. Edgar, Karen, Tracy, and Jared - A really special family that Brittne is feeling a special attachment with and they are very receptive to all of us.

In Christ-

Greg

More from Matucana

I wanted to let you know about our house meetings this week. We made contact with quite a few folks from Matucana and Huaripachi this week and we invited them all to house meetings on Friday. We held two meetings, one in Huaripachi at Zoila and Luiz´s house and the other in Matucana at the Almonacid´s house. We had hoped for large turnouts given the enthusiasm of response we got from all we met, but the weather got nasty. On Friday it rained longer and heavier that it has rained since we´ve been here and it was bitter cold. We made it to both meetings, but the turnout of the locals was disappointing - A total of six attended in Huaripachi and only the Almonacids were at their meeting.. no one else showed up. We hope that it was the weather that kept them all at home. Both meetings went well and we were able to use the meeting at the Almonacid´s as a good training tool to model and explain the structure and purpose of the stories and questions that follow.

Tomorrow we are holding another meeting at the Almonacid´s, so pray for a better turnout. I have a few more folks to pray for by name in addition to those mentioned in the last couple of blogs:

Jose Acosta - Martin and I discipled to him last Thursday and he shared with us a good deal of his life story. Pray for guidance as he struggles to reconnect with God through fellowship at the meetings and reading and studying the Word.

Ketti, Isabel, Julie, and Luisa - all believers, but have yet to show up at the meetings.

Jessica and Maria Luiz - both contacts we made in Huaripachi.

Now for some pics.. I am just going to post a few pics from a short hike we made this morning up one of the mountains around Matucana. The only caption needed is "Beautiful"!

In Christ-

Greg

Coincidences?

Wow.. do I have an interesting story to share on this blog! My pastor (Pastor Keith) reminds me that there´s no such thing as coincidences when it comes to the work of the Lord.. so listen closely. Several blogs earlier I introduced to you a few of the initial contacts made by the stateside sponsoring church in Florida. The Almonacid family (Jose and Elisabeth, Keyla, their daughter and Janadit, their daughter-in-law) are believers and we are holding meetings in their home. We are also discipling this family as they are assuming leadership roles while their house church grows and matures. Hold that thought while I remind you of another contact we´ve made here in Matucana..

The other day I told you that I met a young bakery owner who has a shop just across the street from our hostel and I asked to help out in his bakery. I posted pics of Brittne and I making bread, etc. The bakery owner´s name is Salvador and the three of us (me, Brittne, and Martin) have spent quite a bit of time with him, just hanging out and talking. It turns out that Salvador just returned back home to Matucana just last month after spending several years studying in Lima. His brothers and sisters are all older and have left Matucana, so Salvador has been left with the bakery - a family run business for over 50 years. He talked to us about his Catholic background, and that he was questioning many of the Catholic doctrines, and he mentioned with fondness that his grandfather would always read to him from the Bible when he was a boy. While this all sounded nice.. we did not realize the significance of this connection until last Thursday when we were discipling the Almonacid family.

It turns out that Salvador´s grandfather (the one who read the bible to him) was a Christian and started the first Christian church in Matucana. The Almonacids used to live across the street from the that bakery and Salvador´s grandmother is the one who led Elisabeth Almonacid to the Lord years ago!

While I was listening to all them tell us this story, chills were running up my spine. The Lord sent a baker from the states to meet a baker just returning to Matucana who just happened to be the grandson of a early Christian couple in the community who led to Christ the mother of the very family that was initially contacted by the stateside church last October.

There are more details, but the initial impact of this web events made me think of Pastor Keith´s admonishing that the work of the Lord is no coincidence! Without going into all the details, it is clear that Salvador´s grandparents were pillars of the community here in Matucana and were used by the Lord to spread the gospel. Salvador´s father was not a believer and that is why Catholicism became an influence in Salvador´s life.

Please pray for this series of "coincidences" and for our time with Salvador.. helping to prepare his heart for the Lord like his grandfather!

In Christ-
Greg

Meetings and Ministries

We´re finally getting down to business here in Matucana! Our first house meeting last Friday went well - we were able to get a good idea of the direction of discipleship to strengthen the leaders. Brittne arrived on Saturday - Martin and I took a bus back to Chosica to pick her up. What a breath of fresh air Brittne is! She really a a great gift of warmth and friendliness for the people here - they just love her, especially the little girls! In this pic I am posting you can see a couple of the girls clinging to her as we all walked to an area playground.

Back to business.. Brittne and Martin will be spending time with Keyla and Elisabeth this week for personal discipleship and preparing them for the Friday´s meeting. Martin and I will be spending time discipling with Mr. Acosta and Jose (Elisabeth´s husband) as well. We are inviting as many folks to the Friday night meeting as we can to see what kind of turnout we get. Still working on Huaripachi and Huariquiña.. making contacts, but no meeting scheduled yet in these areas.

On Sunday night we had a long meeting with the family at the hostel.. Maribel, Emilio, and Rosita (Luiz was out of town). They were very receptive to our storying and asked to meet again on Wednesday night.. so we´re excited about that! They are really fine people and have gone out of their way to accommodate us at the hostel.

On Monday we had our first English class for the kids of the community.. about 30 kids turned out. We are teaching basic English grammar and vocabulary from Bible stories. Yesterday we shared the story of Zacchaeus and it was a hit! (I was the sycamore tree and let one of the kids climb up!) Brittne and Martin did such a good job communicating and keeping the kids involved.

Last night I met a local baker and we started talking about ¨"the trade". The owner´s name is Salvador and he is a 3rd generation owner of this bakery in Matucana. He is a young man and is well educated.. speaks some English, but more importantly, he has a heart for the Lord and has agreed to meet with us this Wednesday night at the hostel. Pray for this meeting. This morning Brittne and I went to help out in the bakery while they were preparing an awesome sweetbread. It was really cool.. most of the equipment was decades old and the oven is a huge, flat brick cavern.. like a huge brick pizza oven. Salvador and his two workers (Leo and Ruiello..I think..) were very nice and got a bit tickled at our inability to twist a piece of dough - they made about 20 pieces in the time it took us to make one! Salvador is not in the pics because he was kind enough to take them for us.

Later this morning we played volleyball with some of the kids and took them (actually they took us) to a local playground where we all just acted like kids. (see pics)

We are making more and more contacts as we enter the lives of those in Matucana and surrounding areas. We trust that the Lord will bless this time we are sharing and that it will bear fruit in the coming weeks.

I have to run now, but I want to thank you all again for you continued prayers and comments (Mike and Sylvia, I can´t tell you how useful your comments/verses have been.. Each one has had a real application here in Peru). Please pray for our continued efforts and those mentioned in this blog. Gotta go..

In Christ-

Greg

Matucana

Hello to all from Matucana. Martin and I arrived in Matucana Tuesday evening via bus and got into a hostel only a few munutes before the evening rains came. It is much cooler here than I had expected - I packed shorts and t-shirts in abundance.. limited warm clothes. Lima felt like it was pushing a sunny 90 degrees when we left Tuesday late afternoon and a few hours later in Matucana it was about 50 degrees and foggy. We´re only about 7,800 feet up in a bit of a valley. As you can see in the pics, there are taller peaks all around us. Since it is rainy season here, the mountains are green with vegetation and they provide a gorgeous backdrop for the town.







Yesterday we walked around most of Matucana (dodging the rain) - to see and be seen - and we met many of the contacts made by the stateside sponsoring church just last month when they were here for a short stay. The town is small, but not at all like a remote mountain village. There are many tiny shops, restaurants, street vendors, etc. to accommodate most every need. Our hostel is very nice and we have hot water! I feel a little spoiled since I know the other teams probably won´t have it so good! We are staying at the hostel run by Emilio and Maribel who are just very nice folks (they gave us a great price on very nice rooms) and they are open to our holding meetings at the hostel if needed- we have not yet met their two kids, Rosi and Luis as they are out of town with an uncle.

During our walk around town Martin and I met with the principal of the local elementary school - her name is Flor - and she was very receptive to the idea of us teaching english and bible stories to children in the town. The kids are all on "summer break" from school, so we will be able to use school facilities with no problem. This Friday we will find out what the best schedule will be for the school and starting next week we´ll begin the ministry of teaching english - that I can do!







We also met Elisabeth and Keyla, part of a strong Christian family that is currently holding house church (meetings) regularly on Friday evenings. Tomorrow we will attend and worship with them - I personally can´t wait to attend my first house church in the field! Elisabeth told us that attendance to their meetings had dropped off dramatically since last month´s stateside church visit, so we will be working to invite back folks and invite new folks to their meetings.

This morning we met Jose Acosta, I logistics director in the town government. He speaks english (halleluah) and is a repected man in this town. We have already set up regular meetings with him for discipleship as he is a believer, but he is looking for encouragement and training. What a great opportunity for a strong leader in Sr Acosta!

I have added pics of the town and surrounding sites so you can get an idea of the area. I don´t have any pics yet of the locals we contacted - it´s just not good manners to start snapping photos of everyone we meet. There will be time to share with you the faces of Matucana.. but until then we´ll share with you their hearts!

As always, pray for those mentioned in this blog and all of the situations described. Pray for:

1. Our Friday meeting tomorrow evening at Elisabeth´s and her leadership.
2. Our arrangement with the school for english classes.
3. Sr Acosta´s discipleship and his growth as a leader.
4. The people of Matucana and surrounding areas.
5. Our guidance as we interact with the people in Matucana as we move outward into area villages.
6. Pray for our 3rd team member, Brittne. She had to stay behind in Lima a few extra days for medical reasons, but will be joining us this Saturday!

Since there is internet access here, I hope to post several times a week if I can.

In Christ-
Greg o Gregório

Prayer Retreat and the Field

Last weekend was a great experience as we headed to Chosica - a small town about an hour east of Lima. The IMB has a nice camp/retreat facility near Chosica and it's like a small oasis in a desert land. The pictures you see are different views from within the camp. Outside of the walls is a hot, dry, dusty town.

The folks at the Retreat - IMB folks from Lima, the folks I've been training with for the past couple of weeks, and another small group who just arrived - experienced a great time, culminating with a commissioning prayer and blessing at the end of our time together.



Everyone is scrambling today - Monday - to pack and get their affairs in order before departing to the villages. Several of the groups will not have any ability to communicate from within their remote villages for the two-month stay. My group is fortunate to be staying in a small town where phones and the internet are readily available - we'll also have hot water from what I hear.. Bonus!








The first team left this morning on a 15 hour trip heading south and into the mountians. Please keep all of the teams in your prayers (listed below) for their safe travel - arriving and returning - while on mission. Most will be on our way by tomorrow (Tuesday).

Since I am one of the scrambling packers, I will say goodbye for now. The next blog will be from the town of Matucana - once I find a reliable internet connection. Also, I'll be blogging from my phone, so expect some odd looking posts - I still have not figured out all of the tricks to doing this!

I also want to say how much your comments on the blog mean to me - I love reading them. I know you are praying for all of us here and we all are very grateful for your support.. there's nothing like the knowledge that your prayers are behind us! I am told that some of you at church have tried to send me e-mail, but I have not received anything - check with my Mom to get the correct address. Updates coming soon...

Mission Teams for prayer:
1. Kristen, Mayra, Clay
2. Claudia, Cristen, Ryan G.
3. Martin, Greg, Brittne
4. Solomon, Jess, Tiffany
5. Rob, Chris, Josh
6. Steve, Ryan N.

Greg