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