Kudos to God

This week we spent some time out in Ciudad Blanca which is just barely outside of Paucarpata.  A lady from Puerto Maldanado recently moved here and we received a call from other 40/40s that she was headed our way. How exciting.  We have a cell group not to far from where she lives.  Then Angelica and her daughter Jessica joined us on Wednesday night at Jorge and Cecilia's for her first time after the impact event held at a local park.  It was actually the first time we had someone else at the house; Gilda (the lady from PM) and another lady from the event hope to join us soon. 

As we were leaving Jorge and Cecilia's and out waiting for a bus, Sonia snuck up on us.  We hadn't seen her for over 2 weeks and there she was at 8pm on a Thursday night still 10-15 minutes from her house.  Well, talk about timing: 1) We've never run into her there. 2) She told us about her financial problems that exist and we could encourage her by telling her that God is looking out for her, we don't have money to give but we are here for her, praying for her and trusting God for miracles 3) She told us about her sister who is 4 months pregnant and in the hospital for losing a lot of blood. Did I mention His timing is perfect?  So we went the next day to the hospital to visit her and pray with her.  We found out she needed more blood and today at 6:30 in the morning we headed out with Henrietta to give blood.  They only needed one donor and Henrietta has a perfect match of O positive.  Though mine would do because she's a universal match.  However, I found out that B negative, which is mine, is very rare here in Peru, so the nurse told me not to give mine right now in case someone specifically needs it. 

Margarita (Maria) and Pedro Condori have quite a rocky story for there 20 years of marriage, but there they are together in the hospital as she suffers recooperates from her blood loss.  He shared that it was cool to see us act immediately on their need and not just come around to teach them lessons.  And it was only in God's timing that we were there to do anything anyway.  Kudos to God.

Celebration Service

What a great evening! Wendy and I, will the help and support of our church family, support family, and members of the office held our very first combined service for our 3 church plant areas. The objective was to celebrate with them in their new way of living, help them to know all the folks in their district and give certificates to the seventeen people who completed a series of lessons about Christian basics. Wendy prepared two slideshows, one that dated back to Love Extreme – which initiated our ministry, and one that contains photos and videos from our impacts and cell groups. It was really cool to see all that has occurred over the past year. We had band for worship for the first time in a long time at the church, a saxophone special, a drama, and I preached for the first time in my life…in Spanish. I've spoken in front of hundreds of people, shared my testimony several times, given devotionals to small groups, but this was the first time that I preached and it was probably in front of 50 people or so. After the service we had sandwiches and snacks, watched one of the slideshows and mingled. It was such a great night. Here are photos from the service. Thanks to everyone who helped out!