A place of belonging

Well following our period of observation, and reflection, (and lots of time spent at the white board and chatting to different people, as well as praying!) we have felt it is right to put our roots down in a church called Viviendo en Gracia (Living in Grace) which is in San Gabriel, a slightly more advanced shanty town. This is on a regular bus route from our new house, which we will move into in January, when we get back from visiting Anna's family in Sydney over Christmas and New Year.

A view of the local area

We initially plan to work with their young adults and teenagers, as their is a great number in the young church, and will help us to connect with Peruvians of this age, before we start our discipleship/leadership school in 2009. Therefore this year will be a pilot year for the school next year. We don't know how this will look yet. We plan to take all the young people (about 25 of them) from the church on a retreat at the end February, at the end of their summer holidays.

Edgar and Cesar 2 of the key young people.

This will be our main place of belonging, and will be our main work base. We will continue to work with Alfredo and others, but we will concentrate on helping these guys to be better leaders, and ones who will make a difference here in Peru. We will also be doing training and supporting the leadership of San Gabriel and other churches in the area, and other parts of Lima.

One of the Sunday morning services in full swing

The church was started by our friends Humberto and Esther in 2003, and has now grown to at least 70 people, who mostly come from the local area. The church is now led by Esther's parents Santiago (James), and Margarita (Margaret).

Santiago and Margarita (Santiago doing his Doctor Evil Impression!!)

The church meets in a small upper room, however at the moment there is no room for kids work in the building, but they are hoping to rent the 3rd floor room (they currently rent the 2nd floor).
There is a great need for this space as there was 13 children there yesterday, and as new people are joining the church all the time, before we know it, we could be at 25 kids.

The current state of the room needed for kids work

We're off to Oz tonight, so we will post soon from there!