Happy Christmas

Amongst other things, this Christmas involved...

...Putting up the Christmas tree...

...Putting up the nativity as Peruvians do in their homes,(ours with Peruvian characters) and explaining the Christmas story to Daniel... ...Acting in the nativity (a reluctant angel).......Joel in his first theatre production...
...eating traditional Peruvian Paneton cake for breakfast Christmas morning...
'Happy Birthday Jesus' Daniel said!

...smiles...

...laughter...

...and new clothes!

Ventanilla Kids Christmas Event

Yesterday was the Christmas event for the kids from Alfredo's school in Ventanilla and kids from the surrounding area. Unlike last week's monstrosity, only (!) 80 kids turned up today as Alan García, the president of Peru and the mayor of Callao were both visiting nearby communities to hand out fish and potatoes (as incentives to get people there so they can all celebrate how great Alan García is for getting water to the community!)
A friend of Alfredo offered their show for the kids which was really excellent (so good that they are booked up every weekend until July 09), and then the kids received paneton, hot chocolate and bags of sweets.
Teachers preparing the hot chocolateSome of the kids sat down to watch the show in the school playgroundThe showKids watching the clowns - definitely the highlight!
Kids from the school at the endKids receiving goodie bags, hot chocolate and paneton

Feeding the 600!

Two weeks ago Mark was at the leadership meeting of our church and they were discussing the Christmas kids event that was to be held in a shanty town in South Lima in an area called Pacifico de Villa in Chorillos. 600 kids were expected but no money had been found by that time and so they were thinking about cancelling the event. Mark felt that the event shouldn't be cancelled and that we would be able to do something, so we sent out an email asking for prayer / help and many of you answered.

Thank you!

Not only were we able to buy hot chocolate and paneton (italian sweet bread cake) for all the kids, we were also able to get them all a present. In the end over 600 kids turned up!

Views of Pacifico de Villa Outside the hall half an hour before the event started (and that is a miracle in itself! Timekeeping is relative here!)

A child enjoying his hot chocolate and paneton Cecilia, our church leader (with her husband Eduardo), and a little boy who just wanted to be hugged!

Tigger and Superman entertain the kids with the dancing queens!

The entertainment team, friends from La Tablada church - they did a great job!

SOME of the balls!

Kids receiving balls & party bags with sweets

What has really hit me about this event was just how much God loves children. The way that all the money came in to pay for this event so easily - an event which was just about loving the kids and sharing God's love with them - just shows to me how much God just loves giving good gifts to his children.

Joel aged 2 months

Ventanilla Zoo trip and Daniel's 2nd birthday

Yes, amazingly, Daniel is now 2! We decided not to have a party (they really are often extravagances here!!) as we knew he would enjoy the trip we were planning that day to the city zoo with the kids from Alfredo's school in Ventanilla but we did get a cake to share with the kids and the teachers.

We took 11 of the 12 students to the zoo which was a real privilege as only 3 of them had ever been to the zoo before. The kids were so grateful for the food we provided that they were fighting over the left over apples! Here are some photos of the day:

The kids filling in their worksheets Anna and Joel at lunch Some of the children at lunchtime (above and below) Mayhem on the roundabout at the zoo park!

Daniel opening and enjoying his presents:

Business and the Kingdom

One of the things I (Anna) have been thinking about quite a bit in the last few months is how to make our ministry sustainable and how God can use businesses to support and maintain other mission projects. Not only that, but also we work with many people who are very poor and do not have enough money or know how of to set up businesses, but some of them do have some good ideas which would work with some financial help and business support. With a little bit of help these people could work their way out of poverty (the Oxfam idea of: give an man a fish and he can feed his family for a day, give him a rod and he can feed them for a life time). We would love to be able to help people here who have some good ideas to get them off the ground. And so when we heard Anna's Dad, Julian, a businessman who has computer software companies in 3 countries was coming to Peru, we felt it was a great opportunity to get him to talk to Christians in business or people who are considering being in business.

Julian gave 2 talks on two evenings. The first one was about the calling to be in business, centring on Godly values in business and integrity (important everywhere but even more so in the South-American short-cut, short-term mentality). The second talk focused more on business practicalities and actually running a business, emphasising the need to start small and take it one step at a time, giving some advice on things such as managing funds and hiring and firing people (when to, when not to, etc.) Both of the talks were very well received, especially as there are quite a few people in the church who are running businesses or thinking about starting ones.

We think Julian will be involved a lot more in the future here in Peru. It is great that he is able to use his business skills to bless and encourage the people here. Peru is an up and coming economic world player and so wisdom is really needed for those wanting to be on the playing field!

Pucallpa Nov 08 Part 4

Following the business and leadership seminars we did, Julian preached
in the main church with Jennifer an American missionary translating, and I went to another Pucallpa church plant called 'Cordero' or 'the Lamb'. Again following my preach God healed people and people had powerful encounters with God.

Praying with the people of Cordero church.

Preaching at Cordero church.

I also had an encounter of a different type as I met a tarantula of the non friendly pet’s corner type. This was promptly squashed and the majority of the praying kneeling congregation unaware. Those who did see it took it in their stride. Just what is normal in a jungle service?

My little spider like friend was just left of the keyboard player.

When I arrived back Julian told me that they had see healings in their service when the congregation prayed for each other. One of the people healed was Antonio a Shibipo pastor full of faith who is still going strong at 70. He has travelled the entire world and has a unlimited visa to go to the US at anytime. This is unheard of here in Peru as people often get refused for a 2 week visa for fear they will stay after the 2 weeks to live. Antonio went to his interview at the embassy and saw many young people crying because they had been refused their visa. Antonio was feeling very apprehensive when the embassy official came out. She asked Antonio: 'Are you from an indigenous tribe?', he said ‘yes’. She said ‘come this way pastor’. He was given an unlimited visa without an interview to visit the USA whenever he wants.How good is God?

Myself, Antonio, and Julian

Antonio is a pastor of a church 19 hours by river from Pucallpa, and has invited me to go and minister there and the 56 church plants as well!! If God lets me, I’m there. We plan to go back in early 2009, so watch this space.
My time in Pucallpa was again a real blessing. Next time we hope to more training, especially of the pastors and leaders, part of our vision, but I cannot take anything way from the amazing things God has done through us in these 4 days. I would say its back to normal, but things very rarely are. I love it. What a privilege to be here living out our calling.

Pucallpa Nov 08 Part 3

Wow day 3 arrives (Saturday) and we have already preached and taught 6 times in 36 hours. We began the day with going for a roadside breakfast again, Oseas having cockrel soup for breakfast, while we had a more 'normal' egg sandwich for breakfast with fresh juice, picked from the nearby trees! Following breakfast we went to another church plant called San Fernando stopping off at the house of Oseas and his family. While we were there we had juice from the Cocona tree grown in their garden, which is different! Ceci, Oseas' youngest sister (one of 11) who is 14 asked Julian to be her Padrino (godfather) next October when she turns 15, the magic age here in Peru. This is a great honour as people ask people to be padrinos as they are people of good reputation in the community who can help with the preparation of the young senorita financially, emotionally, and in our case spiritually. Julian has accepted, so we will see what happens next October!

Oseas' mum, Ceci, me, Julian and Oseas outside the house of Oseas and family
We arrived at San Fernando and again Julian shared a word on the grace and peace of God. Again we prayed for healing and saw the people praying for each other. What a blessing this was.

Praying in San Fernando
After lunch we took a taxi 50km down the road to another of the church plants called 9th February (yes really) which was in a remote village, where we were to stay overnight. We found out the next morning that this was the anniversary of the church, and this was the reason there was over 200 people there. Communication differs in its form here in Peru, and this seems to especially be the case in the jungle.

Anway following a couple of hours sleep we went for dinner and waited for the service to start, which it did about 2 hours late at 9.30pm. After requesting not to preach too late, as the service would be going on for sometime, I preached on the love of God and then we asked for those who wanted to recieve healing to come forward. Again God healed people there. One of the visiting leaders testified later that her stomach had been healed physically, and the depression she had had been lifted. God is good.

Preaching in 9th February (not on)

A Brazilian lady then met Jesus for the first time and felt the power of God come upon her.

Some of the 200 people at the service in 9th February

I slept well that night, which cannot be said for Julian, who had 4 hours sleep. I only found one giant cockroach in my room that night!

My companion for the night!
The next day we set off back for Pucallpa and I preached at the main church, before having lunch and then Julian doing another business talk which was again really good, and also really inspiring.It was partly inspiring as 2 men attending gave testimony of their businesses. The 1st was a middle class business man who owned several businesses including a restaurant that helped support the TV station. He said he had become a Christian recently but since he had become a Christian he had changed the way he did business and God had really blessed his business.

The other man was a member of the Luz Divina church and he had had several problems with previous business and had lost all his money. He then told a story of how God had blessed him as he had had faith in God to provide for him. He works with jungle medicinal plants, and was asked to provide few thousand tonnes of these plants for a client. He did not have the money to buy them or the money to go and get them. However he found a warehouse that wanted to sell several tonnes of this plants. He asked the client who wanted the plants if they could pay 50% of the money up front and they agreed because they trusted him. He then delivered the plants and made a tremendous profit without spending any money, not that he had any to do it!