23rd May

Well just to update you all I (Mark) went to Pacifico de Villa this Saturday to have a 'meeting' with the wife of the President of Pacifico (not the country as one Peruvian asked me!) in regards to talk about our plans and ask for their co-operation, help, and permission to do start a kids club in Pacifico.

Mark and Natividad, the president of Pacifico's wife.

They have said 'yes' to us, and want to help us as well. They said to us that they have wanted to do things with the children and youth but haven't been able to do it so far. Therefore we are a blessing before we have started. We hope to be a much greater blessing. We plan to start the club on the 23rd of May and do the club once a month to begin with. The model is based on Bill Wilson's ministry in New York 'Metro Ministries' www.metroministries.org, and is also used in our church in the UK. www.stthomaschurch.org.uk/stomp. The secret of the club however is that the leaders of the club visit every house of every child. Our hope is that through these relationships we can get to know the families.

Monica and Natividad.

In other news we have bought 2 cheap buggies (strollers for our non bilingual American friends, sorry!) and tied them together with string (!) so Anna can take both of the boys out to the park.

Also Anna continues to teach Daniel the finer points of Picasso, below is one of Daniel's 1st attempts.

Joel loves his new walker...

...Can't walk in it yet, but loves being upright and watching Daniel running around or Mummy or Daddy cooking. Also started crawling (or rather, dragging!) this week - but has to be for something he really wants. (Like Daniel's train!)

Pacifico De Villa

As I've (Mark) mentioned before we were hoping to start a social action project in an area called Pacifico de Villa or in English a small town on the Pacific! Well we have moved into stage 2 of planning how we are going to tackle this job, after an extensive time of observation, reflection and discussion! We are planning to reach and help these people in several ways, but starting with a kids group, similar to the one we were involved with when we were in Sheffield, and also to start a mums and tots group. These will both be a challenge as people in Peru in shanty towns are not used to this type of thing. We want as a team to demonstrate the love that God has shown us.

How many of the residents live

Last weekend 14 of us from the church went to go and do interviews with some of the local residents, (it may take some time to interview all 3600 houses in Pacifico!) asking them about their needs and also telling them that we want to serve them. This was an amazing time (50% of the team from the cell groups in Chorillos, and 50% from the teenagers group) knocking on doors and sharing our wish to show the love of Jesus. The whole team was really encouraged and we had some amazing conversations.

Juan and Estrella (leaders of the youth) and Franco, Oliver and Lorrena talking to a resident

Many people were very sceptical to start with, but generally warmed to us, as we continued doing the survey. People didn't really understand that we were asking what we could do for them, rather than what can we get from them.

Ivania and Gershon talking to Roy ( a local resident about the problems in Pacifico.

The highlights must be Nilda praying with a lady for healing (who insisted on calling me Padre(Father) when she found out I was a missionary, and also the team being invited in to the houses of the residents to get to know the family and to pray. (a great honour in Peru)Nilda and team talking to the woman who wanted pray for healing

and members of the team having the opportunity to pray with them and/or drink a glass of Inka Kola (a bright yellow fizzy drink, which is the only competitor to Coca Cola).We hope to start work in May, so we still have a lot to do in April to prepare for the start of what we hope will change this shanty town.

Thousands miles on the other side of this ocean is Australia (maybe)