What is happening in Pacifico at the moment?

What is going on in Pacifico?

Even though we are now not meeting in Pacifico on a Sunday we still have a regular presence there on a weekly basis. In addition to this we are doing a church outreach there every 4-6 weeks on a Sunday morning rather than meeting formally in our house. Our first one was on the 18th November and we will be doing one this week for Christmas. Hopefully, future blog posts will follow about both of these events!

So what are we doing on a weekly basis in Pacifico?

Llilda, Karina and Elisabeth in the Bible Study

We currently have a weekly meeting on a Wednesday that is slowly growing in number. Attendees vary in number from one week to the next; with between 10 to 35 people in attendance, aside from the leaders.

Steve teaching at the interactive Bible Study

Three Wednesdays a month an interactive form of Biblical teaching is done, in this meeting, which is covering Bible stories in a visual, picture-based forn. We are using this form of teaching, because it helps both adults and children engage. In addition most of the people involved in the group have little or no education, and reading and writing is of a very low standard.  Every participant is encouraged to draw the different elements of the story in a symbolic way to aid processing and understanding of the story and to lead them to application. Think non-academic note-taking! 

This has been a real success and we are excited for the future of this study, not just in Pacifico, but also how this style of Bible teaching to groups of people with low education levels can be used in the jungle.

Nancy, Jane, and Karina buying supplies for Color de Esperanza

Once a month Karina leads the Wednesday meeting with her new ministry Color de Esperanza (Colour of Hope). This is an evangelistic and creative ministry connected to Jane Savaas, a wonderful lady who visited in February this year.  Jane brought a creative ministry with her and Karina has been able to carry it on since her return to the UK.  We are in the early stages with this ministry, but there is no reason why Karina cannot use this ministry all over Peru. She has already been to churches in Chiclayo in the north of Peru. The vision Karina has is to help people work through issues they have had through testimony and creative workshops. The workshops she has begun to do have been very powerful and well received. 

Some of the Pre-teens

On a Saturday Ronald leads our most healthy group/ministry, the pre-adolescents or teens group.  Rosa and Gabriel help him in the leadership. Ronald visits the core pre teens during the week and now has ten regular disciples in his group with maybe another ten who come less regularly and less faithfully. These pre teens are not just growing in their faith in Jesus, but also the practical outworking of this. See this link to see Joana’s healing testimony. In addition to this many of these pre teens are prophesying on a regular basis, evangelizing to their friends in Pacifico and at school. It is very exciting to see how God is using them!

As well as helping lead the pre teens Rosa leads the only other small cell group we have, which happens on a Monday, afternoon and is co led by Llilda. It is exciting that Llilda is helping Rosa, as is one of the first leaders from Pacifico. They are currently doing the Alpha course, which is an excellent tool for discipleship rather than evangelistic tool, as it is used in the UK. (Unlike in the UK, people here often make decisions quickly to follow  Jesus (they already believe in God) but the fall out rate is high - in the UK people are often slower to make a decision but more committed when they do.)

Finally, in addition to all this we also do a lot of visiting of people that are involved with the church. Nancy, as head of pastoral care heads this up, with Ronald and Lili doing a large share of the visiting too.  

A Shipibo jungle Wedding

JUNGLE NOVEMBER 2012: PART 3

We were really honoured as a team to have Dennis and Charmian helping us.  They are leaders of church in another part of Lima and it was great to draw on their ministry experience. 

They did a wonderful talk on covenant with your spouse and also covenant with your kids, focusing on their spiritual walk. This was a real needed area in the life of these Shipibo people. I was so blessed to be part of a team helping to lead these guys into a new deeper experience of love for our God and in their marriages and families. 

Traditional Shipibo dancing at the wedding.

We heard testimonies from men and women, lay leaders and church leaders about how their spiritual eyes were being opened.  They talked of scales being removed from their eyes and closed or immature beliefs being changed. Some realised for the first time that it was ok to include your family in your mission and ministry.  A pastor realised that the church was less important than his relationship with his 16 year old son. It was a revelation that the family is more important than the church, but not God and that loving God is not the same as loving the church at the neglect of your family.  

Erling and Maritza in their traditional outfits 

Following the times of confession, many pastors and leaders saw bright futures for their marriages. This is wonderful in a culture where most marriages are functional (often arranged) and made for protection, provision, and child bearing and not always love. This I know will now begin to change.

Mark, his kushma, and Marcial

This was massively highlighted by the wedding of Erling and Maritza on the Friday night. Starting at 7pm sharp, the 10 people present were calling all the attendees by microphone. At 7.20 incredibly there was over 200 people there celebrating the first Shipibo religious wedding in this village. What a honour to be presiding over it.

With the happy couple

We started with the short (very)cultural section and it was wonderful to see both Erling and Maritza, and many other women dressed in traditional costume. I was lent a kushma or traditional male outfit and far too small traditional headwear. Very few people own these outfits due to the cost and so there was only 3 at the whole wedding. Following more singing and the traditional Shipibo dance section I was asked to lead the modern marriage vows. 

Here comes the bride with her Dad.

The whole event was very emotional and a real pioneering step towards seeing a more united God loving church and people. It is so amazing to be involved with the Shipibo church and especially with Oikos Selva.

Starting next year I plan to be there once a month to really start to intensively train our leaders.  We also hope to lead some short term teams there and carry on the learning community conferences we have started. 

Jungle churches near and far

JUNGLE NOVEMBER 2012: PART 2:

Some of the people from Nuevo San Juan

When we started the conference on the Tuesday morning we discovered that we had leaders, pastors, and representatives from 6 churches, 3 of them from our May Learning Community conference, and 3 new ones. These churches varied in size, distance from Pucallpa and number in attendance. Most of the 40-50 people were from the hosting church, Nuevo San Juan, 13km outside of Pucallpa. Our church in Nuevo San Juan has seen their membership grow from 10 people in May, before our last learning community to now having a membership of 72, with their attendance on a Saturday and Sunday being much higher. 
There was also leaders from the church in Calleria that is now unofficially affiliated with us. They would love us to visit them next year, and potentially marry 10 or more couples!  

Dennis, Charmian, Rosa, Miguel and Vilma in the Calleria group

Junin Pablo, Nuevo Loreto, and others

We also had 2 people from Junin Pablo (24 hours away), as well as the leaders from Maritiza’s (the bride in waiting) church, which the leaders there described as much further than Junin Pablo in distance. 



However  Carlos from Santa Rosa de Renewya won the award for traveling the furthest. It took him 3 days to arrive by boat. This however only costs 40 soles, which is 10 pounds or 15 dollars. He and his church wished to join our jungle church network, Oikos Selva, and they had signed an offcial document, ratified by the local lawyer's office stating their attentions to be affiliated with Oikos! We were obviously delighted to accept them and now have to look at how much the plane ticket costs to get there. I really don't think three days on a boat is the most wise use of time. Please pray for this small village church. 

I asked Carlos, the pastor of this newly affiliated church about his wife, and kids. He told me he and his wife Isabel have several children. He told me that they have Esther 20, Priscilla, 18. After 5 minutes he said ‘and Ronaldia he is 4 years old’ He has 9 kids all 2 years apart from Esther down to Ronaldia. This man is a lovely example of a humble jungle pastor who has a love of the Lord,  and a desire to do the best for his people, but no support financially or spiritually.  I have no idea how this works strategically, but we have a great and big God. We need start to pray for an Oikos boat, and an Oikos plane (faith like a mustard seed?). I am starting to understand a little of what Paul the apostle went through to take the gospel to the ends of the Earth.

Doria praying for her husband and leader of Oikos Selva, Marcial.

During the conference we also saw many leaders and pastors blessed by the Holy Spirit, when praying for them after the practical prayer ministry session. This was the most powerful experience of God that I am sure that most of these Shipbo pastors and leaders have experienced. Many of the testimionies after talked of this mighty wind (like Pentecost in Acts 2?) coming and blowing them over. Also there was an overall feeling of love from God manifesting. 

The loving couple of Charmian and Dennis talking on  covenant between spouses

During this session one of the highlights of the conference has to be that a women said she didn’t know how to pray for other people, and didn't feel comfortable doing it.The reason why? She wasn't a Christian yet! Charmian had the honour of leading her to the Lord, a wonderful blessing. 

God's ways are not our ways: Travel Problems

Jungle: November 2012: Part 1 

God has been using me more and more in the jungle, and I think it is fair to say that I feel highly blessed each time I go. This time was certainly challenging, especially in the area of transportation but God used the situation for His glory...

The Church with newly completed roof where the Learning Community happened

Our plan was for the team, Ronald, Nancy and I (with Dennis and Charmian, fellow church leaders and friends) to arrive on Monday morning and then do the learning community conference from Monday afternoon until Thursday afternoon, and on Friday, I (Mark) was to perform the wedding of Erling, a friend and part of our central jungle team to his bride Maritza. However, God had other plans.

Erling and Maritza in their formal outifts

We left our house at 3am Monday and arrived in good time at the airport to  check in.  The plane was full of people going to work on Monday morning, and people with urgent contracts in and around Pucallpa.

As far as we were aware there were no problems, expect our drooping eyes and tired bodies until we reached the departure lounge and the screen said the flight to Pucallpa was delayed. This was not the first time that I have been delayed due to weather so I settled down and started to read my kindle. Ten minutes later the LAN staff member announced the flight had been cancelled due to adverse weather conditions and we would have to find another flight and collect our luggage in the baggage reclaim. As you can imagine this was not widely accepted with joy and was greeted with a lack of understanding (huge understatement) of why the flight was not just delayed until later. 

We were told that we would get flights the next morning, and had to go out to the main check in area to do this. By the time we reached the front of this queue we were offered flights for Tuesday night. I explained that I was leading a conference starting in the afternoon and I needed to be in Pucallpa and not Lima. We reluctantly accepted the tickets for Tuesday night and prayed and thought of other solutions. Meanwhile Anna back at home had cut open her finger from the broken glass of our liquidizer making the morning juice. At this point we felt something was afoot. 

Anna then mysteriously received an email from her sister asking her if everything was ok, because her boyfriend's dad (who we have never met, and he doesn't even know our names!) was woken up by God in the night to pray for us for two hours.  

So we will never know this side of heaven, but God obviously had a reason for allowing that flight to be cancelled! 


It is important to remember that all of this happened before 7am, and so this gave us time to make the decision to get the bus and travel overnight arriving early on Tuesday morning. 

Dennis & Charmian talking about marriage

On previous trips to Pucallpa I had always avoided the bus. Partly because it takes between 16 and 24 hours (compared to a 45minute flight!), and partly due to the immense altitude as the bus crosses the peaks of the Andes.  Mainly, however, I had been discouraged by the 100% negative reactions to the journey by those who had ever made the trip!  But with no flight available within the next 36 hours, we felt that God's leading to get the bus, especially as people from the inner jungle had already arrived in Pucallpa ready for the conference. 

It is times like these when we are acutely reminded that the plans of God are not our plans.  The taxi driver to the bus station needed to talk to me. We were having the usual conversation Peruvian taxi conversation about life, the universe and everything and the driver started to open up to me.  He began to talk about his negative church experience with an established denomination who unfortunately has a tendency to control their people. 

He told us about how he and his wife had been involved with this church, especially his wife, but how over time the demands of the church (which was deemed more important), meant the family no longer spent time together.  
  
This was very interesting as we were going to speak in Pucallpa on covenant and how God is number 1, spouses number 2, kids number 3 and then calling, ministry, and then job if not covered by the other 2. 

Due to all this pressure his wife and he left the church, and have now been separated for a while, and the relationship is very strained. I got the chance and priviledge to listen to him and then to pray for him, a great honour.

This was posed for but you get the idea.

As we arrived at the bus terminal we got the last tickets with an 180 degree seat and left in the afternoon at 1.30pm.  The 16 hour journey arrived in Pucallpa early which was a welcome relief, after sleeping on and off for 13 or so hours, under the influence of a drowsy allergy tablet and 2 anti-sickness tablets. The journey was not as bad as I thought it might have been. I would be willing to do it again if required, although I hope I never have to. 

Three things I remember from this journey: 
1. Waking in the altitudes of the high Andes mountains, in the pitch dark, and struggling to breathe, due to the lack of oxygen at upto 5000 metres, 15,000 feet. 

2. The speed the drivers were driving at on hairpin and roads with sheer drops by our side. The bus had a 90 kph  speed limit (60 mph), and had a speed alarm which sounded at 91kph. The brief times I was awake and conscious I must have heard the alarm 5 or more times in a matter of 10 minutes.   
3. The strange choice of films chosen by the lady in charge of meals and customer care. Let me just say they were not family viewing!

The travel problems did not end upon arrival. On day 3 we were trying to get a refund for our cancelled flight.  Unfortunately, the LAN phone rep. managed to cancel both the outgoing and the returning flight.  Suddenly, the reality of having to make a return bus journey on my birthday was looming. 

Wednesday afternoon we visited the LAN office.  Apparently the flight hadn't been cancelled. 

Friday afternoon, we returned to the LAN office just to check that the flight hadn't been cancelled.  It had. 

Fortunately, the LAN rep in the office that day was very helpful, although she could do nothing about the cancelled flight.  She could get us on a now much more expensive flight though! 

However the Lord is sovereign and He had a plan. Eventually, a LAN rep found us a cheap internet flight home on my birthday - with a rival airline! He even booked it for us! 

Oikos Latest Video September 2012

A quick update on Oikos Ministries in Lima, Peru, September 2012 

Leader's Retreat June 2012

Nancy and Karina

A few weeks ago we had our latest Leaders retreat, which took place at our good friends Wes and Stacy’s house. We had a mixture of fun reflection, teaching, and food, as well as times listening to God. The main focus of our retreat waswas to listen to God for ourselves (we are in a pruning back season), and to be reminded of who we are in Christ, the vision of the church, and the vision for 2012. We were also asking God how we needed to respond in this season until August, as a church, individuals, and as a leadership team.

Amanda and Kaleb

The retreat started on Friday night at our house where I shared the vision again, in order that Saturday we could respond to this vision and God’s promptings.

Saturday began with breakfast pancakes made wonderfully by Stacy, thanks again, and we then moved to team building and divided into three groups to see who could build the best spaghetti bridge to support the most number of cars. Because we used to much sellotape all the bridges were very strong and all supported the whole box of cars.  Well we had fun, even though there was no winner from the three teams.  Every team then claimed they had won for one reason or another!

Personal listening time was followed by Chifa, Peruvian Chinese, which came with far too much rice, which was still be eaten on Saturday night and Sunday lunch and evening.

Angela spends some personal listening time in the plants...

After lunch we spent some time listening to God for the church and it was wonderful to hear some of the testimonies of how God is working in the lives of our leaders and what plans he has for the church. Angela commented that she really wanted to learn to be a better disciple and be faithful even when it is hard and especially in the times when there seems to be no way out.  

We finished the day with our leadership’s favourite game Mafia. As usual there were many mistakes made and Rosa was the nurse at least once. (Rosa is training to be a nurse and the first time she played this game with us she was the nurse 5 times. It makes you wonder if AnnaLou being the murderer five times in one night has any significance)!!!

Accusations flying!

Silvana murdering Karina

We love our leadership and are so grateful to God for bringing all of them, he has heard our prayer. Amazingly, in March last year Lili was the only one of our leadership with us. 

Whole Church retreat, June 2012

  

Last weekend was our first whole church retreat. Regular attendees from Pacifico and Los Cedros came and we had over 30 adults and as many children.  We went to a lovely retreat house in the foothills north east of Lima, where there was loads of space for the children to run around safely and lots of green grass and trees to lay under!

Exploring the grounds

Quiz in groups

Keeping the toddlers entertained!

Mark gave two talks during the day – one on the Father’s heart and the second on the importance of forgiveness.  Both talks led on to ministry times where many gave testimony afterwards to God speaking to them and forgiving others – some taking the opportunity to ask forgiveness from others present in the room – a uniting and humbling time.  Many people began the forgiveness process for the first time – including forgiving their spouses and children for offenses caused.

Jesus said we should forgive 70 x 7 

Meanwhile the children learned about how much the Father loves them and the importance of forgiveness too. 

We also had some games – including the much loved bubble making and racing contest! (I think this game may turn into an Oikos tradition!!)  Each team had a list of ingredients and had to make up a bubble mix and then make bubbles with shoelaces tied together.  The teams had 30 minutes to get as many bubbles as possible across the line (which was about 15m away).  It is actually much more challenging than you would think and the winning team got 8 bubbles across in 30 minutes.   The spectators enjoyed seeing the different ways the teams worked together to try and move the bubble – contorting their bodies to get under them to blow them upwards, and flapping hats furiously to move them along! The losing team was at a situational disadvantage as the wind kept taking their bubbles off course!

In all it was a very encouraging and relaxing time.  It felt like a good mix of spiritual focus and family time together and for many who never get out of their shanty town aside for work reasons, it will be the highlight of the year for many!

We are hoping to do another full church retreat in February….

Click here to see more photos

Pucallpa May 2012: Uncle Bob

The churches from San Juan

Shaun teaching on teaching!

Another powerful thing we saw was the breaking of the Spirit of religion. One particular man in one of the churches, who we will call Uncle Bob saw an amazing change in his life during the 4 days of the Learning Community. (Uncle Bob is the uncle that is just a little bit akward, seems to have an opinion that is different from everyone else, and at times has little social awareness, or awareness of what others think of him (or her)). The man has been a bit of a pain to us in previous visits as he seems to dampen a lot of what we say, always has an opinion, which is not normally helpful, and also asserts his position, which is extremely unclear. 

Well Uncle Bob was behaving like Uncle Bob at the beginning of the week. Each of the groups had their challenges and there was no exception in Uncle Bob´s group as it felt like walking through treacle at first. However the cracks began to show on Tuesday, and Wednesday the dam opened. Uncle Bob stood up and said Í'm like a Pharisee I am very religious´: I wasn´t there to see it happening but I saw the difference in Uncle Bob after.

Nancy talking about discipline, the slide behind is in Shipibo.

I also saw him being hugged by Shaun 24 hours later during ministry, and this child of God was crying like a child who finally understood the love his Dad has for him. Powerful stuff. I would pay to see stuff like that, and I am being supported to see it.Thank you to those of you who let me do this. Overall the week was an amazing sucess.

Michelle and Nehemias, Marcial and Doria´s two youngest kids

 I could say so much more but we now have joy of supporting this into a complete change in churches across the jungle, one by one, one step at a time. We are planning another one visit in November and then 2 next year, more people, more churches, more lives changed. I love my job.

  

This is all of us involved in the first Shipibo learning community (Sorry about the photo)