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. 

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)

Pucallpa May 2012: Shipibo Women

AnnaLou with Ana one of the leaders in San Juan

AnnaLou said to me in our lunch time meeting on Wednesday ´you are starting a feminist revolution with the Shipibo women´. What she was saying is that I was beginning to help a process of empowering women, especially in ministry.

I  have been learning recently about leadership in covenant, and how when we use discipleship as our operating system, and not church the leader of the church is two in one and not just one man (as is the norm). This means that Anna and I are the leaders, not just myself on my own. We have been very blessed in this area as we have done this from the beginning of our ministry here in Peru, mainly due to the fact that until recently it has only been Anna and I in our team, and as an extrovert I have needed Anna´s wisdom and counsel. 
 I was sharing this with all the Shipibo leaders  at most potential opportunities and I could see that  God was doing something special.

The Leaders from Calleria with Vilma in pink.

 He was changing a culture. Normally the Shipibo culture is a male dominated structure where the man is the dominant leader. He has been the hunter gatherer  and the women have had to follow. This actually happens physically as well as the women follows behind the man when they are walking to a destination, and never to the side.  Added to this men receive education and their wives rarely receive the same opportunities. This is now changing but it means that female leaders over thirty are reticient in general to speak in Spanish, only Shipibo, not the case with male leadersIn addition the men have thought that a woman has no role in ministry as they are uneducated and have no giftings. This has now begun to change since this community experience. Nearly every single female leader in the learning community was speaking 10 times more by the end of our time together than at the beginning.

Cazilda sharing her testimony about how God is showing her new things



Doria being prayed for by Nancy



Doria, Cazilda, and Vilma know they have a role now, one that will help not just their lives, and their family´s live, but many other families and Shipibo women, as well as non Shipibo tribeswomen, and even men.

This can be easily highlighted by a testimony from Doria sharing how she now knows she can now teach the women how to love Jesus better. Even though it has been a real struggle for her to even understand the teaching,and especially trying to understand the discipleship mentality of covenant partnership. Her fears have been replaced by faith. She says that she now know what she is called to do for the rest of her life, in her words, ´until she dies´.

Pucallpa May 2012: Introduction

 


The youth of Calleria

 Therefore we really fired up and ready to go when we arrived in Pucallpa and we had seen amazing stuff happen within the training times. However the plan of God is different from ours at times and this was the case this time. When we arrived in Pucallpa we found that many people that were supposed to come, hadn´t for many reasons, and some people had come who were not in the original plan, so to speak.  


Calleria´s main street 

  

Leaders from Caimito, and Junin Pablo far above
Daniel with Marcelo one of the leaders in Calleria

We had some leaders from San Juan, , leaders from Calleria, no leaders from Egipto, and leaders from churches in 2 different villages, 24 hours away by boat, called Caimito, and Junin Pablo. Therefore we had 4 churches represented and by the end of the time this had grown to 5 churches. One of the pastors is planning to move to another village in the next 6 months and plans to start a new church there, but wants to do it under our leadership. This excites and overwhelms me in equal measure as I know it is what we are called to do, but it is happening much quicker than I expected. However more exciting than the churches wishing to be under our guidance and leadership, more exciting than we are touching churches which are in the middle of the Amazon jungle, is what God did and is doing in the lives of the people and leaders in these communities, especially the women, and also the healing we saw and will continue to see.

Pucallpa May 2012: Background

Rosa and her mum Vilma

Last month Shaun, Nancy, AnnaLou, Rosa (her first time flying) and I (Mark) went to the jungle again, this time to do what is called a learning community. We went from Sunday night to Friday night and taught 2 sessions a day Monday to Thursday, and did consultations on Friday morning.

This was an amazing time, and I can honestly say my best trip to Pucallpa, and the Amazon jungle out of the 10 visits i have done. It may not have been the most exotic visit as we were inside 4 walls of a church building for the majority of our time. (Thank you to our friends at Luz Divina church for the provision of their building). However it was the beginning of something really special.

Marcial

However let me backtrack to give you a few more details so this makes more sense.  In January of this year a small team from Oikos went to the jungle for 2 weeks.  This was a time to identify what was the next step for our ministry in the jungle. We had 2 kairos moments (in our language these are moments that define our lives and we have a choice to grow from them or ignore them). The first was that there was an enormous need for supporting and equipping Shipibo jungle churches, and especially their unsupported leaders, in and around Pucallpa. Secondly this would not be even vaguely possible if we did not have a team of Shipibo leaders managing and running this process. We also knew that this team needed to be run by Marcial and his wife Doria.
Therefore when we got back to Lima we started to think and pray about the way forward, and we felt that the correct direction was to start to huddle (in otherwords to coach and/or equip) Marcia and Doria, firstly face to face as they were in Lima, and then by internet as they moved back to Pucallpa, as they had felt the call of God to do exactly what we wanted to support them in. Anyway to try and keep the story short(ish) Maricial formed a team of 3 people with their wives, and 2 young single men.

Erling with Kaleb

The aim in the beginning was that Miguel, and his wife Vilma (Rosa´s parents) would oversee the church in Calleria, Marcial and Doria would oversee San Juan, and Florienzo and Cazilda would oversee the planting of the church in Egypt (yes that really is the name), Erling and Rafael, the two single guys would help with this process. Well this was the idea before we arrived in Pucallpa for the Learning Community.

Miguel being lunch preperation!!!