What does a 'normal' week look like: Tuesday

Day 2 Tuesday

The start of my Tuesday is similar to Monday, trying to be positive as the alarm (depends on the day which of the three boys is the alarm, although Kaleb is the favourite at the moment) goes off and a shower to wash off the tiredness ensues. 

Prayers start at 8.30 on a Tuesday, which is followed by an hour of admin, before my American huddle which has 5 members from a Church called Crossroads in Cincinnati Ohio, 3 staff members and 2 non staff members as well as 2 pastors from other churches in and around Cincinnati. 

In my admin time on this Tuesday I had a short conversation with Greg who is one of the leaders on my huddle and he was asking me about the Order of Mission (TOM) the covenant family of missionary leaders that we are part of. 

In the jungle preparing the leaders for the workshop in April

As with my other huddles it is a real privilege to lead it. It is such an honour to lead a group of leaders who you see grow each week in their love of Jesus as well as their understanding and practice of leadership and especially discipleship.

The process of Learning Communities through 3DM is something that we here in Oikos are trying to develop to help other churches in the jungle, Venezuela, and Brazil become more discipleship orientated. 

Ronald with his girlfriend Nancy

Normally on Tuesday it is Ronald's turn to cook for the 8-15 people that eat each day, (quite often more on Sunday). Therefore when illness strikes as passed today, people need to jump in and cook, as was the case for me today. Cooking for this many people means even rice with chicken and salad (one of our staples) takes a lot longer than cooking for the wife and 3 kids!

Tuesday after lunch is the highlight of the week. (I will now take my tongue out of my cheek). Anna and I have 3 hours of admin, finances and planning time together. 

Sunday Lunch, you get the idea!!!

After being here for 5 years we are finally keeping up-to-date and on top of all of our finances thanks to our Tuesday afternoons! (Rather than previously doing an exhausting stint of receipts and accounting every 3-6 months!) We now know exactly what we are praying in, rather than just praying for God's provision! Matthew 6:11 speaks of the daily bread we need. We always have this but it doesn't stop us regularly needing to enter our overdraft. Sometimes our theology doesn't agree with our experience. We however do not plan to put our experience above our theology.

Following our admin time the kids are ready to burn off some energy, even though Rosa who is looking after them has helped the energy burning process to begin. Therefore a walk around our local neighbourhood is needed. This walk happens to pass the bakery as well as the cake shop. Any visitors here always try the lemon meringue pie.

Following the daily battle of bath time and trying to limit the amount of water outside the bath and on the floor Anna has her mentoring time with Karina. 

Nancy, Jane (the brains behind color de esperanza, and Karina

Karina is part of our leadership team and heads up our ministry 'color de esperanza', in English 'colour of hope'. Life is not easy for Karina in general as a single mum with grown up children, 2 of these bing single mums themselves. However we know she and her children have significant callings to make a difference. We just wait for God's timing.

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. 

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!