Toronto School of Ministry visit Part 4

Saturday was another long day as we were ministering at a conference in an area near Lima Airport. This was a real stretch for me as I had to translate 3 sermons and 1 hour of prophetic presbertry. Daniel Munoz,(centre left) the pastor of Filadelphia and some of the young adults in their church

Safe to say that some of the messages were not translated that well!Again the church was really blessed and it felt like a good job done well. We got home about 6 o clock and the boys went straight into the shower and would be an early night for all intended. However as happens too often here in Peru, the course of a day can dramatically change.

Mark translating the prophetic presbertry for the pastoral family.

Joel left the shower and fell over his feet, and fell headlong into the bed leg. Blood began to pour out of his mouth and we couldn’t see his teeth. Becky, (who is amazing by the way), a member of the team, and a doctor in her spare time, did her best to examine a very distressed 2 year old. She felt we should go to a dentist, for many reasons, firstly the bleeding was quite bad, his teeth were lodged in his lip, and also it appeared he had bitten through this lip and there was a big hole in his chin. Apologies if you are squeamish.Anyway the dentist around the corner opened up for us and a screaming Joel was held down by me as he had anesthetic injected into his lips so his teeth could be removed from his lip. We were told after that we would need to go to a doctor as the dentist couldn’t put external stitches in. When we arrived we were told that shallow stitches were 400 soles each, and deep ones 1000 soles, so when Joel was going to need 3 to 4, at least we were looking up to 1000 pounds or 4000 soles. We don’t have that type of money, we’re poor missionaries!!!

The wonderful Becky, thanks for your help

Anyway the specialist wasn’t available he was a Peruvian 30 minutes away, so we knew we were potentially in for a very long night. Joel was pretty much screaming the place down and no one liked this, not surprisingly, and eventually the pediatrician took the plunge and had a look. When he looked he said he saw no need for any stitching and we could go home. God had healed him miraculously, as Anna and are untrained eyes could see and Becky’s trained eye also confirmed. You may see the small scar which is still healing on Joel's chin.

Joel is still healing today, but he has had no need for any stitches. All we needed was some preventative medicine, the good old banana medicine, amoxicillin!!

Bushmead Team Week 2: Jungle Part 1

I love my mummy!

Week 2 began with the Sunday services, Spanish, as usual, in the morning and English in the evening for the visit of the team.

Monday started with last preparations for our jungle trip. We arrived in Pucallpa with our team of 14, including Daniel and Joel, and we spent our first day in the jungle relaxing, the boys enjoying it in the pool, and we all got an early night ready for the boat trip on Tuesday.

Jude and Elizabeth at our impromptu toilet stop in the 'back garden' of an unsuspecting landowner

Tuesday was a dawn start, getting to the boat and travelling down a tributary of the Amazon, the river Ucayali (the name of the province as well) and we arrived in a small river port about three and half hours later. Hey what's happening?

We arrived to a bustling port filled with moto-taxis waiting to take us the ‘twenty Shipibo minutes’ to the church awaiting us. After a forty-five minute journey we arrived to the amazing Shipibo welcome, this again blew me away.

Nuevo (New) Ceylan was a place that will stay with me for many years as we were received as family and treated as that. Huts in Nuevo Ceylan

These people had had no white visitors in 36 years and felt very honoured for us to be there. This gave a real openness to a message of covenant and kingdom that Dan and I shared, which was illustrated by using two triangles of the Father and the King, using branches from the Amazon jungle, when in Rome!!

The beautiful Shipibo children.

Following ministry we donated the suitcase of clothes that we had gathered from various people, and this was received with the most grateful tears I have ever seen. To me it was a old battered suitcase full of used donated clothes. To them it was love from foreigners, and clothes that are so desperately needed.

Preaching in the Amazon Jungle

Following prayers of thanksgiving, they gave us lots of gifts to say how much they appreciated us being here.

They have so little but they give from their hearts. Do we do this in the West?

Random Days and photos from Easter Day

The Great Easter Day Egg Hunt

There are days in Peru that are more random than most now and again. Saturday the 17^th April was certainly one of these. Joel has had a cold and had a runny nose for sometime now and his eyes were very gummed up. We therefore took him to the doctors, and thought we’d try the one down the road as it looked as it was a reasonably large medical practice and had many specialists. Well Anna went into investigate and find out what was going on and we all went in and sat in the waiting room. No problems at this point. The smell of the waiting room was a little odd, but it could have just been musty! Anyway the doctor came out and he had his rip curl t-shirt and jeans on, with his doctor’s coat slung on. We found out later that this was his house as well as surgery. We also found out that all the specialists were him. There was also a dentist as well he informed us!!

Joanna with her very sucessful egg collection.

Anyway he checked Joel’s chest and said he had bronchitis and began to prepare syringe of antibiotics. In the moment we forgot to ask what it was, he also ‘forgot’ to ask Joel’s name and weight!!! Anyway I have started playing rugby and have sustained a couple of fairly strong bruises/breaks and I wasn’t sure what to do. Anna said there is nothing they can do without an x-ray, but this was before super doctor with his super powers, sorry super syringe He said no problem, and before I knew it he was preparing a muscle relaxant for me. He didn’t check my bruises or assess me at all, he just prepared his concoction! Anyway when I realized after my 30 second consultation he turns round and says oh do you want tablets instead. Anna says to me ‘he’s already prepared it'. So in about 2 minutes he has injected both Joel and I with unknown fluids. Sounds so stupid in hindsight, and outside of the situation, but in the moment you can be carried along with it all, well we can be, and were. All is well though and we both feel better. I just need to check what went into us yesterday when I return with Joel for his second injection.

Joel trying to a better job than our doctor friend!!

This was before the incident outside a friend’s house and Daniel needing a number 2!!

Daniel with the new member of the Burgess Family, Timmy the girl rabbit!!

The rest of the day was great and had a wonderful day off with good friends.

New Beginnings

Well we have been back in Peru for a month now, One of the things we have been doing is trying to sort out the new house, putting hot water in, as well as trying to plan to build new rooms ,and sort out old rooms so our guests this year can be properly looked after. It is possible in the 1st week of July that we will have 14 people in the house!! We now know a few of our neigbours by name, have started to have conversations with many of them and feel very accepted in the neighbourhood. We have a much better relationship with our neigbours after one month than we did the whole of the 2 years in our last house. We have maintained our relationships with the mums in Pacifico de Villa and and we have started a new small discipleship group with these mums in our house. The mums and tots meeting in our front room.

We have contact with more than 10 of the mums that we had contact with last year. This is a new exciting stage as we begin to deepen relationships and begin discipling them. We also are starting a church in our house and this Sunday, Easter Sunday will be our 1st Sunday service. We are very excited about this.
Daniel and Joanna playing in the garden.
Joel doesn't understand who Darth Vader is.

The boys are thriving well in their new house and back to life in Peru Daniel's Spanish has returned although he prefers to speak English, and speaks Spanish when he needs to. Joel is beginning to talk and not just scream and point at things he wants. Latest words are shoees, twooo, (if you say one or uno he says twooo you say three or tres he says twooo), Mummy, and this morning he said Daddy. Bread, banana, milk and other such words are said on a regular basis as well. Anna and I are also well, but getting back into the rhythm of work and play, family time, couple time, sleep time and God time.

Taronga Zoo and Sydney

Cool Uncle Ben and cooler nephew Daniel!

Granddad and youngest grandson

Well we had an amazing holiday in Sydney after the madness of the UK. The UK was an amazing time, seeing so many people, so many places and really being filled up again, but we were drained physically, following possibly the most stressful and busy month of our lives in December.Grandma Sue with her 2 grandsons.
It was great to see Anna's family and just to have the space to reflect on what had happened in 2009 and what 2010 may look like. We didn't do very much but we did visit Taronga Zoo in Sydney which was great fun. Los 2 amigos or brother in laws.

Perth what a lovely place and lovely people

Well our journey continued on from a very cold and windy London onto Perth via Singapore. I honestly think that we have never spent so little time in one country before. We arrived forty minutes late as we set off one and a half hours late from Heathrow due to the plane freezing!!! We literally walked off one plane and onto the other one and travelled the four hours arriving in Perth at 1am. We were staying with the Jarvis' who were amazing and very hospitable hosts. We had an amazing time with the TOM guys in Perth, and again realised we are so part of the right family of missionaries. Malcolm Potts the leader of TOM Perth said 'isn't this great we hardly know you guys yet we are talking like old friends'.

Perth is so beautiful as well. A few photos just to prove it. I (Mark) was in charge of the camera and I forgot to take photos of all the people. Sorry if you're not on there!! Daniel, Jude, Joel and Anna on the beautiful Cottosloe beach in Perth.

I love the sand and so many nutrients!

Final night barbecue with the TOM Perth guys. (right to left Dan, Daniel, Anna, Cheryl, Andy, Di, and Malcolm)

Malcolm, (and his Aussie beer), Di, Andy,(cooking fine meat on his barbie) Cheryl and Anna

Malcolm and Cheryl, leaders of TOM Perth. (awesome couple, so wise and so much authority, and the humility that they don't realise it).

Good old Aussie stubbie!

We really took these photos. We are so blessed.

'The Burgess Boys' on the beach.

Joel leading from the front!!

Filmed during the opening ceremony of our time in the Shibipo village of Santa Isabel.



(If you looking at this video in facebook you need to enter our blog at www.theburgessfamilyblog.blogspot.com or on you tube under the videos of personanna).

Pucallpa Nov 09 Part 3

Day 3 was probably the most striking day of our time in Pucallpa as we had to get up at half past four to get a boat at 6 in the morning to take us to a Shibipo settlement 3 or so hours down the river. The Burgess' on a boat on the Amazon.

Travelling in boat was another first for many of the team, and was an amazing experience. The Amazon!!!

We arrived however at about 11 o clock as we got grounded at one place, and we ended up leaving late of course. Watch out for the crocodiles and piranhas Andy!!

When we arrived we got greeted by a tribe of dancers who had been waiting for us, and took us by the arms and led us dancing and singing into the centre of the village, they were singing 'welcome to our village, you are welcome here'. I was very overwhelmed as I have seen this sort of thing many times on films, and documentaries, but never in real life.

The ladies welcoming us to the village.

The women dancing to welcome us to the village

We then had a 30 minute opening ceremony to welcome us to the village, and I spoke on spiritual fathers again, and we handed out gifts of clothes and food that we had brought.

The ladies waiting in line for their donations.

Joel was also entertaining the kids as he clapped and toddled around. Daniel and Joel really showed the gift of leadership that God has put in them.

Daniel and his new friends (human and terrapin)

Later on Daniel was entertaining another group of Shibipo kids when drawing water from the well, and Joel was washing himself, as well as leading about fifty of them in running games.

Not the quickest person to draw water from the well!!

It is wonderful to see how they were thriving in a culture so different from the one Anna and I have come from, and the one they are living in, and growing up in at the moment.
After my talk we broke into 2 groups Juan Carlos with the men and Virna with the women. Following the talk by Juan Carlos, brilliantly delivered 4 times over the four days, his team was praying with some of the men, and this gave me another of my highlights as Joanderlin (JanderLin) the youngest on the team (apart from our boys) was praying and counselling a man probably in his 60s or 70s. This was wonderful when you think that God has no interest in age, only in maturity, and Joanderlin was showing his.

Joanderlin ministering to a Shibipo man

Lili teaching the Sunday school teachers.

We had a second session of talks, followed by lunch, which many of the team struggled with, but for me was fine,I have eaten a lot worse in my time. (Frog porridge in Singapore for example) and we then made tracks back to the boat. The trip back was a lot quicker due to the current, and we got back in time to get showered, changed, and then went out for a night out, and to celebrate my birthday in La Rueda (the wheel) a typically jungle type restaurant. People ate cecina (wild jungle boar) tacacho (banana cooked with chicken, pork, egg, and other things inside), juani (rice in banana) friedfish (with eye, head and tail). We drank camu camu (a jungle fruit), cocona (another jungle fruit), and coca cola!! (Yes I know we went all that way and people still drink that horrible black liquid). Everyone had a good night and went to bed satisfied ready for day 4.