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!!!

Pucallpa Feb 09- Part 2- Arrival and Day 1

So the plan was set, Monday arrived and Julian and I left with good time to spare. We went to Eduardo and Cecilia’s house to pick them up, and only waited 25 minutes for them, not bad for them!
We arrived at the airport with no problems, as I had already checked us in online. Therefore we had time to have a coffee. No problem as we had plenty of time. This is of course before you send your coffee back because it is lukewarm and have to add so much sugar to make the coffee taste like honey. (Peruvians generally have coffee with their sugar, and not the other way round). Anyway we arrived back with the coffees after an age and then realised we need to board, but couldn’t with more than 100ml of liquid. Drinking piping hot coffee is no problem for Eduardo and Cecilia, and it went in 2 minutes. For me I had a choice leave it or burn my mouth, I went for the latter!
Anyway we landed in Pucallpa without any problems, and went out for dinner with the senior leaders of the main church.

Julian sharing a word, translated by Jen
Jen was our main guide and she took us to the Shipibo church the next morning, to start at 8am. We arrived only 40 minutes late and many people had not arrived at the church. It was a great to be a part of something so unique, for a long time the Shipibos have not wanted to associate with the Spanish speaking Christian church, so this was a great honour. So straight away our plans went up the wall when the pastor introduced us and then passed to his worship leader, and Eduardo had to follow on the keyboard, a lesser man would have really struggled. Eduardo accompaning the enthuastic Shipibo worship leader.

This was followed by one of 3 dances by the Shipibo teenage girls. These girls are amazing examples of Christians as they are persecuted for their faith, as their parents are not Christians and make it very difficult for these girls to follow their faith in Jesus. When we were returning to shower and have dinner before the evening session Jen told me that these girls would have been very happy with lunch, as may have not eaten for 2-3 days. Also I was told by Cecilia it would be great to do a medical campaign with these girls and others like them as they are very affected by parasites, and probably malnourished. How I count my blessings. The Shipibo girls dancing and singing for us
All the sessions went really well, although massively extended due to the pastor summing up each session in Shipibo for some time. Also endless songs and offerings in between each thing we did. The time with these people was a real inspiration, people with nothing, wanting to come and share the little we had to offer. It is amazing how God uses us.

Eduardo leading his worship workshopJulian leading his workshop
The evening session went well, although we arrived more than a hour late, as we stopped at the hospital to pray for someone, had a sleep to recover, and had a wonderful jungle dinner. The hope was that we would miss some of their special bits, and just preach and minister. God has a sense of humour. We still had all of the ‘special bits’ and finished at 10.30 ready for our pick up at 6.45 the next morning. The plan was to continue till midnight, but Jen had a word!
Great start to our 3 days.

Pucallpa Feb 09- Intro- Part 1

I had the privilege to go to Pucallpa for the 3rd time last week, but this time not just with my Father in Law, Julian, but also our senior leaders Eduardo and Cecilia.

Julian, Eduardo and Cecilia on the plane to Pucallpa. (Julian is the white one!)

Again I’m sure I learned more than I taught the people there. I really enjoyed our previous visit there in November last year, and we saw many amazing things happen, and felt we helped many people, and had been a real blessing.

I had suggested to Jen Harris (our contact there, an American missionary) that we could do 3 mini conferences on Praise and Worship and the Holy Spirit, 2 areas I felt that could be helped easily by ourselves.
The plan was that Eduardo and Cecilia would talk on Praise and Worship, as this is a real gifting of theirs, and Julian and I would speak on the Holy Spirit.
The plan was that we would arrive Monday night at 21.40 more or less. The first day we would start by doing a conference at a Shipibo church, and invite several different communities of Shipibo people from around Pucallpa and the surrounding areas.

Some of the Shipibo teenagers in national dress

Day 2 we would travel for about 2 hours to one of the satellite churches of the main Luz Divina (Divine Light) church, in the middle of the jungle and invite several other churches that were surrounding it. The final day we planned to have the conference in the main church of Luz Divina, before leaving to get a plane at 22.15.

Eduardo and I outside the Shipibo church

Each conference would start by Eduardo and Cecilia leading worship, and then Eduardo talking about the heart of worship. Following a break I was due to talk about who is the Holy Spirit and what he does, followed by lunch. After lunch the plan was for the pastors and leaders to go to a workshop with Julian on living and serving in the power of the Holy Spirit, worship leaders and worship band members to go to a workshop by Eduardo on how to lead worship, and the women to go to a workshop about being a woman with Cecilia.
The plan was that we would finish with a final session at 7pm in the evening about the power of the Holy Spirit, followed by a ministry session.
This was the plan, and we kept to it more than has happened with previous agendas on previous visits, however when in the jungle you live with jungle time, organisation and you are flexible!!!

Cool nail painting/varnish of one of the Shipibo girls