Enhancement Teams Update - Matucana

Here is an update from our team in Matucana:

The past week has been busy for us. I want to thank all of you for your prayers for me (Greg), Martin, and Brittne as we continue to do follow His will. We are filling up our week with house church meetings, ministries, and discipling meetings, as well as spending time meeting new folks and inviting them to any of the above!

The good news is that our church meetings, where we story the Bible and use discussion to create understanding, and discipling meetings, where we help believers grow in faith and evangelism, are going well. Brittne and I are both meeting regularly with a few believers one-on-one or in small groups.. and poor Martin has to be at them all to translate, although Brittne´s spanish is really getting good. My spanish is not so good.. "bad" would be a better word.(Rosetta Stone here I come!).

In our storying sessions, however, we are experiencing a frustrating lack of attendance.. rain or no rain. We canvassed the town and outlying areas inviting folks to either of two meetings we had yesterday - all giving us enthusiastic responses - and nearly noone showed up! But God works in His time and in great ways. One of the meetings yesterday (at Zoila´s house in Hauriqiña) had only two ladies present (Zoila and Jessica), both non-believers, but we are able to story and share the gospel with them in a more personal way since it was just the two of them. Jessica told us that she is feeling a peace in her heart and we think she and Zoila are close to a decision to accept Christ. We scheduled a special meeting with them this Wednesday, so pray for their decisions.

The next meeting of no-shows was at the Almonacids where only that family showed up, so that turned into more of a training session for them. We need lots of prayer to get more folks to attend these meetings so they too can hear the Word in stories and the gospel message. While numbers are not the goal, we do need for more folks to hear the Word, it´s our obligation to share the gospel - God will do the rest in His time and according to His plan. Pray for our wisdom in finding ways to reach more locals with the Truth, and our patience and understanding that He will lead us to them and them to us.

Enhancement Team - Pullo

Pray for our team led by Kristen Seay in Pullo, Ayacucho.

This past week has been truly incredible. We have continued teaching and reinforcing with the believers the Immediate Follow-up Stage. We will begin this week with the Evangelism Stage stories. This past Tuesday, we taught Pedro and Nestor the story of the church in the Immediate Follow-up Stage. During our Thursday night Bible study, Pedro and Nestor taught the story to Javier and Gilberto (Pedro had memorized the story PERFECTLY!). During our time of discussing how we can be obedient to this story, Javier said that he needed to be obedient by be more active in sharing the Gospel with others. Therefore, we challenged everyone to be obedient to this story by sharing the Gospel with someone by Monday (today), and tonight we will meet to share our stories of our Gospel sharing experiences.

Javier left on Thursday to be with Rosa and her family in Pinahua and will return today. Pedro will leave today to go to Yurahuasi to help Ignacia get documentation for a marriage license, and they will both return on Wednesday...we look forward to finally meeting Ignacia. Due to Pedro's departure, we met with him this morning to share about our Gospel sharing experiences. He was very excited to share that he had shared the Gospel with 4 different people on 4 separate occasions and that 3 had accepted Christ. Two of the four (Juana Coronado and Epilania Bautista) were women that he passes every day on his way to his field. One (Yeny Acco Gutiérrez) was a lady who was just passing through Pullo, and Pedro says she is part of the Dios Es Amor cult and they have a mutual friend in one of the annexes that has shared the Gospel with her before. And the last one (Andrés Cuadros) is Pedro's neighbor with whom he has wanted to share for a very long time. After 2 hours of sharing with Andrés, Andrés prayed to receive Christ. Pedro was VERY excited to share this story with us. Our prayer for these 3 new believers is that they will begin attending our Bible studies.

Pedro has really encouraged us this week with his leadership and obedience. Not only has he shared the Gospel with people this week, but he has also memorized every one of the stories we have taught this week. He has truly displayed obedience-based discipleship this week. Please continue to pray for Pedro as he constantly seeks the Lord through His Word and yearns to grow in Him.

We have been sharing a lot this week with a new family that we see as a family of peace. Their names are María and Hector López. They are very interested in the Gospel and have invited us to their home for a meal at least once every day this past week. We have also been sharing with a lady from the health post, Jonny Flor. She is very interested in our "religion" as she calls it. We have also shared with the treasurer of the Municipal building, Blas. He will return to Pullo on Wednesday and wants to attend our Bible study.

Please pray for all of the new believers and new contacts. Our continued vision is that they will each get plugged in with the believers here so that Bible study attendance, growth and discipleship will continue after our departure. Pedro especially has shown agreement with this vision through his actions this past week.

Our vision for this upcoming week is to teach the believers the Evangelism stories as well as reinforce the Immediate Follow-up stories. We will teach the Evangelism stories in the afternoons and allow them to teach the Immediate Follow-up stories to the new believers during our evening Bible studies. We also plan to begin traveling to some of the nearby annexes this week to put in to practice the Evangelism stories even more. We will start this on Friday after Pedro returns...we will leave at 5am and return by 8am for their work day. We plan to do this 2 or 3 times a week with Pedro, Javier and/or Rosa.

Patrick's Surgery

Patrick came out of surgery just fine. They removed the mass from the underside of his tongue in a procedure that took about 2 hours. They ended up only putting him partially under. It sped up his exit from the hospital. The doctor said that it ended up being a tumor, not a cyst. I am not sure what the difference is, but that’s how he redefined it. The surgeon said that it appeared benign, but will send it to the lab for 100% assurance. Patrick has four stitches on the bottom of his tongue.

Patrick is home now, enjoying being spoiled by his mom. He had a strawberry sundae at McDonald’s and his mom made him a banana/chocolate chip shake when we got home. He’s thinking that it wasn’t so bad an ordeal right now.

Thanks for your continued prayers.

Enhancement teams update

I wanted to share a few updates from our enhancement teams so that you know how to pray for them. Here's the first from a team leader named Claudia. She is Peruvian, but has very good English. Her team is serving in Orurrillo for the next two months. This is what they would have you pray about:

Hello you all!
I am so excited to be here. I love my team, they are great guys.
Yesterday, we went to look for Toribio, the pastor in the church in Miraflores. He wasn't there, he was either in Ayaviri or Juliaca. However, we met his wife, Herminia.

We told Herminia where we would be staying, and that Toribio could go and meet us there. We were in our place until 9.30am, but he never came. However, on Sunday we´ll go to their service in Miraflores.

Yesterday, we walked around Orurillo and talked with some people, we let them know that we would be here for 2 months, and the purpose of our staying here.

We have already memorized the creation story. In Ecuador, the guys didn´t memorize any although they learned how to story.

This morning, we went to talk with Mary Flores. Yesterday, we asked her if we could talk about the Bible with her, she said yes. (On our way to her place, we met Gregorio, he is catholic, but still we could do storying with him first). Mary told us she was an Adventist from Juliaca, helping her sister in Orurrillo. Ryan did the story and I translated for him. We all participate as in a Bible storying session, we got up to part about the application to our lives. She was an open door to share the gospel and we did it. I think that we can connect somehow with her sister who lives in Orurillo. We haven´t met her yet.

After storying, we went to meet Felix Neira and Celia, his wife. He had gone to Juliaca to sell cheese. She was so excited to see Ryan and Cristen. We prayed for her health, she is having problems in her womb. she hasn´t gone to the DR yet, but she is waiting on some medicine that Rick would send her. I told her that Rick isn´t a dr, and he needs to know what kind of medicine before send it. She prayed for us as well.

We have decided that we'd learn different stories according to the critical path in each village. Balsapata, there are 4 brothers according to Celia. They need to be discipled, so Ryan and I will memorize the first story on the second phase.
I'll memorize the fall to continue with non believers.
Cristen will memorize Cornelius.


Prayer request

1. Praise the Lord for our health, we all are doing good. Cristen got a headache, but that is it.
2. Praise the Lord for our place, we will pay 9 soles per night, but this doesn't include meals. Maruja, the owner, is coming from AQP on the 18th.
3.Pray for more people being hungry for God´s word.
4. We can meet with Pastor Toribio.
5. For Washington, the teenager who takes care of the place where we are.
6. For Serafina, Maruja's mom, to have a time with her in order to share God's word with her.
7. For the people we have greeted and told about our purpose on being here.
8. Pray for Cristen, she is doing great but feel a little nervous when she speaks. I told her she just needed more experience.

Thanks for your prayers!
I miss and love you.
For His Glory!!!
Claudia