Our daily bread

Bread is a huge part of daily life in Peru. Most meals, especially breakfast and dinner, include bread of some sort. Now, my family is perfectly fine with this. We all love bread of many kids. Even outside of meals we’ll snack on cinnamon or chocolate bread. One major difference is the timing of the purchase of the bread, it’s daily…sometimes even by the meal. This is fresh in my mind as I walked one mile round trip both before breakfast and before dinner to buy the bread for the meal. So during my evening walk I began thinking about the implications of this…am I wasting time? Shouldn’t I just buy enough bread to last for a couple days? It would be much easier. I’d save time, we’d have bread when we wanted it, I wouldn’t have to walk so much. Oh, but then it wouldn’t be as fresh, I’d miss out on walking with my son who thinks going for the bread is an awesome event. I’d miss the opportunity to thank the Lord for this day’s bread. So in pondering my daily walks to the bread store, I think in many ways they’ve got it right here in Peru. We often get too busy, and in our prosperity we often overlook the Lord’s daily provision of our needs. Many times when we really want something, we ask where is the Lord? Did you have a meal today, how about yesterday? Then the Lord was there and you may or may not have acknowledged Him as providing for your daily needs. Hmm. So I’ll walk for bread, as many times as my family needs. I’ll hold my son’s hand as we play “Frogger” crossing the busy streets. And I’ll get the ‘fresh’ bread. Can’t you smell it? Don’t you love fresh bread, isn’t God cool in wanting that for us, everyday.

KJ

Another Thursday...

Friends,

We have been busy this past week, by God's grace, encouraging and equipping our Peruvian friends. We had the opportunity to visit Pastor Tony and his church, Roca Eterna, where we have enjoyed a growing partnership over the past 3 years. We attended 2 cell group meetings and equipped 8 others with evangecubes for reaching their communities. KJ was priviliged to meet with, and be encouraged by, another brother whose ambition to plant churches in Peru is inspiring and humbling.

I have been working in the manner of Titus 2:3-5, instructing the younger women to love their husbands and families by teaching tips on preserving food, cooking, the discipline of children and of course, knitting! I am having a ball doing what I do best, talking, teaching and hanging out with the girls...except here it is ALL in spanish!

We experienced our first earthquake of this visit, although, in all fairness, I can't overdramatize it. KJ, Scarlet and Maverek all slept through it! Also, we are watching closely the growing violence in the Andahualays region. The riots are expanding, and while they are some distance from where we are, they currently have completely shut down access to one of the areas where we are going in 2 weeks.

Current prayer requests: 1) wisdom, safety as we travel 2) today is the 5th day of Scarlet having a head ache 3) I, Jenni, have some on going tummy issues (3+ weeks) that despite high powered Peruvian antibiotics, still are not completely resolved.

Check out the following video clip of Scarlet and Maverek (all throughout the background) at a laser/water show we saw last night! They are having a grand adventure.

Exploring Huancayo

This update comes written from a pillow covered seat, where I sit quite gingerly after a three hour horse ride yesterday afternoon. We decided to remain in the Huancayo valley this week and what an adventure we are having! We have used our time to explore further opportunities for our team coming in August, relax and even play before our summer shifts into high gear. Yesterday was a bit of all three...as we explored, we hiked up a mountain where we could see snow covered peaks. We learned about a pre-Incan civilization as we walked through ruins from 1200 A.D. learning more about the synchronistic traditions of the descended Quechua people. And yes, we spent three wonderful, exhilarating hours on strong-willed horses that had agendas of their own. Some highlights include one of our guides having to dismount and chase Maverek and his horse on foot, when they apparently had collectively decided to conquer a narrow and steep mountain trail. The horse objected strongly and Maverek laughed and hooted vigorously at having to be led back down the precipitous trail by hand. Another highlight was when the horses, tired from carrying their burdens, decided to race through the cobblestone streets of the village back to camp. Seriously… hang-on-for-dear-life, hair flying in the wind, galloping…no exaggeration here, we have the bruised bottoms to show for it, not that we will show you such embarrassing proof. Of course, Maverek won the race, KJ was a close 2nd, Scarlet 3rd, and I, clinging with white knuckles, brought up the rear, if there was any doubt in your minds.

Tomorrow morning, Friday June 12th, we will board a bus for the precarious, curvy, six hour ride back down to Lima. I will miss the views from the highest mountain pass at 16,000 feet because I will be in a Dramamine induced coma, but I am sure the family can fill you in on the details. Thank you for your love and prayers we are anxiously waiting to see Him glorified in our work here this summer.

With Love,
Jenni for the family

Huancayo LDC wraps up

We had a great finish to our Leadership Development Conference here in Huancayo. We had some great comments from the pastors including, "This is going to change the way we do ministry", "Hopefully this will begin the process of unifying the denominations to focus on reaching the lost and planting new churches". They are also very excited about our team that will be coming to work with them in August. We'll remain here for a week or so continuing to work with the pastors to prepare for the campaign. I'll also be sharing at two churches tomorrow.

Now here are some updates from the kids:

Helados is icecream. How about that gum?

LDC starts in Huancayo! PTL!

Today began our very first Leadership Development Conference (LDC). We were astounded and nearly speechless when 55 people showed up to be trained. Speechless is not a good thing when you are the one teaching! We did catch our breath and dove into an amazing day. KJ shared the E3 vision and I taught about methods, purposes and priorities of prayer. Today’s training also included evangelism and making disciples taught by two of our Peruvian brothers, Alexis and Danny. Scarlet and Maverek had the opportunity to be servants and practice their Spanish as the pastor’s wife, who speaks only Spanish, gave them various jobs helping to prepare lunch for all in attendance. Earning a well deserved break after their morning of service, Scarlet and Maverek vegged out watching cartoons in Spanish arguing if the story was about Lazarus or a leper. (Their Spanish still has a way to go.) After naps and showers we are headed out to a late dinner in the main square.

Family reunion in Lima, Peru

The little people and I left home at 5 a.m. on Wednesday, June 3rd. After 19 hours of flying, lay-over’s and driving we found KJ anxiously waiting and beds lovingly prepared for us in Lima, Peru. What a beautiful thing family is; and beds, how easily we take them for granted. We had 6 very short but wonderful hours to sleep before beginning the next leg of travel. 8 ½ hours later we found our exhausted but happy selves coming to a stop in the Huancayo Valley in the Andes Mountains of Peru. We all had sore bottoms, tired necks and shoulders, hungry, motion-sick tummies and could all, without question or doubt say that the trip was entirely worth it! What a beautiful place that God has carved out of the Andes Mountains and what a love He has carved into our hearts for this place. It felt like we were coming home, and on some levels wished in fact it were our home. Don’t panic Grannies, we are NOT moving! We are just loving the place God has allowed us to be.
Pastor Augusto and his wife served us grilled chicken breasts and white rice for dinner, we walked to a little tienda for helados (ice cream) and were in bed by 7:30 p.m. Just in case you were wondering, 7:30 was none too soon.

Lord, where would you have us go!

Today we surveyed two different areas for future church planting work. One area was in the Sacred Valley in the town of Urubama. There are 8 pastors there that would like to reach outside their town into the surrounding villages to start new churches. The other will require a more extreme attitude as a team will hike in and then camp on the other side of the mountain from Cusco. I’ll actually go take a closer look at that village in July.

It would be a great place for future work but we probably won’t rehire our driver who thinks he is a descendent of the Petty family. Check out how fast we were going on this one-way road with a 200 foot drop off on the right. But you know when you are where God wants you to be there’s really not much to worry about, so we just sat back and enjoyed the theme park like ride.

LDC in Cusco

Ok, Cusco is pretty nice. I’ve always had some idea that it was a big, busy, tourist place and that is true to some extent, but it still has that Andes’ mountain feel. Our time here is short so there won’t be doing any sightseeing but from what I’ve seen it’s pretty cool. They’d call it winter now but it feels like a nice Colorado day to me.
All day today was our LDC here and we had a pretty good showing for this town. 30 pastors and leaders showed up and we had a good conference. I taught prayer, making disciples and multiplying churches. What I’ve learned from the LDC’s in Sullana and Cusco will allow Jenni and me to hold our first one ourselves this Friday and Saturday in Huancayo. More on that later.