Ayaviri

The decision to fly or ride a bus for over 20 hours was a pretty easy one.  With our plane tickets we flew out to one of the coldest places in Peru, the Puno region.  After landing in Juliaca it was only an hour and a half ride into the city of Ayaviri.  Ayaviri is almost completely different from any other place that I had been.  Normally the villages that we work in are relatively small, but Ayaviri has a population of 30,000 people.  It is also rare to work in an area that has biblical Evangelical churches either.

Because I have never worked in an area this large I have to admit at first it was a bit overwhelming.  We began with a list of recent contacts from the church in the states that is working in this area.  We immediately realized that it was extremely difficult to get in contact with many of the people on the list.  As well some of the people that the church had worked with in the past showed almost no interest in meeting with us.  Our initial plan had been to use the majority of our time with these contacts, but it became painfully obvious after a week that this was not going to happen.  As I have learned nearly everywhere I go is that we have to learn to adapt to each and every situation.

While we were not able to work as much as we would like with the contacts given to us from the church in the States, there were 2 local IEP churches.  IEP stands for Iglesia Evangelica Peruana, which is the Peruvian Evangelical Church.  God opened up the doors in the situation with the two pastors, Pablo and Eron as they allowed us to work with their churches.  The first Sunday there I one of the pastors asked me to preach.  I have learned to always be prepared for anything!  It was the first time that I had preached in Spanish so it was a completely new experience, still God has really done a tremendous job in allowing me to learn the language and with a little patience from the congregation, I was able to preach from Matthew 7.  Two weeks later I had another opportunity to preach again in the other church.

Along with preaching we spent a lot of our time working with the youth from one of the IEP churches.  We went built really good relationships with the students and were able to really work through those relations to encourage the youth in their relationship with Christ.  One of the big things that we did with the youth was that we had an evangelism training, really focusing on the basics of the gospel, helping to ground them in their faith and giving them more confidence in sharing it.  If a man doesn't understand what he believes, rarely will he be willing to share it.

Also, during our last 2 weeks we had the joy of being able to spend time in Bible study with another lady in a nearby annex.  Many times in our lives we come in contact with people and it is clear through their spirit, that they are a believer in Christ.  I say this because there are so many in this world and especially where I live that claim to believe in Christ, but it is obvious by their life and beliefs that they do not know Christ.  This lady had such a willing spirit to listen and take in what the Word said.  We are praying for her that her house could soon be used as a location to start a Bible study and ultimately a church.

April was certainly a different experience, but each experience in our life is a new way to learn and grow in Christ and who we are as a person.  Life isn't always what we expect and our future experiences can almost never be predicted.  In a world of uncertainty, there is only one thing that never changes.  The gospel of Christ.  Remaining firm in His word and finding our stability in Him is all we have.

Be praying as June, July, and August I will be working in Chaviña.  Pray that God would bless these next three months as it will be the longest time we have had a presence there.  Thank you for your support and prayers.