El Truinfo Baptism

This last Sunday, the 20th of February we joined the cell groups in El Triunfo for a day of celebration. They are currently holding reunions three days a week in El Triunfo including a Sunday morning service since it is located far from our mother church and due to the large number of committed folks attending. This Sunday was special because it was a day to witness what the children had learned during their week of Vacation Bible School that was planned by our missionaries Ana and Elisa. It was also special because following the service they had planned a baptism for 5 of their contacts. It was a beautiful day watching the kids exitement as they received their finished awards and crafts, recite scripture and sing together in front of the church group. Immediately following, we had a Peruvian style potluck with chicken nibblet soup and cake together before heading to the baptism. The baptism took place about 7km outside of town at a little jungle creek that was absolutely perfect. We just love the picture of Kai stepping into the water and getting checked out by the ladies. It was pretty comical because some of the adults had commented on Kai's whiteness, but Kai just responded in Spanish like any good and confident boy would, "yeah the bottoms of my feet are pretty white." We then celebrated the baptism of their 5 contacts and watched as their whole "new" church community came out to support this decision. We're telling you, it was awesome! This is one of the greatest joys that we get to experience in our ministry, the time with our team witnessing God reap His harvest due in part to the faithfullness of those willing to sacrifice for them. (that you!) Additionally, we wanted to include a photo of our two missionaries with the couple that will be taking over leadership of their cell group when we leave this coming May. They are a beautiful couple that is mature in their faith and just love the people of El Triunfo. We couldn't be happier knowing that this cell group will continue to thrive long after we are gone.

Baptisms and Membership in Castanos

Callie and Carmen have been working hard spreading God's Word in Castanos (an area of Puerto). They currently have a prayer group every Tuesday night and a service on Saturdays (as well as discipleship meetings throughout the week). This Saturday we had a baptism for 3 in their group. Washington, Betsi and Noe were all baptized. We have written about Washington and Betsi before (see New Life) and let me just say how awesome it is to see a couple come to Christ, and the ways the Lord uses to reveal Himself to his children. The night before the baptism Washington and Betsi stopped by and asked us if we would be their "padrinos." This is sort of like a mentor role in their lives and we were very honored! Please pray for these three as they continue to grow in Christ!

Some of the Castanos group at the baptism

Tyson and I with Washington and Betsi

Callie, Noe, Washington (with daughter, Angela), Betsi, Pastor Freddy and Carmen after baptism

Another awesome event for the Castanos group was that 2 of their ladies, Hermana Ericka and Hermana Jovana, became members this last Sunday. Praise the Lord for their desire to be commited to the church!

Please pray for this group in Castanos. They are growing and learning and we are excited about what is happening. Please pray specifically for a strong leader to take over the group when we leave! Thank you for your prayers!

Catch up...

There were a few blogs I hadn't posted yet from 2010. Just a few memories I didn't want to forget and if you want to check them out click on Paraguay, Puno, Chachani (or just scroll down:)

Church Anniversary

The 4th of February we celebrated the church’s 3rd anniversary here in Puerto. Pastor Freddy arrived 3 years ago and began the ground work to establish the Church of the Nazarene here in Puerto Maldonado. We arrived 15 months ago and it has been awesome to see how the church has grown. We also celebrated the church arriving at the 4th level (there are 5 levels to the churches here) with 51 (official) members. The 5th and final level comes when they have planted another church (a group of 12 members). It has been a privilege to be a part of this church, to see Pastor Freddy’s passion as he evangelizes and watch many contacts from our team's communities coming to the mother church. The evening was one of celebration with special songs, skits and yummy food after.

Pastor Solano, the District Superindentent, with Pastor Freddy and leaders of the church.

Tyson played Jesus in a drama the youth of the church put on. It has an awesome message and still moves me everytime I see it.

The church fellowshiping and celebrating with food and cake after the service!

Thank you!

We want to thank everyone for their prayers, concern and offers to help. These past couple weeks at time have been extremely frustrating and difficult, but God has giving us little victories each day to keep us going. He is faithful to care for our needs!
Praises! The airline found our luggage. We currently have recieved all but one of our suitcases. Praise the Lord! This was in my mind a miracle because we had no record on our tickets of luggage and two of our suitcases didn't even have our names on them! Please pray we recieve the other one soon. They did locate it but we just have not gotten it yet for some reason.
Also, we have found a place to live and are moving in today. It was very hard to find places to live here. There are not a lot of apartments and there is no organized way to advertise/find them. We did a lot of driving around and knocking on doors. Just as it was feeling hopeless the Lord led us to knock on the right door with a place that was opening up the next week. We move in today and are looking forward to finally getting settled as a family of four! Please pray for this transition. This has all been really hard on Kai. We have been here and there for the past month and a half and the whole time he has wanted to go "home". Now "home" is a new place (where we will only be for 4 months before moving back to the States). Please keep him in your prayers. He is a little trooper but this has been difficult.
I really can't express in words how touched and encouraged we were by so many of you. Our church has been so generous in helping us cover these unexpected costs, praying for us and encouraging us. So many of you have offered to help in any way you can! Thank you, your encouragment and support of us kept us going when we didn't want to take another step. God bless you all!

We need your prayers!!!

We just arrived back from Arequipa Wednesday. We arrived to a house that is flooded with sewer water. The tub backed up, overflowed and there is sewer water everywhere in the house. Even if we could clean up the water, there is mold everywhere and there is no way to clean it up and dry it out enough to have it safe to live in...especially with a newborn. All of our stuff is ruined. To top it off all of our luggage from Arequipa is missing...so what we would have had is gone as well. We are staying at a hotel and searching for a new place to live while Tyson works at cleaning up the mess, getting the septic functioning again and getting clean water going for our team upstairs. One praise in all this is for Tyler and Alex. Tyler is cluster support for Cusco and Alex is a 40/40 there. They heard about our problems and immediately offered to come help! Please, please pray for a miracle, that our luggage will be found! Also, please pray for safety for Tyson, Tyler and Alex as they work and for widom each step of the way. Also, I am currently searching for a place to rent...pray we can find something as it is very difficult and expensive here. Thank you for keeping us lifted in prayer...we are in desperate need of it right now!

Below are some pictures of what we came home to.

Tyler and Alex knee deep in gunk...these two definately have servant hearts!

Prayers...

Well, we leave Arequipa tomorrow morning and head to Lima. It has been a good month of adjusting to life with two kiddos, family time and celebrating the birth of our Lord. You can see more on our family blog here. Tomorrow when we arrive in Lima we have an appointment at the US Embassy to register Grady as a U.S citizen and apply for his passport. Please pray for everything to go smoothly.

We leave Lima and head back to Puerto on Wednesday. We recieved word Christmas Eve that there was flooding at our house. The flood water got into our water cistern and also fried our pump. We sent two of our 40/40s (the only ones there for Christmas) to Cusco since we couldn't do anything from here. They also told us we have "dirty, smelly" water running out of our front door. This is most likely due to the septic issues we have had and thought were fixed. (click here to see pics of our flooding last year). All that to say, your prayers would be greatly appreciated! We don't know what we are going back to exactly but we know we have our work cut out for us and it is a bit overwhelming to think of bringing an infant home to that. Thank you, thank you for your prayers, we couldn't do this without them!

Chachani

Tyson had the opportunity to climb Mt. Chachani on New Years Eve with 6 other Extremies. Mt. Chachani is the highest of 3 volcanos surrounding Arequipa. Again, I wasn't there so I won't write a lot. Just want to say I am super proud of my hubby. Oh, did I mention how high it is? No, oh yeah, only 19,939 feet. That's right. And he made it to the top. And back (that was the most important to me). I asked him if he had anything to say about it and this was it:

"19,939 feet. Hardest and dumbest thing I've ever done."

Tyson at the summit.

Tyson with Chachani in the background.

Puno

While we were in Arequipa, Tyson and his mom were able to take a couple days and go visit Puno. They took a day and visited Lake Titicaca and the floating reed islands (Uros). At 12,500 feet, it is the highest, navigable lake in the world. Since I wasn't there I don't have a ton of stories so I will mostly post pictures.

Tyson and Georganne on an island of Lake Titicaca.

This is one of the Uros (floating reed islands). They are man made and Tyson said they are amazing. Their houses, seats, boats, everything is made out these reeds.

Tyson with a couple of the Uros men.

Tyson rowing the boat seen below.

The Extreme team for Puno arrived there just after the first of the year. The Duerres are the cluster family for Puno and we have loved getting to know them. Please pray for them as they share the gospel with the people of Puno.

Puerto Video

40/40 Interviews in Puerto Maldonado - Entrevistas de 40/40 en Puerto Maldonado from Extreme Nazarene Ministries on Vimeo.