Last Baptism

We had our last baptism here in Puerto last Saturday. People from all the 40/40's communities and the mother church were there getting baptized or celebrating the baptisms. In all there were 9 people baptized and a group of about 70 there supporting them. It was a wonderful time!

The group worshiping together before the baptisms

Pastor Freddy with those who were baptized

Baptisms are always exciting, emotional and amazing but it was even more so this time knowing it was the last one we would be at. We are excited for those who made this commitment and we know there will be more in the future! Please keep them in your prayers!

Lessons in Faith from Edith

In El Triunfo, Ana and Elisa have a contact by the name of Edith who has cancer of the tongue, which has been recently growing and causing significant pain. Over the last few months, it has been a beautiful thing to see her faith and the help of the cell group as she deals with this very difficult situation. I can’t think of a more honorable request than believing and asking her cell group in faith to fast and pray for her situation. The cell group gladly did and not only that helped organize and hold a BBQ chicken dinner to help raise money for her to go to Arequipa for exams. The cell group is doing their part to help a fellow sister with what little they have…this is Acts 2:44-45 happening in this cell group. And this last month God answered a different prayer of Edith’s...just two weeks ago her husband met Christ during a film recently showed in their neighborhood. For anyone that reads this, we want to ask for your continued prayer for Edith as she is currently in Arequipa for medical testing.

Prayer Update

March flew by and now we find ourselves with only 3 1/2 weeks left here in Peru. Just so you know, I just looked at the calendar 3 times to make sure that was right. I can't believe our time here in Peru is coming to a close so fast. I don't think I have really panicked about that until just right now. Okay, that will be another post:) For now I really just wanted write a little update as to how we could use prayer in the next few weeks.

Leadership Transition: This is huge! Right now almost all of the cell groups our team has started have leaders from the mother church taking over. In most cases the leaders are now in charge and our teams are just there for support so that they are confident and ready when we leave. Please pray for this transition, that the people in the groups would begin to see the new leaders as their leaders, and that the new leaders are committed to the groups and in continuing to share the gospel in those communities. Please pray Pastor Freddy as he is overseeing all and working with the leaders to grow in their leadership and walk with Christ.

Sending of Leaders/Pastors: There is talk of getting a leader/pastor for a couple of the church plants. Please pray for this possibility!

Baptisms April 16th: Our team is planning one last big baptism event on April 16th. Please pray that the Lord would touch the hearts of the people to have the desire to be baptized. Pray for those who do have the desire to be able to come that day. Pray for it to be a day of rejoicing and celebration!

Transition: There is lots to do as we prepare to go home. Our entire team leaves Puerto on May 2nd to return to our homes. Please pray for all the legistics of getting everything ready to go, packed or sold. Pray for our hearts as we prepare to leave the place we have called home, the people we have called family and the work we have poured our lives into. Pray for the transition back home for each of our team members...for jobs, homes, family and returing to our home culture.

Thank you all for your prayers, love and support. I feel like I say this every time, but it is true: we could not do this without you! Thank you!

La Joya

La Joya is a community outside of Puerto. Andrew and Daniel have been discipling and holding cell group meetings there for the past 9 months. They just recently united their two groups and the group is meeting at a home of one of their contacts, Hermana Guadalupe. Last weekend we celebrated Guadalupe becoming a member of the church! Andrew and Daniel have two leaders from the mother church in Puerto who are working with them and will be continue with the group when they leave. Brother Mauro and his mom, Sister Lurdes are already acting as leaders in the cell group and we are thankful for their commitment to our brothers and sisters in La Joya. Please pray for the believers in La Joya and Mauro and Lurdes as they grow as leaders.

The group gathering outside where they meet.

Sister Lurdes leading the group in scripture (Mauro on the very left)

Sheep welcome

Andrew and Daniel heading out for another discipleship meeting

Mining Strike Taking Place

Hello everyone, we would like to take a second and explain a little of what's going on in our town over the last week and ask for your prayers of protection for our family and team. Gold mining in Puerto Maldonado is the number one industry and brings in a ton of money. The miners have had roughly a year to stop their illegal dredge mining on the river. Just this last week the Peruvian government took action against many dredges and torched them. It is our understanding that they also found underaged prostitutes in the small mining camps and shut them down apparently adding to the already elivated tension. All of this is now resulting in a mining strike in Puerto that just today (Monday) got considerably more involved and borderline violent. Today our motokar was surrounded by 10 miners ready to slash our tires and tonight about 300 ran by our house destroying property while being chased by the police. While it's too early to tell their intent and what will become of this situation we want to ask for your prayers for our team and the ministry over our last few months in Puerto, which are extremely important to the continued success of our cell groups. And since we will not be having our teams go out with this going on, we just ask for a quick resolution, if not for the mining situation, then certainly for the Evangelistic situation. We were unable today to go downtown due to the miners blocking every intersection and threatening stores and people, so we'd also like prayers for the rounding up of food for our team in the next few days and weeks. Thank you all for your continued prayers and we know God is bigger than these skirmishes. God Bless,

1 Peter 5:6-7 "Humble yoursleves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."

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.

It's a BOY!

Introducing...
Grady Zane Smith
December 3, 2010, 4:25 pm
7lbs, 19 1/2 inches

New Life!!

Greetings from Arequipa. We are currently away from our team in Puerto so that Tracy can have better medical attention for the birth of "baby Peru." We've been checked out by our doctor and she is saying that it could come sometime this next week. We welcome your prayers for safety for Tracy and the new life about to join our family and possibly that this little one would come after December 10 when my mom arrives to help out.

Along the lines of New Life we also wanted to share a quick story from the cell group of Callie and Carmen. The story is all about God's grace and His big picture plan.

At the local jail our team has been hosting regular discipleship meetings which have been growing steadily, and about 6 months ago a woman named Betsy (pronounced Bexy) met Jesus through this discipleship class. Our team tries not to inquire as to the reason the women are in prison so we were unaware as to why she was there.

At the same time, Callie and Carmen had been hosting their cell group in "Castanos" (a part of Puerto) in the house of a local contact named Sixto. Sixto's family including their son Washington who met Jesus through the cell group held in their home. During their meetings a prayer request was brought up by Washington. He asked for God's help in freeing his wife who was wrongfully imprisoned on charges of prostitution. Washington had been raising his daughter alone since the situation with his wife took place. The cell group then began praying diligently for his request.

Meanwhile in the jail the guards decided to do a random search of the jail grounds, where they found guns, knives and drugs. The jail then closed the doors to any visitors including our group and any family member for a month and a half. The cell group of Callie and Carmen continued in prayer for Washington and his wife.

Amazingly, as the jail began opening their doors and our group entered again to hold our discipleship meetings, we found out that through a series of amazing circumstances she was to be released in the coming weeks. It was at this point we put the pieces together that Betsy and Washington were connected and called by God at the same moment yet in separate locations. During their time apart both were unaware of Christ's work in each others lives, and we were all reminded of faithful God is. Betsy and Washington are now both followers of Christ and attending the cell group of Callie and Carmen together. Their relationship is continually growing and their daughter will now grow up in a Christian home. This is what NEW LIFE is all about.

This is a picture I took of Callie, Betsy and Carmen after their cell group on November 20, where Betsy preached for the first time an incredible sermon of how God used Moses even when he believed he was unable and unprepared to be used by God. God can change use any period in our lives to change our hearts, our circumstances, our lives and homes. Amen!

For this story I used wife and husband for easier understanding of the story. Betsy and Washington are what's called "Convivientes" or cohabitants, they are committed but please be in prayer that they would pursue marriage in front of God.

Paraguay

Tyson and I were blessed to have the opportunity to visit Paraguay in November and get a sneak peek at Extreme Paraguay. Extreme Paraguay is a partnership between Felix Vargas and Extreme Nazarene Ministries to jump-start an effort to plant 12 churches of 1000 in the capital city of Asuncion using short term volunteers and 5 pairs of 40/40 long term missionaries. To learn more click here.

We were so impressed with Felix, his leadership, church and family. We know that God has big plans for Asuncion and look forward to seeing how He uses Felix and the Extreme team that will be down there. Please join us in prayer for Extreme Paraguay!

A few highlights:

Felix shared the gospel with the Paraguay national soccer team. They came to know Christ and he now does a devotional and prayer with them before each game. Tyson was able to go to a game and meet some of the team. The man on the left is the goalie and a strong believer who had invited Felix to come share with his team.

One night they showed a movie of Felix's testimony. They had a great turn out and many stood up to make a commitment to Christ. Afterwards we had a BBQ and fellowship to celebrate the birthday of one of the church members. It was a really fun evening and we felt so welcomed by the church!

On Sunday night we were able to go to their church service. They were also voting in leaders that week. It was reallly neat to see people step up and want to lead. Felix has only been at this church for about a year (there were only 2 people when he arrived), and at the leadership meeting before church there were about 20 people attending.

We stayed with the Vargas family. I adored his wife, Liliana. She is such a strong woman and has such a servant's heart. Her testimony is amazing. She prayed for Felix for 7 years...stayed faithful to him even when he wasn't, and showed him Christ's love. They have 3 children and the youngest two are twins just a couple years older than Kai. Kai had a blast playing with them all week!

We were so impressed with Felix, his leadership, church and family. We know that God has big plans for Asuncion and look forward to seeing how He uses Felix and the Extreme team that will be down there. Please join us in prayer for Extreme Paraguay!

Inaguration

The last weekend in October we celebrated the inaguration of our church building. The people of the church worked hard giving their time and money to finish off the tile, ceiling and platform. The service included special presentations from different groups in the church with special music and skits. It was a wonderful time of celebration!

Here is Tyson, Janes & Daniel cleaning up after three days of tiling.

A before picture (the painting happened a few months back)

And after!

It was a full church that night with many people from our cell groups as well

Discipleship in the Jail, Praises!

Pastor Freddy, the 40/40’s and Tracy visit the jail every two weeks to teach a women´s discipleship class that has been steadily growing. However, the jail had been closed for all of August because the guards had found guns, knives and drugs inside the jail groups. This last week was their first visit in over a month and they found out that one of the women received her release date which will be October 5th. She said before moving home to her city in the north that she is going attend the our church to say thanks and then get information on a church in her town. Another one of the women receives a trial date on the 26th of this month to decide when she will be released, likely within three months but she is from Puerto and has two adolescent kids and wants to join our church when she is released. During our absence she completed the 13 lessons from the discipleship material on her own and gave it to Pastor Freddy to ask if he would review it for her. In their last visit over a month ago one of the women had had a large painful tumor on her neck that was about the size of a tennis ball that Freddy and the team prayed for. The original plan was that she would be transferred to the Cusco jail and have surgery there. However, upon our return to the jail her tumor had gone down and the pain has gone away and as of now is not going to go get surgery. Amen! And one of the contacts of Callie and Carmen’s in Castanos, brother Washington had his wife wrongfully inprisoned for months and after much prayer, time and money she was finally given proper attention and released this last week after months in prison. Please pray that she will join their cell group along with her husband who has met Christ. It was a wonderfully
visit for our team and we are rejoice knowing God is the one behind it all. Please keep these women and our visits to the jail in your prayers.