The Progress, so far

You’ve seen what it looks like on a day to day basis, but you don’t really know what I’ve been reaping overall.  The big picture if you will.

My partner and I have had our ups and our downs.  There have been times in which I would’ve liked to punch him in the mouth.  There have been times where he would have liked to see me trip and fall in the mud and laugh at me.  But also there have been times where we knew we were supposed to be working together, a Divine kind of thing.

Since coming to Puno, I’ve been depressed at times, missing my family, my friends, my fun, my house, my room, my car, my life in my country.  Something that never happened to me in Arequipa.  A looming depression at times; no time for fun just time for work and pressure.  But if we analyze the first sentence of this paragraph, we may be able to spot a word that appears more than a couple times: “my.”  Well, I have come to realize that’s where the problem starts, and also where it ends.  It’s hard not to think of back home, it’s hard to be focused on the here, now.  But I gave that to God when I came here 9 months ago.  There’s no reason to try and take it back now.  Sigue adelante.

So I’d like to give an update by each district and what’s going on…So we’ll start with Jayllihuaya.  We’ve got a bunch of contacts there.  We eat lunch with the same people every time that we’re there.  We’ve made good friends with them, and we actually set up a visit at their house to make some Mexican tacos.  We also know a professor who lives there.  We’re coordinating with him and the mayor in order to set up a conference to teach about being clean as a community.  We’ll be able to make a bunch of contacts through that.

In Salcedo, we’re really progressing.  We’ve got a bunch of contacts there, and they’re all forming around the same area.  Some people have called the police in that area, because we look suspicious. But we’re continuing on in that area. 

We also had a lady accept Christ in Salcedo.  We were in the middle of a field just talking with her.  We asked her if we could pray for her and she excitedly said yes.  We asked her if she was ready to invite Jesus into her life.  She said yes to that.  She’s 85 and we’ve visited her twice since.  Each time she’s been so happy to see us and she gives us hugs (something unheard of here.)  We do nothing with her except converse, pray, and read the Bible to her (since she can’t read.)

Also, yesterday we went and talked to the mayor of Salcedo and he’s all on board with what we’re doing and he wants to help us help the community.  He plans on having 5000 trees getting shipped in soon and wants someone to organize and help.  That’ll be a great way to get to know people.

In Rinconada de Salcedo, we have English classes/Bible study at 4:00PM on Saturdays.  We’re going to use this to our benefit as much as possible.  We have a nice huge place to do it, so we’re going to start inviting people to join on in with us with this family.  They actually asked us if they could invite people and my partner and I looked at each other, then looked at them, the we said “yes!”

In each district we’re planning on doing and impact in the month of March.  We’re planning on showing a movie in each place, along with conferences in Jayllihuaya and Salcedo (Rinconada de Salcedo is too small, and technically a part of Salcedo.)  The pastor here has told us that the Passion of the Christ works well here, because the people are so desensitized.  But the Jesus film also works too.  I went to a showing of the Jesus film here and the response was really great.  In my personal opinion, I think it’s all about the follow up, and showing people you really care.

Pray for accepting hearts of the people. Pray for my heart, and the heart of my partner.  It’s really hard to be down here, and I’d love to go back to college.  Pray for unity between Geremías and I. It’s so easy to want to punch the whole world, including my partner, in the mouth, but that’s just another attack.

Thanks so much for your prayers, and listen to this.

A Day in the Life

Un día en la vida.  A dizzle in the lifizzle.

As many know, and many who don’t, I’ve started full time missionary work here in the city of Puno.  My life is a bit different now, and my schedule goes filled day to day sans schooling. 

To put some perspective on what it is actually like, I would like to share a day in the life now.  It’s how we do, it’s what we do.

So, first things first: wake up at 5:21AM.  Everyday.

At 5:30 we have prayer all together in the church, which is like 2 blocks away.  Sometimes it’s raining, sometimes it’s not, but almost always it’s really cold.

Prayer usually lasts 30-40 minutes.  From there, I go back to the house and do my own personal Bible study and devotionals for an hour, along with two cups of instant coffee (blahhhh.)

By that time, it’s about 7:00 to 7:10 and then I sit down with my Peruvian partner and have our own prayer time.  Depends on the day, but that can last anywhere from 10-30 minutes.

After that, ¡A COMER! as my partner always says, or LET’S EAT!  We then make our breakfast.  For me, breakfast usually consists of 2 pieces of bread, 2 eggs, and a fruit.  Sometimes I eat a sad replacement for what they call “oatmeal” more or less here.  My partner on the other hand, will eat whatever for breakfast.  It doesn’t matter.

After the normal time it takes to make and break breakfast, we have til 8:30 to be ready for team announcements and prayer.  In that time, I do what anyone would expect: grab a shower, make my bed, get some real clothes on, do my ol’ internet rounds, etc.

8:30 rolls around and we have team announcements (i.e. what we’re doing that day, any prayer requests, any announcements.)  We break the huddle after some prayer at about 9:00.

From there, we have an hour to get out of the house.  For my partner the “hour of leaving” is at 10:00AM.  If he isn’t ready by 10:00, he buys my lunch.  If I’m not ready by 10:00, I buy his lunch (If any of you know the Latin American culture, you know this works much more in my favor.  It’s not that I want him to buy me lunch, it’s that I want him to be ready by 10:00.)

So we’re off to one of our three districts.  And we get there, and we usually have no idea what to do.  But things always happen when we ask for them to happen.  From 10:00AM to 1:00PM we try to meet people, and we have two different approaches: Make friends, or use the power of the Gospel.  Some people we feel we should just gain their friendship, and some people need to hear the Word.  It’s not our decision, we’re just following God’s guidance.

Here’s where I’d like to sidetrack from the schedule and explain a bit.  Every meeting with anyone we ever have is for a reason.  They have crossed our paths and we have done nothing yet to help them.  But God has, and He has them ready.  We need not persuade them into salvation, or coax them, or sugar coat it.  It is what it is, and God with prevenient grace has been working in them.  He has been working and readying them.  We just show up at the right time and the right place with the right words (not our words.)  Boom it’s done.  It’s that easy.  It’s actually not easy at all, don’t get ahead.  We have a rule: if after 2 or 3 times, and they’re not interested, we’ve done our work.  The seed: planted.  They have our phone number if they need anything.  We continue to pray for them.

So after 3 hours of doing whatever in our districts (serving in some way) we take an hour for lunch.  Now lunch, also, is in our districts and we don’t stop showing the love of Christ.  We use that time to make friends and share the Good News if we’re led.  We have 3 contacts from just lunch so far.  It’s a good way to be effective while taking a break.

From 2 to dinner, which is at 6:00, we are usually out, but some things bring us home.  That won’t happen for very much longer, as soon as we get 100% on track and on schedule.

4 days of the week, we have dinner in the house.  Amanda makes some rad meals 3 times a week and one of us 4 pairs cooks once in the week.  So I’ll cook once every month, no biggie.  On Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday nights we have church services.  This is for right now, but once I get my own discipleship classes going, our role in the mother church decreases.

After church, I usually have an hour until about 9:30, then I’m in bed.  Goodbye world; until the next morning.

This day occurs 6 days of the week, Mondays are my off days.  After team announcements I do whatever I want.

Cool, so there’s a day.  My day actually.  But let’s look at our future plans, our goals to keep me on track until July 2012.  Keep in mind please that these are the minimum goals, we would love to exceed them.  We would love to change them if things are going ahead of pace.

This month, February, our goal is to make 15 contacts in each districts.

In March, we’re looking to disciple 3 of those individually in each district.

In April, after weeks of discipleship, we plan on having a cell group of 3 or more in each district.

May of this year, we would like to focus on getting more in the cell groups and really know who our potential leaders are.  We’ll start focusing on them with much prayer.

In June, a group of short termers are coming for impact and we’re planning on doubling our size of the people saved in the cell groups.

In July, we’re going to plan our first baptism for those who desire, or have been discipled.

In October, the fall of this year, we want to add 6 members through the process of membership in each district.

By February of next year, 2012, we want to have 6 more baptisms in each district.

In May of 2012, we would like those 6 in each district to go through the membership process.

By June, we’d like to have 3 churches of 12 members in full communion fully functioning.

We’re done in July, so during the rest of the time of that month, we get all the deets worked out and have the 3 churches fully handed over to the care of the locals.

Opinions??

Listen up!