Music

When we first started the youth center, we felt that God gave us three tools to focus on to reach kids. They were sports, English, and music. We immediately started a free once a week English class for kids after school, and we began volunteering in schools in their English program. We also started a sports time on Saturdays where we play a different sport each week. We also had the privilege of hosting Hoops for Hope to further our sports strategy.

But what we really didn't know how to use was the music side. For the first year of the youth center, we didn't do much with music except for sing and teach Christian worship songs at our Friday and Saturday Bible classes or small groups.

As you've seen over the last few blogs, God has been rocking our world as far as music goes. Our friend David now has a key to the youth center and is working side by side with us to extend God's kingdom using music to bring in kids. We now have several times a week where kids can come in and use the instruments to learn and practice. We are also doing voice practices to get the kids involved with the band.

Check out the video on our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=600956667691&notif_t=video_processed

We had an awesome concert, and the kids even put together a drama to do in the middle of it. It was great! I can tell the kids loved doing the skit and being part of the presentation.

God has brought in a lot of new people since we started the music stuff in November. Please pray for these new kids to respond to the gospel in the same way we've seen from our kids already involved in the youth center.

We have a core group of about 8 that have really been touched by the Lord and we see them growing in their faith. We've also seen them reaching out to the newer kids and including them in a way that does not come natural to 13, 14, and 15 year olds. We also see them eagerly participating in the leadership roles we've gradually been giving them! We are so excited to see how God is removing some daily responsibilities from our hands and giving them to these young believers. Our goal is for the youth center to eventually be able to function without us - just as most missionaries' goal should be.

Speaking of going on without us, it is hard to believe that we are only a month away from moving to Lima for 3 months. Our little Eva is kicking and moving a lot these days, and we're both just thrilled to have this blessing to be parents. We look at each other some days and can hardly believe all the emotions. Thank you for those of you that were praying for us to find a place to live. We found an apartment in a nice area that also has an extra room that can help us host family members that will be coming visit during those 3 months. We're excited about serving in a church in Lima where we hope to make connections for the future. Bryan will be coming back a couple times to Maldonado to see everyone and make sure things are going smoothly.

This next month is a busy one for us. Along with putting an extra push of energy into the youth center, we also have two groups coming. The first is a group of doctors that will be going into a reserved park here in the jungle. It is up river about 2 days. Bryan will be going with them as a translator. The government only lets people with special permission enter the park because they want to save the environment and way of life of the many native groups that live there. They will be gone February 26th until March 6th. Eva and I will stay behind and keep things going here. Please pray for Bryan's safety and for us as we will be apart. There will be hardly any opportunities for communication during that week and half so I know it will be hard on us.

The second group is Hoops for Hope. As I mentioned earlier, they came last year and were SUCH a blessing to us and our ministry. We are so glad they want to come again, and I know that will be a very fun week. They will teach 2 three-hour sessions of basketball skills and drills for 4 days of the week they are here. It will be very busy, but it will give us a great chance to meet more kids. Please be praying for us to get all the last minute details ready and for translators to fall into place.

One last prayer request. We really feel our time in Lima has a purpose for this time in our ministry whether it's making connections with Peruvians who have a heart for youth in the jungle or working by teaching English or something else. Bryan has been contacting some English institutes in Lima seeing if they need any help. We're also considering being private tutors. Please pray for us to find ways to be fruitful while we are away from Maldonado. It's hard for both of us to leave while things are going so well here, but we are obeying what we are hearing from the Lord.

We love you and are so thankful for your support and prayers.

January Newsletter

Greetings!!!

I hope that everyone is doing well these days. We are having a girl!! We expect Eva Grace Davis to be born sometime around May 22^nd. Needless to say we are excited. We are going to be moving to Lima for three months. During our stay there we will be helping out in a church there. I may also be teaching English if I can find jobs. We are in the process of looking for a place to stay while we are there. Please be praying that we can find a place that is safe and affordable as things cost quite a bit more in the big city.

Christmas

Thanks to all who gave to our Christmas program. We were able to serve around 350 kids with sweet bread, hot chocolate, and a toy. We were privileged to see the kids happy. This gave us opportunity to share the Gospel with kids as well as parents with whom we don’t normally have the opportunity. You can see pics on our blog at bryananddelana.blogspot.com.

Testimonies

At the end of December we were taking Obed one of the 14 yr old kids home from the youth center. He told us that he had been teaching kids in his neighborhood things that he was learning at the Youth Center. He has been mee

ting with them for over a year off and on. This completely shocked us to hear that he would take the initiative to start meeting with his friends and teach them about Jesus. We are excited to see what God is doing in his life. We look forward to seeing more fruit. Please be praying for Obed. I am meeting with him personally during his summ

er vacation. He is helping me clean the Youth Center and then we are doing a Bible study.

There is a young girl named Sophia who was saved in the Youth Center. We have been discipling her over the last year. This January she has helped us start a Children’s program in the Youth Center. Folks, I cannot tell you how encouraging it is to see her teaching children about Jesus and praying out loud boldly. Please be praying for Sophia and our Children’s program

Upcoming Events

February 26^th I will be travelling upriver with Octavio and a team of medical doctors. I will be serving the team as a translator. The doctors will be seeing indigenous peoples from different communities. We are going to be entering into a protected national park called Manu Park. There are many people we will be seeing that have only h

eard of Jesus a few times. There are also uncontacted people groups inside the park. This is an opportunity to take the gospel to places it has never gone before. Please pray for protection for me and that I would be a blessing to the team that I am serving as I continue to share the Good News. Please pray for Delana while I am gone as well.

I get back March 6^th and March 10^th to the 15^th we have Hoops for Hope International coming. We hosted Hoops for Hope la

st year and it was a huge success. Not to mention it was a lot of fun. This year my friend from school Jon Wible will be leading the team. We will be teaching fundamental basketball skills as well as sharing the G

ospel with about 100 kids. We will have some of the same kids as last year. Please be praying that God would touch the hearts of the kids we are working with. Two of the kids from last year have been consistent in our discipleship classes.

Keeping in touch

If you have any questions or prayer requests for us please feel free to shoot us an email. You can also check out our blog. Delana usually updates it every few weeks.

Blog: bryananddelana.blogspot.com

email: davis.bp@gmail.com

Global Consulting Group

P.O. Box 7254

Waco, TX 76714

Happy 2012!

We had a wonderful Christmas. The money you gave allowed over 300 children to receive a toy, hot chocolate and sweet bread to celebrate on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It was so fun to see the kids so excited about their toys. Here are a couple pictures.

Thank you again for giving! If you want to see more pics from the different Christmas programs, go to our facebook page - Bryan and Delana in Peru. I have a lot more pics up there.

I felt the baby kick today. I've felt little wiggles, but this was the first time I was like "whoa you are in there aren't you little one?" I was 20 weeks yesterday. Thank you for your continued prayers for us as we plan toward adding someone to our family.

We have added two new things to our schedule starting this new year. First, we will have a kids class once a week for an hour and a half. That starts this Thursday. Some of the older kids who come regularly will be helping facilitate this. That will give them a good chance to learn to teach kids and soak up more of the gospel while they are doing it.

Second, we are starting a Thursday night group at our house for people in their 20's ish. We're not really putting limits, but we know a lot of people in that age range that are just kind of floating around and not sure where they fit in. Most of the people going to church are a little older than them, and most of their friends are still in the partying stage. Please pray that God would bring the people who really desire to meet with Him. We don't really know what this is going to look like, but we've seen a need and we feel compelled to do something.

It is exciting to see some real fruit coming from our year of labor with these youth kids. I hope to share soon some of that encouragement here on the blog. But thank you for partnering with us to bring change to this city. We're praying that God will use us to bring the power of Jesus into more and more people's lives.

Hope everyone had an amazing Christmas and New Years!

First and Last

This Christmas marks the first and last Christmas we've been alone and in our home. We have always been visiting the US for the holidays or with family here visiting. This year, we will celebrate Christmas morning just the two of us. I know this could be one of the only ones like that for a long time after the baby comes!

We had a great Thanksgiving. We made the family recipe for brownies (which are non-existent in Peru) and handed out baggies of them to our closest friends. It was really nice because with each drop-off, we got to visit with each family and God really used that time to strengthen our relationships with friends. We really enjoyed the day despite being far from family.

Here, the kids are about to start their "summer" break. It's the most logical time for kids to be out of school because it's rainy season. Due to mostly unpaved roads in the city, a lot of people have trouble getting out of their neighborhoods when it's covered with mud. Actually, a lot of families go on a two-month-long vacation to visit family in other cities or to go work their land in the country.

Needless to say, all of those things really change our schedule up at the youth center. There are less kids, but they have more free time because school is out. We're in the middle of planning our changes for the summer. We're also planning for next year. As soon as the kids get back to school, we will be moving to Lima to wait for our baby's arrival. The latest I can fly is the end of March. Please keep all this planning and organizing in your prayers.

God has brought several people into our lives to start helping us at the youth center. We've known both of them since we moved here, so we know we can trust them. It's just worked out timing wise that they are available now to help us a little. One is a 24 year old guy who is passionate about music. He's really helping us teach the kids the instruments. We have bought an electric guitar and a bass! He's been helping us keep open the youth center when we are doing other things, like the feeding program on Saturdays. We're praying he can continue to be available to be a presence at the youth center as we are in Lima.

The other is a 22 year old young lady. I love her! She's been a good friend to me since we've been here, but she's always had very busy jobs. She's had very little time for helping or just hanging out. But we're so excited that God provided her just two weeks ago with a new job that leaves her evenings open! Praise Him! She's been coming to help with English nights. She's studied English formally, and did very well teaching her first English night this past Wednesday! It was so exciting for me to be able to hand it over to her and get to enjoy it with the kids. I'm praying that her job will continue to allow her presence at the youth center.

We know God has brought these two people in our lives for a purpose. Please pray for them. Pray for us to have wisdom in how to let go of the youth center to see Peruvians extend the Kingdom of God in their city.

So much to be thankful for

This has been a crazy month, but we've had so much fun!

We've started back volunteering in the school closest to the youth center. It's called Colegio Milagros. It's one of the lower income schools in our city. I've been working with one of the two English teachers and helping out in her classes twice a week. It's been great to help, but we've seen so many new faces in the youth center because of it. This past month we've averaged around 3 new people each time we're open. It's been really great to share with some new kids, and encourage the "regulars" to be leaders and make the new people feel welcome.

We've also been playing sports every Saturday for the past several weeks. We've seen that this really helps get kids out of their self-conscious shyness and really start to make friends with the other kids. We usually play frisbee or basketball with them. I say we, but Bryan hasn't been letting me play with them. I can goof around, but he doesn't want me to fall or get pushed over or something. I guess that's wise. I can be a pretty competitive and aggressive player. But it's also been nice to just get time to watch them, joke around with them, and pray for them while they're playing.

We are also really excited about our increase in English students. We now have 16 students! And that number could possibly go up to 26 in the next week. Along with me teaching high school aged kids, Bryan has started a class at a restaurant teaching their waitstaff. It is a very touristy restaurant, so English is very valuable to them. He's really enjoying getting to make relationship with people in their 20's who aren't Christians. They've even come a couple of times and helped out in our Wednesday night English class at the youth center!

There's also an opportunity for Bryan to start teaching the staff at a local hotel that is very popular with tourists. We're hoping to start this next week. We do charge for these classes, but very little compared to formal institutes. The exciting thing is that this month we should have enough from English classes to pay rent for the youth center building. God is using ministry to pay for ministry! He is so faithful!

We also had enough money come in to buy one instrument. We bought an electric guitar that came with a speaker to plug it in to. We are really excited about the kids getting to use this to learn to play. We've been talking this up with the kids, asking who wants to learn to play an instrument. All but a couple are very enthusiastic about it. Our vision is to eventually have a youth praise team that leads worship in our services at the youth center. We also see this as a great way for some of the older kids to take a lead and some responsibility - to make it feel like it's their own. We should get the guitar in the mail this weekend. We are still hoping to buy a bass and a drumset in the near future.

Bryan and I personally are doing really good. We've both said to each other that we are in the most exciting time of our lives. At times this month during the dizziness and almost losing my lunch because of a weird smell, I've thought to myself that I wasn't loving this phase. But it really is true. The baby is healthy as of our last doctor's appointment, and growing well. We are so excited that in just a few more months we will have a new member in our family. God has been so good to us!

Please be praying as we seek God's wisdom for our lives in the next year. We have so many decisions and ideas that we want to do only what will bring the Lord all the glory. Thank you so much for your continued prayers, love, and support.

"For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power." 1 Corinthians 4:20

Instrumentos!!!

Things are going great with the youth center. Friday night we had six kids give their lives to the Lord!! God is good. I want these kids that we are working with to know it more and more.

My purpose for this post is to let folks know about a need that we have. We really need music instruments for the Youth Center. We don't normally put financial needs on here, but I really feel like it is important. I am looking to raise about $1500 for instruments. The purpose would be so that some of the kids who are coming to the youth center could come and learn how to play. I know people who would be willing to teach them. I see this as an opportunity for kids who are growing in their faith in the Lord to have an opportunity to develop their musical skills. Most kids in Peru don't get the opportunity to learn an instrument.


Almost two years ago we were developing a worship band made up of members from different churches. After a few months a couple of the members of the team moved away. We still have in our hearts to do something similar to what we were doing. So I see this as a need in the youth center as well as a need in the city where we are working.

Delana is 11 weeks pregnant today. I (Bryan) am writing this by the way. I know it has been a while. I think like two years. There was a fiasco in '09. I will just leave it at that. I am really excited about being a Dad. Delana is doing well. She is a trooper. Please continue praying for her as I know ya'll are doing.

If anybody is interested in helping out with buying instruments let me know by sending me an email at davis.bp@gmail.com. God Bless.

This is a pic of the Bridge that was just opened that connects our city with Brazil. It is really going to change things here.

We're Having a BABY!!

So time has flown by. And most of you have probably received the newsletter or read the news on facebook, but I want the blog readers to know as well. We found out a little over a month ago that we are pregnant! I happened to be in the US when I found out. I went for a couple of weeks to be with my parents while my dad was recovering from surgery. And while I was there, I found out this amazing news which I had to tell Bryan over the telephone. But we are super excited. In November we will complete 3 and 1/2 years of marriage, and so we were hoping to start a family about this time. Our baby's due date is May 22, 2012!!

Our baby's first picture!

Things are going great here in Maldonado. We have seen God's hand moving in some cool ways. We started a discipleship class a few months ago, and we have consistently had at least 10 high schoolers involved. We decided to dedicate one night of the week at the youth center to only high school aged youth. A lot of times the younger children can be a distraction to those who are really wanting to learn more about Jesus. So we decided to do that. We've taught on many different topics, mainly starting out with the basics of Christianity. But last night, we taught a lesson on purity, separating the guys and girls. It was very encouraging to see the girls understand that God wants them to choose one man who is godly, who respects them, and who will be faithful to them. They know all to well of what happens in most relationships here (infidelity, children out of wedlock). I encouraged them that they can be the ones to change the next generation!

We have also seen a growth in our feeding program in Laberinto. We have about the same number coming to receive food, but we have more that are coming to the lesson to be an active part of hearing God's Word. It's been encouraging for both Bryan and I to see the older kids sink in the lessons and start practicing more respect and obedience. We pray this continues to grow.

I've started up again volunteering in English classes in the school close to the youth center. We've already seen 2 new faces as a result, and I'm praying that continues. They really seem to like the free English class we give on Wednesday, and most of them return for the class on Friday or Saturday where we teach the Bible. Pray for more salvations in the youth center.

We are still meeting with Isidoro and Maribel once a week. We were so encouraged to be back with them this week. This couple is such a testimony of God's power. He is blessing them, their marriage, and their ministry as they obey and pass on the teachings they learn. Isidoro shared a passion of his with us this week - reaching the uncontacted groups up river from here. We are excited about the dreams God is putting in his heart, and we can't wait to see where it goes.

We have been trying since this summer to do an evangelism in their town which is about an hour away from Maldonado. The town's mayor or governing group told us not to do it. It is actually illegal for them to forbid us, but we don't want to force our presence there unless it is what we are supposed to do. We are praying for a softening of hearts, and a strategy to bless this town called Tres Islas. Please pray with us - that they would see our hearts are to bless and not to manipulate or benefit ourselves. Pray for courage and boldness in the church there, that they would rise up to testify and pray for their neighbors.

The last prayer request I'd like to leave you with is for leaders. We have been working with the kids in the youth center for a year now, and we have been praying for leaders with the same passion for youth in this city to come alongside us and work at the youth center. We are still praying for this.

I wanted to post a few pictures of the other day when we played Ultimate Frisbee with the kids. Even though the kids didn't even know what a frisbee was before they met us, Bryan is determined to play one of his favorite sports. So we've been teaching them, and they love it. Enjoy!