Some New Pics

This is the church in Tres Islas where we go every Tuesday to have church there.
This is the outside of the church building.
This is the girl who made my card in the last blog. She's always at the church if the doors are open.
This is the lady we usually buy our chicken from.
On the top left is the ground beef that we now have in our refrigerator. Below that are fish.

Just some pics of around town I thought ya'll would like to see.

Grateful

The other night we went up to the church to do some publicity about the English classes we are hoping to start on Nov. 2nd. Everytime the church doors are open, our kids from Sunday mornings come running over (at least a few of them anyway). They sat with us and colored, but this is what they ended up drawing and coloring and giving to us:

Translates: A card for Professor or Teacher Elena (which is easier for the kids to say than Delana). Sister Elena, you have taught me very well and because of that I'm telling you you are very nice. I love you a lot and I want to go to Tres Islas. Thank you Sister Elena. Bye Sister Elena.

This explanation to the Tres Islas thing is that we were going to have church there one Sunday and we invited all the kids. But when we went to reserve a soccer field and spot to have it there, it was already going to be used. So we decided to do it in January instead. But the kids were really excited and are still excited. They had to bring their parents to us to give us permission to go, so I guess that work got them invested in really wanting to go. Haha they really are fun.

This is the one to Bryan: Thank you Brother Bryan for helping me to color and draw and all the other things. You help me in everything.

This is the front of both of the cards.

These are from a brother and sister that we've gotten pretty close to. Their mom and grandmother own a shop in the market across the street from the church, and their dad is a teacher in another town and comes and visits on weekends when he can. It is obvious they are both lacking in attention because they are always trying to get it from us. But most of the time, especially when it's one on one, we love to give it. It's cool to see how God is using the short time we have with the once a week to make a difference in their lives.

It's so easy to get bothered by the little things. I was thankful when one time this week in my time with the Lord, I felt a direct command to be grateful. That is our job. Thank you for your prayers this week. I don't know what it is, but I can feel the prayers this week. I know it is the joy of the Lord.

We've had two pastor's prayer meetings since I last posted, and they are going well. We've gotten to spend time now with some of the pastors in a more casual setting, and that has been a very good thing. It's hard to have actually unity and not just talked-about-unity when you're not really even friends. One pastor and his wife and sister-in-law are starting a television program for youth here in Maldonado. I guess because we are young, they asked us to help them with ideas and things. Neither of us have any television experience, but it seems like it might be a great tool to make connections with some of the youth around town. Some of our ideas include, candid camera, a talent show (like American Idolish), but each week a new person comes on and has to compete against the ones who stayed from the week before. Also for teaching, we want to show interviews from around town and also some documentaries to show youth that there is more to live for than just the moment.

Anyway, I guess that's most of what is going on. I mentioned the English classes before, but please pray that it goes smoothly. We've done a lot of preparation and work for them, and we're hoping it will pay off by giving us connections with new people and a new way to share the Lord by day-to-day relationships.

My verse of encouragement this week has been:

"The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your love, O Lord, endures forever - do not abandon the works of your hands." Psalm 138:8

Electricity

It has been over a week since I updated. It's partly my fault, but we've also been without electricity frequently this past and current week, so that's my excuse. The rainy months have begun. It's not to much yet, but the other night there was a storm. I think that's a major cause of our electricity problems. Sunday night we even had church in a circle with a flashlight pointing up at the ceiling.

We came here really wanting to get to know the other Christian pastors and wanting to work with the pastors who were willing to work together. We found that there is a Fraternity of Evangelical Pastors that meets once a month. We've been going faithfully, but this week was really encouraging. Yesterday we met, and we spent about 3 hours with pastors just sharing about the city. Not their church or their activities. They were sharing about what God has shown them about strongholds or demonic activity and very serious stuff. It provoked in us, but I think in all the pastors, a seriousness of the condition of this city. We decided to meet once a week just to pray, not anything else. One pastor said a government official told him that in a lot of things the governments hands are tied. But then he told him, "You are the ones that can do something to change this city. The church can change the minds and attitudes of the people." It was very encouraging to see a desire to pray and dedicate ourselves to spiritually attack the oppression and idolatry in Maldonado. The first prayer meeting is tomorrow morning.

My friend Martha is struggling. My other friend I wrote about is doing pretty well. She is very busy, though. She has classes and then overnight shifts at the hospital some nights of the week plus taking care of her son in the middle of that.

English classes, we hope, are going to start November 2nd. We've been handing out flyers and have gotten several calls about it. We're just trying it out right now, but we're hoping we can get at least 8 people per class to make it worth our time. Thanks to God's provision, I will also be starting the process of getting my ESL certification soon. It's kind of exciting.

For those of you who receive our newsletters - Bryan has written two of them, but our friend Terry who has been doing them for us for so long got a new job and can't do them for us. We will be continuing those soon. You might even receive two at the same time. Bryan's updates are usually more general, but cover more things.

Hasta luego!

slowly, but surely

I've realized this week that this is not going to be a snap and it's all better sort of situation. Things are going to take a lot of time and prayers and intervention by the Holy Spirit.

This morning as a team we were sort of brainstorming ideas about how to move the people in the congregation to be the "ministers" God created them to be. A mentality here is paying your dues. You come to church, sit there for a while, and then leave and get on with your business. We've started working with kids around the neighborhood of the church on Sunday mornings. One goal is to reach these kids, but another is to train people to share their faith. I feel like we've got to get this training people down. Not the "sending them to training conferences" type of thing, but them really being discipled. If it takes a conference - awesome. But, it's just something we're seeing as absolutely necessary. And this training will take a lot of time. I guess I see it differently, because I grew up in church. As I grew in age and maturity, I was also growing in the Lord. I guess I expect adults to be able to understand and change quickly.

I know we will see change here. I have felt so many promises from the Lord. But instead of coming through mighty waves of salvation and the Holy Spirit, I'm almost certain it will come through discipline - the every day faithfulness. I guess that's how it works most of the time.

So that's my thoughts on what's been going on lately. We had a great trip in Cusco, and the boys got to see their first professional soccer game. I unfortunately didn't go, because I hit my head earlier that morning and was feeling a bit dizzy. That's not that atmosphere you want to go into when you feel like that.

Cooking is becoming a more normal thing to me. I've found several things I can do pretty well that are cheap, so we've been enjoying that.

We're really trying to working on a business. We want to eventually be able to support ourselves and be able to use donations for other things besides our eating and living stuff. So we are about to start English classes. We want to open these up small at first, but we'd really like to start an institute. I think I've already written this on the blog, but I'm sharing it again - haha. I am planning on getting my certification for ESL through an online program that is accredited internationally and also here in Peru. I really believe that this is from the Lord, and we are excited about how this will advance the Kingdom through another facet instead of just through church services.

Anyway, I think it's about time for another post with pictures, but I don't have any new ones. I'm bad at remembering to take pictures. I would love to answer questions or take pictures of something if ya'll give me some ideas.

Love, Delana

P.S. It will be 3 months since we've been here next week. Crazy!

Cusco

So we're in Cusco. It's nice to have a break from the heat.

Today I think I'm going to write a little more reflectively.

It's been over two months since we've been here. I realized for the first time a few weeks ago that when we go back to the US, it won't be the same life we had before. I know this seems obvious, but it made me realize that this is my life - here - in Peru, and that this is what God has called me to.

Last night we met with the church here in Cusco, and David spoke on our calling as Christians. That we all have a call on our lives. And one of those calls is to run our race. I've been treating my time in Peru so far as a short time period of my life. It really hit me last night that I MUST live my life here on purpose. I can't just think this is a phase, and that things will go back to normal in a few months. I guess it's easy day to day to start seeing things as mundane and forget that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I think it's like that for everybody. Because day by day can be boring. So anyway, I want this to become the place I love. I want Peru to be my home, because by doing that I'm embracing my "race" or my calling.

Right now for us is obviously a preparing time. The 3 of us can all see that God is going to act here. But, if he started moving mightly right now, we wouldn't be ready for it. So I guess these times are just as important as when God starts to change people, churches, and cities. We have to be ready for it.

Pray for us to stay persistent in our times with the Lord. It's easy to get busy in ministry and forget that the real goal is to know Jesus. I know that's been a struggle for me.

So this blog was more emotional than usual, but I figure it's good every once in while. If anyone wants to come visit or bring a group from their church, please let us know. We would love to have anyone who can come.

Last thing - I sent out a message to the Facebook group, but if you don't receive our newsletter and want to, please send me your email address. Or if you receive it in the mail and you don't mind getting it in email instead, send me your email. We're trying to minimize the hard copies we send out so we can get them out faster.

Update

So I said I'd post pictures of the baby. Below is her birth paperwork and stuff. They had to take her to a near by village to get her registered. You can see her little feet in the picture, but it's hard to read her name. But if you look to the far right, you might be able to make out my name, her middle name =) They even spelled it how I spell it in English.

And this is the mom, and little Carolina Delana. The two little girls in the back are her two big sisters, Reina and Gabbi. I didn't get a picture of Isidoro because he shyed away from the camera, but he's sitting on his wife's right. They are one family we work with here.

Things have been going well. The most exciting thing has been the people closest to us. I've made friends with a girl about my age, and it's been so nice. We've had some good conversations, and she's started opening up to me about her life. She comes pretty regularly to the church, and has even been helping on Sunday morning with the children's church. Please pray for this relationship.

This past weekend, there was a church who hosted a group of 40 something people from Lima to do an evangelism crusade. They told all the evangelical churches about it, so we could invite our members, and they could invite friends. We were excited, but really surprised when we heard the message on the first night. Instead of just a traditional, "Do you know where you will go when you die?" he spoke on the restoration of the family. WOW what a timely message here. He told stories of testimonies of how Jesus had healed, transformed, and changed people's lives and families. One story was long so I'm not going to tell the whole thing, but it was the conversion and physical healing and changing of the first Peruvian who had gotten a sex-change in the late 70's. He was actually the 3rd person in the world to have the surgery done. But God used tons of events in his life to come to Him, and He miraculously changed his body back into a man's 7 years after his conversion. I was wowed by this story.

Seriously, it was really encouraging to hear and see the people respond to this message. But the main thing is, we must see transformation in this area of the family. This is one of our greatest prayers for this city.

This upcoming Friday we will be going on a trip to Cusco. We told the hermanos there we would visit every other month if we could, so we will be going for about 5 days to spend time with them. We also found this awesome Taco Sauce that we will be buying more of while we are there. =) Now that I know what we have here in Maldonado and what we don't, I can buy some stuff there. We'll be taking our car again for the 12-14 hour drive, so pray for us please.

Thanks for all you support and prayers.

Baby!

So we have a new baby!

I was hoping that would get everybody’s attention. A family in our church had a baby this week. The husband, Isidoro, works on the land that the ministry owns and we also provide him with a house to live in, but it’s kind of in the middle of nothing. From town you can’t get a car to go out there past 7:00 at night. So they happened to be out there, and Isidoro had to be “the doctor.” He even cut the cord once she’d come out. Pretty hardcore I’d have to say.

But for me it’s really special because her 2nd name is going to be Elena after me. =) I’ve never had anyone name their kid after me, so I think it’s really neat. The couple already has two little girls who are precious and I’m sure this one will be too.

We’ve been doing really well. This past Sunday was our 2nd Sunday to have a kids time in the morning instead of just an adult Sunday School type of thing. We felt we needed to do that discipling another time, and have some sort of outreach. The first Sunday we had 7 kids. When we drove up at 8:45 to the church there were already two kids there waiting, two that hadn’t come the week before. We don’t start until 10. So once we got the doors open, we had about 6 or 7 kids there. We told them we were going to clean the church, and I asked if they wanted to help. They said “SI!!” or “YES!!” and went to town. What usually takes us 35 minutes was done in 10. It was awesome. Then I told them that since we still had about 50 minutes until we started, they could go invite some other kids to come. When it was all said and done, we had 19 kids. Pretty amazing. We split the kids up and the adults that had come helped us by questioning the kids about what they had learned from the story. Thank you Life Church in Bryan for the material you left with us! It has been so helpful.

Our goal as we’ve seen it here is to raise up leaders. We’re starting to see individuals who would be great for certain things, but it’s a work of the Holy Spirit. Pray that we will have the wisdom with how to do this whole thing. We have more and more no idea how do get done what we know needs to be done. But in a way, this is a great spot because there’s not much room for pride. Anyway, that’s a little of what’s going on with us.

The other thing is that we went on Monday morning to the fraternity of pastors here in Maldonado. I thought it was funny that they’re called a fraternity. But anyway, it was good to see that there is already a group of pastors here that want to work in unity to see this city changed. It was encouraging for us to hear other hearts the same as ours. The pastor’s wives also meet for prayer every month. We were definitely the youngest people there, and the only Americans there. There was one Brazilian couple and one Swiss missionary. So it was neat to meet all of them.

Well that’s about it. I’ll post pics of the new baby soon.