Another wonderful time celebrating our shared faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Food. Singing. The word of the Lord. Two wonderful friends baptized. Praise be to God for a simply wonderful day.

For those of you that may be checking our website for the first time, our Celebration Sundays happen once every two months and are times in which we join together the small groups that are meeting in different parts of the city for a shared time of worship and fellowship. We sing, we pray, we read the word of the Lord, we teach and we encourage one another. Essentially, we share life and remind each other of our hope in the Lord. This celebration time brought a number of people for the first time. Some of these we have known from our work in different areas of town but had yet to participate in our weekly times of worship. So, this Sunday a number of newcomers came and witnessed God at work. Following is a video and some pictures of this really, really good day!

La Celebracion Agosto 2010 from JM Davidson on Vimeo.

Like I’ve told many of our new Peruvian friends, we just want to follow Jesus example in the ways that we are able.  While, as of yet, I haven’t been able to raise the dead or miraculously make the lame to walk, there are many other ways that we can care for people’s physical well being.  One of those ways is to invite our brothers and sisters who have been trained medically to provide quality medical care to many that can’t afford it here in Lima.

So, that’s just what we did.  In July we had a good sized group of volunteers come down from the United States to help us with our first ever medical campaign. As part of the group we had doctors, dentists and nurses along with tons of great helpers, skilled laborers and all kinds of people willing to take the time and effort to come and show God’s love to their Peruvian neighbors in this ever shrinking world we live in.  We focussed our efforts in an area of Lima called Paraiso, which mean Paradise.  This campaign was a wild success.  Many people received the kind of medical care that they hadn’t been able to get and, more importantly, God’s love was spread through a community that so desperately needs it.  The kind of community that I think you likely would have found Jesus walking through 2000 years ago.

For a better glimpse into our first Medical Campaign in “Paradise” take a few minutes and watch our video…

Medical Campaign 2010 – Paraiso from Twentyeight19 Ministries on Vimeo.

“You have not lived until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.” – Anonymous

Calling ALL friends and family back in the USA! We are desperately in need of your help for a blanket drive! Peru is creeping into winter and it is getting chilly. Our friends in Villa Maria who live on the side of a mountain in homes that are not adequate to keep warm, are in great need of some blankets fast. Team Lima is launching it’s first annual Frazalatera (blanket drive) in order to help the families and especially those kids keep warm during the next few months.

The deadline to raise $1000 is June 15th! We know this is fast but these people are cold, enough said :) If you would like to know where to send your tax-deductible checks, please email us at:

stephanie.a.fletcher@gmail.com
alison.thompson.peru@gmail.com

It’s hard to express in writing or, for that matter, on a blog how crucial this is; but, hopefully we will be able to show you in pictures after we deliver the blankets and you are able to see their faces. We will have a short video of Villa Maria going up in the next couple of days to help you picture the conditions in which these people live in but we wanted to go ahead and start our drive today to get your minds, hearts and hopefully your wallets spinning :)

Many blessings

So, in a nutshell, here’s the goings-on of late:

- Continuing to establish a presence in Villa Maria del Triumfo, a section of town where we’ll have our first medical campaign. We weekly teach English there and are meeting new people all the time as we walk the neighborhoods. We’ve also been able to have a few Bible studies with a contact we have there.

- Regular, weekly Bible studies continue to go well.

- Monday Night Soccer is a great success. Right now, in fact, we’re in the middle of a multiple-week tournament that everyone seems to love. Many of these guys have either become involved in regular Bible studies or are attending our Sunday gatherings.

- Next week we’ll be doing a service project in Villa Maria, our first of a more significant nature. Essentially, we’re adding on to the house of a young lady that attends church in our home.

- We recently celebrated our second celebration gathering! It was wonderful. Click here for pics.

There is so much more to list, such as a group exercise class, individual service projects, regular lunch fellowship times, volleyball, sidewalk chats, more soccer, etc. that are going on, but I’ll stop there. Essentially, things here are good as God continues to lead us on this journey. We are so thankful for that as well as the fact that you too are walking this road with us. What a blessing you are to us!

Don’t forget to visit our individual blogs for additional updates.

Yoakums
Davidsons
Clancy
Fletchers
Thompsons

I am excited to announce to all of you that we had our first Celebration time as a team with several Peruvians whom we’ve met in the last months to a year that we’ve all been here. To take a step back, I want to first explain an approach we’ve taken so far so that you understand what I mean when I say, “Celebration”.

In the world of church planting (and, yes, I already feel inadequate that I’ve started my sentence this way…because I am NO expert on the matter of church planting by any means. In fact, I should probably call one of our guys and ask them to write this paragraph for me.) there is a model called the Cell-Celebration Model. Basically (and, again, you’re getting the Alison Thompson definition of this…short) you begin with small groups (cells) in your home or some other meeting place, and you meet with them on a regular (in our case, weekly) basis. Then, once a month, or once every 2 months as we’ve decided to do it here in the beginning of our ministry here, you have a big group gathering of all your small groups (a Celebration!). Simple, right?

So, all 9 of us adults have been making friends with Peruvians since we’ve moved here, and we all have some sort of small group (whether it just be a Bible Study with 3 people or up to 12 sometimes) that we meet with on a weekly basis. So, on Sunday, February 28th, 2010, we had our team’s FIRST Celebration, and we believe it was successful!

We enjoyed great fellowship, sang, laughed, ate some great food, prayed, the kids played hard, and we read and meditated on Scripture together. It was a time in which Peruvians from the Yoakum’s neighborhood met Peruvians from the Davidson’s neighborhood, Peruvians from the Thompson’s neighborhood were introduced to more of the Thompson’s teammates, and Peruvians who play soccer with Mark Clancy on Monday nights were able to meet Peruvians who attend the small group gathering at the Fletcher’s house each Sunday. It was a time for making new friendships, getting to know more about one another, and worshiping God.

So, enough with the talking. Let me introduce you to some of the Peruvians who came!

Wes and Heli. Heli plays soccer on Monday nights with the guys, and that turned into a weekly Bible Study with John Mark and Justin that began about 4 months ago.

Alison and Corban, José, Maribel, their baby Josías, and Maribel’s niece, Blanca. This sweet family attends the Sunday worship time with the Thompson and Fletcher families at the Fletcher’s house each week, and José works as the main guard on the Thompson’s street.

This was our nice spread. It was delish!

Stacy and Claudia. Claudia and Alison met at the gym about 4-5 months ago, and she gets with Alison on occasion to work on her English. She also meets with the group at the Fletcher’s house.

John Mark and Alex. Alex makes furniture at a local market with his family, and the Fletcher’s befriended him when they were furniture shopping for their home when they first moved here. He now attends the group that meets at their house, and he has been bringing friends each time he comes! This picture shows a copy of the CD we passed out to all of the Peruvians with songs that we hope to be singing together in the future when we meet.

Stephanie and Rocio. Rocio and her husband are the landlords for the Fletcher’s home, and they are very excited about the work we’re here to do. They have a 6 year old son, Valentino.

Mark and Edgar. Edgar works on the Yoakum’s street, and he shows GREAT interest in the Bible and God. Mark and Wes are currently studying the Word with him on a regular basis.

Gathering for the time of blessing on the kids…

As you can see, we had a wonderful time, and we were so blessed that so many of our Peruvian friends joined us. We had others there that we didn’t get to photograph, so we’ll try and do a better job of that next time. As far as the future goes, we are praying that God would make us extremely aware of how he is moving in the lives of our Peruvian friends. We are constantly battling to find a balance between being wise in making plans for the future and being wise by stopping and listening to where the Spirit is guiding us. We would appreciate your prayers for this very thing. Thanks for all you do to support us. We hope this has given you some insight into where we feel we’re being led as a team!

“¡Ya viene!” was the response, “He’s coming right now!”

Great. Now I’m going to be really late, if he even comes at all.

So, since I was waiting there, Jimmy and Italo, two of the guards that night and their friend Edgar, who lives nearby, started asking me questions. The usual ones at first… “Where are you from?” “What do you do?” “How do you like Peru?” Etc.

But as I explained who I was and what I am doing here, their interest really started to rise. Edgar began asking questions like, “So, are you like the mormons?” The Jehova’s Witness? Seventh Day Adventists?

Then seemingly out of nowhere he says, “Well, I could never be a part of your religion. I have to work. If I don’t work, my family doesn’t eat.”

Of course the whole conversation is in Spanish, so it took me a while to really flesh out what he meant. I didn’t understand why he thought being a part of “my religion” meant he couldn’t work. Eventually, I figured out that he had heard that Mormons have to serve a time as missionaries and I’m a missionary, so it must be like that, and he certainly couldn’t leave his job. As I explained that that’s not how it works… and that becoming a Christian isn’t like joining a Fraternity, there aren’t hoops to jump through or rules to follow all three of my new friends were listening intently.

“So, can you eat pork?” Edgar asked as he began a series of questions to really find out what the requirements are… because surely there’s a catch. “I’ve heard some people can’t eat pork.”

He continued on, “I knew a guy that was sick and needed a blood transfusion but he died because his religion said that he couldn’t have one. Can you get a blood transfusion?”

“Some people say Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ lover, do you believe that?”

Then we finally got to one that was obviously sitting right on a very sore nerve, “But if I joined your religion, I’d have to give ten percent of my money to the religion… and I’m poor. Why does everyone have to give their money to religion when there are so many people poor like me?”

I explained again that there isn’t a rule… that Jesus especially cared for the poor and came so that we don’t have to live under a law with endless rules and requirements. Even as I struggled to find the words in Spanish as I answered their barrage of questions, I could see on their faces and hear in their voices a growing curiousity, an excitment.

It was getting later and later, by now soccer was almost over, but I no longer cared.

As if to say, “What you’re saying sounds too good to be true.” Edgar chimed in with, “Religions are just full of hypocrites…” and cited several examples of hypocritical and judgmental pastors and churches.

I didn’t know what to say. So I just told him he was right. Unfortunately, there are a lot of hypocrites and people do bad things all the time. But, Jesus wasn’t that way… and as I recounted to him the story of the woman caught in adultery and Jesus calling out the religious leaders of his day to “throw the first stone,” I could tell that what I was telling him really and truly sounded like good news.

By this time we’d been talking for an hour and a half… I’d missed all of soccer. But, I really did need to go and at least make an appearance, I told my new friend that I had really enjoyed our conversation, but I had to go.

“Well, when can we talk more about this? I want to know more.” was Edgar’s response.

A little in shock but thoroughly thrilled asked him when he could get together.

So he threw out, “How about tomorrow morning at 8:30?”

Works for me! So, I recruited Mark and the next morning we met right there on the sidewalk again. In front of the orthodontist’s office, Mark and I shared the Gospel with Jimmy and Edgar. We stood in the shade and read from Matthew, Mark, John, Romans and other passages. This time around they didn’t ask any questions. Periodically we’d pause and ask them if they had questions or anything to say… but they insisted that they didn’t, saying, “We’re listening intently… keep going.”

It was an amazing two hours that Tuesday morning. They couldn’t get enough. Finally, Mark and I had to leave for other obligations. But, they asked if we could meet again later in the day to hear more!

Well, in the end, we tried to meet again that night, but Edgar had been called in to work. I don’t know what will come of this, but I do know they are still excited to know more and I can’t wait to tell them. We don’t have anything scheduled. But,thankfully, this week these new friends are joining us for soccer instead of making me miss it.

It’s amazing the way that God can take our most selfish moments and turn them into the most amazing opportunities for His name to be glorified.

In an effort to be proactive in our learning, Wes and I recently decided to christen a new ministry effort, one we’ve lovingly called the “Cooler Ministry.” Essentially, once a week we buy about $30 worth of drinks, or two coolers worth, and then sit on a busy sidewalk somewhere in town handing them out. Pretty complex project we’ve developed, huh?

In all seriousness, we’ve just wanted to talk; to ask questions’; to know what Peruvians think and handing out drinks has certainly served us well. As we passed out drinks, we’d tell our story and ask 4 simple questions in an effort to learn more about Peruvians. While certainly not scientific, we have collected some great data that is both reliable and telling and has proven useful as we approach the ministry here. Here’s what we found out:

When asked if they believe there is a God, 100% responded yes. Most all of them responded with a shrug of the shoulders and a slight roll of their eyes as if to say, “of course, who doesn’t.”

Our last question pertained to when they have free time. The most common response was Sunday. After that, Saturday. Evenings, after 8:00, was mentioned as well. That probably tells you a little about this culture: late nights are certainly the norm as things are barely getting started by 8 pm.

You can likely see how this info would be useful to us. For instance, if you’re going to hold Bible studies or worship services, its quite useful to know when might be a good time to do so. Its also pretty interesting that with so many people calling themselves “believers” and that its considered important to study the Bible, why is church attendance in Peru statistically rather low.

So, that being said, we are at a great place to start. We’ll see where these conversations go from here. Good things, I’m certain, are yet to come as we follow God on this adventure here in Peru.

We Found a Soccer Court Near Our Homes for a Good Price – One of our constant prayer requests have been to find a soccer court where we can play. This has been trickier than anticipated, because all the soccer courts near where we live are above our price range. The soccer courts that we can afford are farther away and sometimes take up to an hour to get to. Last Monday I called a soccer court near our house and just by chance asked for a discount. He thought for a bit, and granted us a discount that falls within our price range. We are hoping that he can give us this rate for the weeks to come.

We Prayed Together For the First Time – Before the game, we gathered together and prayed! It was awesome. Mark said a great prayer and it was great to see our Peruvian friends bow their heads

We Forgot the Score – There came a point in the game where we were having so much fun, that every single person forgot what the score was. Someone had just scored a goal, and another person asked, “Hey, does anyone know the score.” Out of the 9 of us playing, not a single person could recall the score. We are men and competition and pride runs within our blood, and no one was concerned with who was winning or losing. This told us all that things last Monday had transcended competition, and we were enjoying each other’s company. This is a considerable milestone considering where we began.

Another Soccer Player Wants to Study the Bible – God surprised us yet again after the game. We were sitting in the bleachers drinking some water and gatorade, when, one of our regulars named Carlos (nicknamed “Pituko”), expressed interested in studying the Bible with us. We are now looking into some times where we can get together.

To God be the Glory. It has been great to see God at work in the lives of our Peruvian friends, and last Monday was just a taste of what he can do.

“Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.”

Corban Thompson (L) and Liam Fletcher (R)

Throughout our time here in Lima, we have been learning that many aspects of life are incredibly different here in Latin America. We have learned that many people here have no clue about some of our most cherished customs, and that the Peruvians themselves have many wonderful customs that we have never even heard of. We have learned that the pace of life, the values, and the worldviews are all very different. But yet, despite all the differences, there are so many similarities, which are all the more obvious during the Christmas season. This time of year is a time for celebration, food, and, above all, family. So, I would have to say that we are learning to embrace the similarities while also learning to appreciate the differences. But for now, we celebrate!