Christmas time...with llamas.

The USA has no monopoly on crazy Christmas stunts.   These llamas are out by the sidewalk selling stereos and motorcycles.

Hope you enjoy your Christmas celebration!  Remember the reason for the season!

John 3:16New International Version (NIV)

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

SEA’s first-ever Reformation Conference

We had a great time October 31 and November 1 with SEA’s first-ever Reformation Conference.  Although everyone here knows that the Protestant church left the Roman Catholic Church centuries ago, almost no one has known why, when or how. It isn’t taught as part of history and most pastors haven’t been taught anything about it. They are used to hearing how Protestants just left to allow pastors to marry or for Henry the 8th to get a divorce or even so that Northern Europeans could get control and money. So, the Reformation has been ignored when it hasn’t been misrepresented.

On Thursday, the 31st   at about 7:15, while kids trick or treated on the dark streets (yes, we had a 90 minute power outage right at sunset on Halloween!) we walked in faith to the Talavera church sanctuary. I say in faith because we had no idea if the power would come back on (and the presentation was all in PowerPoint) or if anybody would risk the dark streets to come to the conference. So we were pleasantly surprised as we neared the church to see and hear a large crowd. I was wondering how this was going to work - PowerPoint, no power - when the lights came on! It turns out that several folk had gotten to the church early and had been praying 
We got started just a few minutes late and I managed to end nearly on time. My presentation was simply the doctrinal issues and a brief history of Wickliffe, Hus and Luther and their parts in the Reformation. Everyone had been taking notes and was asking for a copy of the PowerPoint. Church anniversaries are a big deal here and they saw that for us as Evangelicals this is the biggest anniversary.

The next night, Tammy presented a history of music and worship before, during and after the Reformation. It was all new to the people. She focused on the Geneva liturgy and showed how the people had become involved in the worship - from singing hymns and Psalms to praying and to reciting creeds. Tammy emphasized how the Reformation brought the Church to the people in worship and what a big deal that was for them and should be to us.

Next year, we will be promoting the conference a bit more and we plan on reaching out to the community more and more. Next year we will talk about History after Luther and in Latin America. We hope to expand the conference to a Regional event by 2017 when we can all celebrate the 500th anniversary of a free church in the West.

Fany & Daira

We enjoyed a lunch with Pastor Willy of the Andahuaylas church and his wife and dughter.

1:30 in the morning.  It is wet and cold.  I am standing in mud halfway to my knees working with many other bus passengers trying to dig a semi out of the mud so that we can get home to Andahuaylas.  This is the last stretch of journey that started a week ago, and I am tired.

It all started Monday, Feb. 18.  It is never a good idea to travel during the rainy season of January & February, but we didn't have a choice.  The changes in the immigration laws and the ones that have come from the religious freedom law have made it necessary to try to get an extension (which we hoped to do in Cuzco) or to cross the border by the 23rd.  The new laws, supposedly written to make things easier for  Evangelicals here in Peru, have actually made life more difficult.  We have been doing like many missionaries and keeping ourselves legal here by doing a border crossing every 6 months.  But now they can only give a 6 month visa once per year, the others can only be 3 months long.  Due to ...complications, we have to do everything over again to get the resident religious worker visa again.  The costs are staggering and with the falling dollar quite frankly out of reach at this time.

So, hoping to avoid the long lines, bureaucracy and corruption of the immigrations office in Lima, we decided to try in Cuzco.  If we couldn't renew our visas there, then we have to go to Chile from Cuzco and cross the border.

Our trip to Cuzco on Monday night was perfect, with no problems, giving us great hopes for the immigration office.  We spent Tuesday with the family of my secretary, Aydee, and got to sleep in beds Tuesday night.  Wedmesday morning we went to the immigration office with Miguel to see what our options could be.  There we got the bad news/good news answer from the director.  To renew our Religious worker visas we have to do the entire process all over again, that means several trips to Lima - immigrations, Interpol, embassy  and pay several thousand dollars.  Ouch!  But, the director was very helpful and told us about another option that we have, one that is usually not mentioned.  Becky can apply and get Peruvian citizenship on top of her American citizenship.  There are no obstacles, it just requires 4 stages of paperwork that will take about a year.  Then when she has her citizenship, she can ask Peru to give dual citizenship to her blood relations and it is again, merely a question of time and about $220 (if she gave us all the costs) per person and we will never need to do anymore paperwork or border crossings!  That sounds like a deal!

But, we have to make a border crossing by the 23rd.  So, we buy the bus tickets and leave that evening for Tacna and the Peru/Chile border.  The bus trip was very pleasant, it was on a bus line we have only used once before and we were a little nervous about how it might be.  Becky and Abby come with us to see Tacna and to spend some family time with us.

We arrive in Tacna about 5:30 in the morning, go to our usual hotel.  But there are no vacancies.  We go to every hotel we know of - no vacancies.  It is the last week of summer vacation and everyone who can is visiting family and friends, and Chileans are visiting Peru.  It began to seem like we would have to run to Chile and get back to take the bus back to Cuzco the same night--not a pleasant prospect.  But, we found a taxi driver who new of a couple of nice hotels off of the beaten path and we found a nice room at a decent price.

Tammy, Chris and I check in and leave Becky and Abby to have a nap while we cross the border.  No problems with the crossing, except the prices for the taxis have gone up.  We even got a 6 month visa coming back into Peru; the immigrations lady asked us how long we wanted and why.  When we told her we are working up in the Andes, she gave us 6 months!

We spent the rest of the day and the next one touring Tacna, a beautiful city in the Atacama desert.  It was a nice time with the family.  We had bought our return tickets on the same bus line that we came to Tacna on - San Martin.  We were anticipating another easy and comfy trip.  Boy! were we ever wrong about that.
We boarded at 7:30 at night and right away we saw that the bus was older than the hills and hadn't been cleaned for a long time.  There were bags of vomit beside the seats, the bus reeked of urine and the seats were small and uncomfortable.  But we hoped to just take a Dramamine and sleep through the trip - no big problem, we thought.  It is only a 14 hour trip.

It ended up taking us 20 hours to get to Cuzco.  The driver, who was drinking chicha, a homemade corn beer the whole night, also stopped in every little burg and picked up passengers.  A little extra for his pocket, but quite against the law and dangerous, that is how kidnappers and robbers get on buses.  He also flattened 2 tires on the back left rear so the bus had an awful list to port and he drove on the flat tires until he had gotten well out of town. Then the next afternoon, going up a mountain about 15 miles outside of Cuzco, the bus coasted to a halt.  He had burnt up the clutch.  The bus line said that they were sending out another bus to pick up the passengers, but it never showed and we had to flag another bus, pay another fare and ride in the aisles to Cuzco.  We arrived just after the last seats for buses to Andahuaylas had been sold.  So we had to spend the night in Cuzco - with our money running out and waiting until the next night (Sunday) to get our ride home.

The bus pulled out of Cuzco about 8 and we were making good time until we got to the still unpaved stretch of road at about 1 in the morning. There--stuck fast, buried up to the axles in a hairpin turn blocking the whole road-- was our stuck semi.  We finally got the truck out of the mud.  Chris did a good job of getting the driver to understand about rocking the truck to get it going and by 3 am we were back on the road.  About 6 am we pulled into town, exhausted and broke, but home at last.

A Week to Remember!

Most of the Greek students - happy and eager on day 1!

I slept in the last room on the right and taught in the 1st.

Sunrise over Ayacucho

2nd and 3rd year students and faculty.

"Brother Mike, where are you.  The bus is going to leave Uripa soon".  I was sitting in the taxi from Andahuaylas to Uripa, about an hour from both towns, watching the driver repair his overheated engine.  The bus from Uripa - a minivan, or combi, actually - was going to take me to the middle of the next State, Ayacucho, where I was going to spend the week teaching Greek 2 in a seminary.  The driver got the engine cooled down and filled the radiator with water and I made it to Uripa, just in time to catch the bus, which had been waiting for me to start the 4-7 hour (depending upon the rain and road construction) trip to the city of Ayacucho.
January and February here are the rainy season, and we get TORRENTIAL rains that cause mudslides that can wash away or block roads, destroy villages and isolate towns.  As we crossed the river Pampas, which is low ground and jungle-like, the rain began to fall as we began the ascent up to the mountains of Ayacucho.  about 3 hours into the trip, just as my legs were beginning to cramp up, we came to a huayco, a fresh mudslide, that had blocked the road.  We just turned a corner and were in 2-3 feet of mud.  The driver managed to back us out of the mud - with help from another combi and some rope. I began preparing myself to spend the night in the altitude, around 15,000', with no blanket or food.  I did have a warm winter coat and a bottle of water at least. But, it was Sunday afternoon and classes were to begin the next morning, and the combi was half full of students and faculty of the seminary, so the driver decided to try another route.  We backed down the road for a couple of miles and we came to a turn off with a sign that said, "historic Inca road".  Oh goody!  A 700 year old road not made for vehicles with wheels (the Inca never invented the wheel).
We slithered and wobbled our way for about and hour and a half and finally hit the new road again and Praise God! it was clear.  We got to the seminary in time for supper.  The seminary was held in a school, with classrooms serving for bedrooms, kitchen and dining rooms and of course, classrooms.  The school was closed for summer vacation, so it was good use of a facility.  I slept in a classroom on a thin little mattress on the floor, in the same room as another teacher and his wife (from Mexico), her mother and brother, the other profs younger sister and brother who were students.  The food was typical "Andina cuisine" - potatoes, little breads, thin gruel and soup (which was mainly miscellaneous organ meat - not my favorite!).  The Mexican mother-in-law of my fellow teacher got very tired of the food and one day, I was told to eat very little supper, and after 10 pm curfew I was invited to a Mexican feast - home-made chicken tacos with home-made Pico de Gallo.  Yum!
Monday started classes.  Greek 2 turned out in reality to be Greek 1.  This seminary only functions in vacations, January and February, and they had forgotten what little they had learned last year.  It was large class - 23 students - and all but a handful were Spanish second language.  They had grown up speaking, reading and writing Quechua.  So, the majority of the students didn't even know or understand Spanish grammar terms.  But with classes from 8 am until 10 pm, we had plenty of time to work.  Eventually, all but 3 students passed the final exam and we have made arrangements for them to continue to study via email and their textbooks and I have agreed to come back next year and teach Greek 1 & 2.
On the way back, we encountered a blizzard in the altitude - snow, ice, hail, freezing rain - not falling on us but rather swirling around us.  The clouds came in from below us and were pushed up by the mountains.  The combi had no heat and I was so happy for my heavy winter coat that I bought in Ohio last year.  As we drove on we began to descend and the snow and ice turned to heavy rain.  Suddenly there was a loud roaring sound and a large chunk of mountain began sliding down to the road, with trees and boulders dislodged by the mud.  The driver stomped on the gas and we just made it, a large boulder hit the back left side of the combi and shoved us almost into the abyss on our right.  Everyone was wide awake for the rest of the trip.  We avoided one other mudslide by a few feet.  Then we had to drive through another 3 small slides, but after an exciting (I am personally a little tired of excitement!) trip I made it home safe and sound.

TOP TEN UNEXPECTED THINGS ON OUR TRIP

1.       Visas are calculated in calendar days, not business days, as we had been told. Thank you, God, that we decided to go early.

2.       A bus from a respected company can run out of gas before it reaches its destination, even in the middle of the Atacama Desert at noon.

3.       If you chomp on a dead bee in your dessert on the bus, you are just supposed to consider it proof that it was made with real honey.

4.       "Ladies of the evening" sometimes travel . . . and work . . . on buses.

5.       Even though you have relied on a bus company for years, it might turn out to be incredibly, incredibly bad.

6.       Celebrating Thanksgiving with other missionaries can be a wonderful experience, even if it wasn't what you had planned.

7.       Thunderstorms look awesome from above.

8.       The dish called Picante Tacneña is more or less chitlins in hot sauce.

9.       Two cats can completely cover a corduroy sofa cushion with cat hair in about a week if no one is there to clean up.

Coming home is probably the best part of traveling.

Prayer Request - Walter's Family

Walter Ccoicca's father is now with the Lord.  He passed away from congestive heart failure oh Friday of this week.  Theirs is generally a very long lived family and his passing away in his 70s is a real blow to them as they expected 20 some more years of life with him.  Although the end has been a while in coming they were all still hoping he would snap out of it.  Please pray for the family as they deal with this loss.

Walter, for those of you who don't know about him, is one of the Quechua teachers in the seminary.  He also teaches in various church institutes and conferences in the country.  

If you would like email Walter or send an eCard, his email address is:sebastian_rut@hotmail.com.  Keep in mind that Walter speaks and reads Spanish and Quechua.  He does not know English, but any encouragement, even in English, would be an encouragement to him.

Walter will have to cover some funeral expenses, since life insurance is not common among the Quechua Indians.  If you would like to make a donation to assist Walter during this time, gifts may be given via mail or PayPal.

Make checks payable to: Believer's Bridge Mail to: Believer's Bridge For Walter PO Box 1233 Pelham, AL 35124

Give now via PayPal:

Problem Provides Big Opportunity

The Andahuaylas Central IEP church, which is our Peruvian church home,  has long had a problem of allowing anyone who said that they were a preacher to preach, without checking their credentials or doctrine.  Allowing many people to preach is a hallmark of many Latino churches and often allows young men to hone their skills.  So  it is not uncommon for a church to have 20 or more people preach at various services during a year.  However, these are usually qualified church members.

Although Mike has taught doctrine classes, at the church’s request, with great attendance from the church members, many church officers did not attend .

All this came to a head when they let a university professor; unknown and new to town, preach several times.  He claimed to have several special revelations from God.  He was good at fundraising, and the church was building a new building and the costs turned out to be much greater than budgeted. Additionally, the church, with its majority Quechua membership, has always been looked down upon by upper class “whiter,  more Spanish” Catholics. The church officers were eager for the status that a university professor preacher might bring.

We told several of you about this man, who made up cards with the denominational logo that said he was a pastor who did miracles, healings, weddings, and baptisms.

His wild preaching was the last straw for several conservative church members. Some of these demanded that he be stopped from preaching. Others left and just joined other churches.

The loss of membership was what it took for church officers and even the local denominational officers to sit up and take notice - and to think that sound doctrine might matter more than slick talking and good fundraising skills. Their response was to limit who could preach in the church, as well as who could be invited as guest speakers. Now only local pastors, denominational officials, and Believers Bridge missionaries are allowed to preach in the Peruvian Evangelical churches.

This is great!  because It cuts out a lot of the so-called apostles and prosperity gospel teachers.

In the meantime, our invitations from other denominations have also increased!
Cayo Cardenas’s brother Zosimo who holds a degree from the seminary of Lima, is now helping out as a part-time (unsupported) missionary. He subscribes to our statement of faith, and is accepted by the churches that work with us.  He is applying to work with us as a full-time missionary.

But sadly, it’s more than we can cover.

Please pray for more missionaries, either from Peru, or the US, who can preach and teach sound, Biblical doctrine biblically.
Also pray for wisdom for us as we decide which invitations to accept and which we have to decline.

Worldview class at the Seminary

One of the students, a professional psychologist, came into the class with a totally compartmentalized mind.  As he told me afterwards;  he had placed his Biblical Christianity and his scientific work in 2 compartments in his mind.  As he worked in therapy and counseling, he would think of people as mere assemblages of blood, nerves, chemical reactions, etc, but then he would go to church where he is a youth leaders and he would try to treat the youth as if they were made in the image of God.

But it didn't work and he was getting frustrated at work and at church.  He said when I explained worldviews and showed the different ones, he began to understand that what he was doing was totally influenced by a mixture of secular humanism and post-modernism.

When we looked at the inherent weaknesses and the destinations of those world views he got more stressed and dis-satisfied , then when we looked at the reasonable, logical bases and processes of a Biblical Christian world view, everything suddenly made sense to him.  Then when we looked at creationism, it all finally and fully made sense.

He is now doing better work at the hospital where he works as a clinical Psychologist and I have heard from his youth how much better he is.  They say that it used to be like he was always psychoanalyzing them, but now he listens and has Biblical responses.

In Christ,
Mike

Andahuaylas - Talavera Landscapes

These pictures set to local music were taken quite close to our home.  One house on a hill is directly behind our house!  And many could have been taken from our upstairs window.  It really is a beautiful place to live.

Worth the Trip

"The road is closed" said the flagman, "You will have to park and climb" As I looked up the muddy and steep mountainside to the village of Manchaybamba alta, I regretted not having boots and a walking stick. We were only about an hour outside of Andahuaylas, but I had never been here before.

 Brother Martin Leon drove us there in a new minivan that he bought to take missionaries into the country. As we neared Manchaybamba Alta, we passed through the largest town in the area, Pacucha. It is named after the lovely lake it nestles beside. I was invited to speak to a denominational pastor's conference and was dressed in nice khakis, dress shoes, and a nice sweater. The view up the slope showed a muddy, slippery mess.

 I had second and third thoughts. Maybe the pastors couldn't get here because of the road, maybe they could all come down here and I could speak in the field. Maybe I could say that my heart couldn't do this, after all we were close to 13,000' up and a steep climb at that altitude could be dangerous. Maybe I could just slip and fall and hurt myself (just a little!)and I could just go home. But despite my misgivings, I climbed all the way up. Maybe I should say I slithered, was pulled, crawled and gasped and puffed up to the top.

The view was magnificent, glaciers off to one side, the big, beautiful lake Pacucha on the other and the jagged peaks of the Andes all around. The church was totally full, there were not just pastors but most of the congregations of the several churches in this area. We were late. That climb took some time! And we took seats and listened to one of the pastors preaching the book of James. I don't mean FROM the book of James, I mean the entire book. It only took about 4 1/2 hours! Then the musical guests played for an hour. Both the preaching and the singing were all in Quechua - I caught about 1/3 of what was said or sung. Then they turned the pulpit over to me.

 I was going to preach a sermon to encourage the pastors, but I felt strongly led to preach Missions. So, I preached from Matthew 9:35-38, and the Great Commission and Acts 1:8. I had a translator, but the people said that my Spanish was simple enough (I think that was a compliment!) that they didn't need to have me translated. As I spoke, several folk began taking notes, and some began to cry.

 When I was through preaching and about to close in prayer, one of the men stood up and asked me if he could speak before we prayed. Sure, why not? He basically reiterated what I had preached. Then he asked the folks, "why can't we send a missionary?" at least one to an area close. Another pastor stood up and said that the village of Pacucha desperately needed a church. Then they asked me to pray and after the prayer, one of the pastors asked everyone to remain seated.

 They held a meeting right then and there. The churches decided that they could support a missionary/church planter to go to Pacucha and plant a church. There was a young couple in the front row who had been crying just about since I began to preach. The man Cerillo stood up and said that he needed training, but that he and his wife felt called to leave their home and go to Pacucha to plant a church, but they didn't know how they could live. Another pastor said that the churches needed to support their missionary and they voted then to pay the young couple enough to live on.

Another pastor asked, but where can we plant a church there. We have no land or building in Pacucha. The young couple need somewhere to live and hold meetings. There was silence and stillness filled the church. Until an older man stood up and said that he had a building - house and store front - in Pacucha that he had been trying to sell. He said he understood now why he hadn't been able to sell it. He gave the use of the building for 2 years to the churches.

 Now I am invited back later this month to preach the inaugural sermon of a new church plant. In one afternoon these poor, country churches, heard the call, joined together to send out a worker, gave sacrificially, got a missionary couple and a location! My legs hurt from the climb, and I had a small fall on the way down, but I wouldn't have missed this experience for anything. Oh, and Cerillo and his wife will be attending the seminary to get the training that they need.

Prayer request - Tim

Please pray for our son Tim.  He was diagnosed earlier this year with Crohn's disease and is currently at home recuperating from a surgery to remove an intestinal obstruction.  He and his wife Brittney are expecting another addition to the family at the end of this month, so this is a particularly stressful time for them.  They are blessed with a very supportive church and nearby relatives who can care for Elizabeth during times like these.  Pray for us, too.  It's difficult to be in another continent when things like these are happening

We're back!

After 7 months of visiting churches in the U.S., we are back home and at work in Andahuaylas, Peru.  We flew from Miami May 16 and arrived in Lima that night.  Changing seasons from late spring to late fall was a bit of a shock, but it was good to be back in Peru. 

On the road to the Miami Airport

We stayed with Becky and Miguel for 4 weeks while we took care of some things that we can only do in Lima.  I got to teach the doctrine of the Holy Spirit at a high school, and got to meet with some folks about Christian bookstores about the possibility of somehow getting access to Christian books in Andahuaylas, and Tammy met with the directors of a language school about opening one in the mountains.  I also managed to get a nasty cold and cough, which sidelined me for a couple of weeks – that kind of put a crimp in our vacation time.  But we did get to spend a lot of time with Miguel, Becky, and Abigail.  My word, she has grown!  She is not a baby anymore.

Abby with her grandparents

Then we took the long bus trip from Lima to Andahuaylas.  There is a new bus that goes direct all the way, no need to change buses.  It is supposed to be only about 15 hours – great, huh?  However, the terminal has an outside waiting area, it was “raining” (in Lima that means a very wet fog with drizzle) and the bus was an hour late to pick us up.

Chris waiting in rain with luggage

 We found out then that the clerk had sold Tammy one set of seats on the seat selection picture and written a different set.  So we got on the bus very damp, and were confronted with folks in (what we thought were) our seats.  The bus never could seem to get the DVD player to work correctly and there was no water in the bathroom, but the seats (we ended up with the seats we wanted thanks to some nice folks) were comfortable.  The bus driver, although we were already late, was in no hurry and we sauntered down the coast.  On the best roads of the trip we made a kind of pomp and ceremony progress.  We stopped for supper after 9 pm and had a lukewarm bowl of rather foul (fowl?) tasting chicken soup for only twice the regular price. 

We crossed the cordillera of the western Andes (about 15,000’) at about 3 in the morning and it was very cold in the bus.  Outside there was more snow on and by the road than I have ever seen in Peru.  The driver, they must have changed, hurtled us through the night with reckless abandon, everything was falling and rolling around the bus – it made for some good prayer time!  About 10 am we stopped for breakfast.  Chris chanced the chicken soup again and got a good one, Tammy and I tried omelets and they were nice and greasy – shudder!  You don’t want to eat a bunch of grease when you are on twisting, winding Andean roads!  We were a little behind schedule at this time.  We were originally supposed to arrive at Andahuaylas around 9 am, but now they said we would get there around noon.

Back on the bus, now with a very hot sun beating in the windows and no air conditioning, we dashed forth once more.  It appeared that the driver was determined to make up the time.  But it was not to be.  We were stopped by police at a junction and we waited for almost an hour, no one on the bus knew why.  Speculation was rampant, maybe there is a bridge out, terrorists are on the road, there has been a wreck up ahead, the cops want a bribe – no one knew but we all had theories.

We got started again this time on a dirt road.  It is the dry season and the dust rose like a cloud of tear gas.  The sun was burning in the windows - remember that even though we are at a chilly altitude, we are still close to the equator – and the bus was HOT inside.  If we kept the windows closed, we were roasting, but if we opened them you had to put something over your mouth and nose, and even then you soon got grit on your teeth.  During this time we passed Kishuara, the highest point on the road between Abancay and Andahuyalas.  Tammy, for the first time ever got soroche (altitude sickness).

Thankfully, after a couple of hours of this, we hit pavement and knew that we were getting close, at least in distance.  That is when we hit the (what are they doing?!) road construction.  We would sit for a half an hour and crawl forward for a bit.  We finally hit the Andauaylas terminal about 4 pm - a trip about 22 hours long.  That is much quicker than the old way of two buses and around 30 hours, but it is not the 14 or 15 hours we had expected. 
But, we are home safe and sound.  It is so nice to be in our own little house!