Christmas Project

In the Apurimac area the poorest children are not reached at Christmas by any ministry. There has been a longstanding problem in the area that diverts Christmas gifts to other locations.

Because of this Missionary Becky Gomez Riggs (our daughter) and longtime ministry helper Yesenia Rivera are organizing a program to go directly to these children with gifts from the US and from Lima.

If you want to support their ministry you need to contact us directly. In addition, it is listed on our Fall Ministry Needs page. Here is a presentation that explains the program:

Don't miss out!

March 5, 2016 - You wake up and think of that upcoming Missions Sunday at your church.  Who were you going to contact?  Oh yeah!  Mike Riggs.  You've been wanting to hear about his ministry in Peru.  You hear that great things are happening there.

You get on your computer and go on Facebook. Let's see, Mike Riggs...  Aha!  There's his post.

"So glad to be back in Peru!"

Too late!  But he was in the US all year.  You thought there was plenty of time.

Don't let this happen to you.  If you are planning to have us speak at your church, you need to contact us and set up a date for us to speak to your church or group.

NEW: the calendar posted at the right shows what dates are currently open,

New Presentation Introducing Our Ministry and Peru

We designed this presentation for camp ministry, but it's also a good intro to the ministry and Peru for anybody.  It could be used in a missions moment as well, or possibly in Sunday School. You can  get it to play with speaker notes by clicking on the gear and selecting that.  If you want to use this and need any help please email us at missionarymike@gmail.com .

We also have presentations on the geography, transportation, and foods of Peru.  Let us know if you would like to use or see those!

Now you can help Miguel Gomez spread the gospel in Lima

MIGUEL GOMEZ is helping to plant a church in the Jose Galvez area of Lima and will be starting a children's ministry in an impoverished area in late May or early June.  He needs more support for these ministries.  Also several supporters seem to have gotten lost in the transition, so if you have been supporting Miguel (or want to start) please let us know and send your support to World Outreach.
Please pray for these new ministries and for his financial needs.

How to help. . .Cayo Cardenas run the seminary

CAYO CARDENAS is Academic Director and in charge of the seminary while we are gone.  He needs a little more support and a lot of prayer as he is also serving as Vice President of the synod of Apurimac in the Peruvian Evangelical church.
Please pray for wisdom with all of his responsibilities.
To support click here or mail to World Outreach Ministries.

Alert for supporters of Cayo, Miguel, and Walter

We've noticed that there has been a drop-off in support for Peruvian missionaries
Cayo, Miguel, and Walter.  Several people have asked where to send their support now. The answer is to send it just like our support (designate Riggs, Mike & Tammy #400), but email us one time to let us know that you are sending it for Cayo, Miguel, or Walter.

Don't send it to Believers Bridge, which is currently only handling donations for their Brazil missionaries. Send it to World Outreach Ministries, P. O. Box B, Marietta GA 30061 or donate online.  Either way, designate it Mike & Tammy Riggs, #400.  Just make sure that you notify us that your support or a portion of your support is for them.

7 Surprising Reasons to Pay Peruvian Teachers

One of our ministry's greatest needs right now is money to pay our Peruvian teachers, who are doing it all while we are in the US. 
We get some questions about this. 
Why can't the teacher just volunteer?
Why not just use gringo missionaries?
Some Peruvians even say that the teachers are "bloodsuckers."
We decided to go over our reasons. We found that Some of them may surprise you.

1. Empowering Peruvians to teach is what our ministry is all about.

This actually was a surprise to us. When we started thinking about it, we realized this:

Our teachers are not just a step on the way to getting Peruvians who are reliable men competent to teach others.
They ARE reliable Peruvians competent to teach others. 

They are the example, the first wave.
What we are doing  is empowering them to use their gifts and schooling so that others look at them and say, "That's how I wanna be."

They send the message to the notoriously  low self-esteemed Peruvians that YES YOU CAN DO THIS in a way that we never can.

Peruvians have a legendary and stubborn low self-esteem. Journalist Abelardo Sanchez Leon puts it like this:

It’s commonplace to say that Peruvians lack self-esteem. In my time, they called this feeling an inferiority complex. It seems to have recently turned into a stubborn mark of our identity. (1)

They don't believe that Peruvians have what it takes to succeed at anything. Most of them start seminary with the dismal expectation that they are too stupid to finish the program, let alone teach.

Peruvians look at us teaching and say, "Sure, a gringo can do that." But when they see Zosimo or Walter teaching, they say, "Yeah, I can do that too, and maybe even better."

As one put it, "Cayo can be the academic director now, but when we have our degrees he'll have some competition."

So an essential part of our ministry is encouraging these men to use their gifts and training.

2. They have to live in the city.

Many times people take away from our presentations in churches the idea that $80 is the average income in the Apurimac area of Peru without understanding that this is not a living wage even in Peru.

The people with this income usually are living exclusively by what they can grow and trade; even weaving their own cloth. They get along as long as they don't need to buy anything from the outside world.

Our teachers have got to live in the city.  If they lived in the country they would not be able to prepare classes and would not be accessible for planning and teaching opportunities.

And life in the city carries higher costs.  An average income in Peru in the city is $379.  Average rent is $300 for an apartment with two bedrooms, so you can see why many families are squeezing into one room apartments. (2)

Food costs money, unlike in the country. This is a fact many country people don't understand. We have lived in Andahuaylas during some major paros, or paralizations, where a mob shuts down all of the businesses until their demands for fairer prices or a change in the laws is met.

The country people never understand why the city people, mainly mom-and-pop business owners who are living day to day, don't support the paro, even when they agree with its demands. They don't understand that the city people can't eat if they don't have money.

Teachers need money to meet these higher costs.

3. They are putting in more time than you think.

Our seminary classes are typically block classes that run a month at a time for five hours on Saturdays.

That is to say that if a teacher was teaching say, New Testament Survey, he would teach every Saturday for five hours.

If his preparation and grading only take him two hours for every hour of class (an extremely conservative estimate) he is spending 15 hours a week to teach one class.

If he teaches two classes,that's a minimum of 30 hours a week, making it hard for him to work another full-time job.  This would create a significant financial hardship if he received no pay from the seminary.

4. They could be making more money.

These are men with degrees. They are qualified to teach classes in secular universities, where they would be paid more than the $100 per class that we're paying at the seminary.

A grade school or high school teacher in a state school receives $500 per month. (3) These men are qualified to teach in those positions.

Those that are pastors are usually farming on weekends to eke out their low salaries.  Teaching makes that impossible.

Those that own businesses are losing business or having to take on help. One of our teachers, Zosimo, has an oil change business. Saturdays are his biggest day, but he has decided to keep teaching because he feels God is calling him to teach.

Teaching at the seminary is no gravy train.  These men are doing it for the love of God and his church.

5. American teachers really cost more.

At first it doesn't seem that way, because an American missionary doesn't usually cost the seminary a dime.

But when you consider that many missions require $10K support per month for a family of four and compare that to the $400 we'd pay for four classes, the real cost of using American missionaries becomes apparent.

It also cost in terms of Peruvian ownership.  The missionaries of the 1950s established great works in the area, but during the time of terrorism there were not sufficient Peruvian leaders to carry these works forward.  They were too used to missionaries doing it all.

And there is the cost in morale. It has the opposite effect from reason #1.  It shows that you may study away, but you'll never know as much as those gringos. Just the opposite of what we're trying to say.

6. Our students need good teachers.

Our students come from an inadequate educational background. They haven't been to Sunday school. They don't know who Julius Caesar was or when he lived. They need good teachers who can bring them up the level they need to be.

In the four years that the seminary has been functioning, only one entering student was able to name all of the books of the Bible, and that one was a graduate of Mobile Bible Institutes.

The Peruvian Law of Religious Equality stipulates that for a pastor to have the same rights as a Catholic priest he has to have an equivalent amount of education.

These students don't need adult Sunday school. They need innovative educational approaches that will bring them up to Bible college level.

7. If the teacher isn't paid, his family suffers.

You live and learn.  We used to have volunteer teachers. They were willing to teach and lose the income.

But with the low incomes they were already receiving the loss caused the family to suffer. The kids outgrew their shoes and couldn't get new ones. Someone got sick and couldn't go to the Doctor.

Even now, one of our teachers is facing the possible loss of his home if he teaches instead of taking another job.

What can you do?

We're looking for individuals or small groups that could commit to giving $100 per month for teacher support.

Just think, for $100 a month you can inspire and educate church leaders in Peru by giving them an inspired, educated teacher.

The easiest way to do this is to click on the donation button on this page. Send us an email letting us know your donation is for teacher support.

Or send your donation to :
World Outreach Ministries
P. O. Box B
Marietta, Georgia 30061.   Be sure to mark it #400 MIKE & TAMMY RIGGS- TEACHERS

Sources:
(1) Sanchez Leon, Abelardo. "Paolo Guerrero and Peruvian Self-Esteem." Peru this Week. 13 June 2012. Web. 24 Apr. 2015.

(2) np. "Cost of Living in Peru." Numbeo.com. Apr. 2015. Web. 25 Apr. 2015.

(3) Rodriguez, Sabrina. "Sabes como es trabajar de profesor en el Peru?" Publimetro.pe. 3 July 2014. Web. 25 apr. 2015.

Couples Ministry - A need that hasn't gone away

I posted this story several years ago.
I'm reposting because the need hasn't gone away, and we've recently talked to several people interested in this.
One of the needs here is a ministry here to couples. (So anyone who is looking for a ministry to couples...here's a call....)
This past weekend shows the urgency of the need.
On Friday night Sister Tila from the church came to visit us. She is a lovely older lady who has a ministry of visiting the sick and praying for them. She is illiterate and takes a box of Bible promises to share. The person draws a promise from the box and reads it aloud. This is how she shares Scripture with them. She came to visit us to ask us to set up a time of counseling with a troubled couple.
She also shared some of her testimony. She and her husband had a bad, but typical marriage for this culture. They were in a remote village working their fields and tending their cattle, and she decided that she could not stand the physical abuse any longer. (Domestic violence is so common in the mountains that in Lima if you hit a coke machine or something out of frustration it is called "mountain love.") While she was looking for an opportunity to run away with their daughter, an evangelical christian came to the village. One day she was with her husband and they saw the evangelical christian family together. They were seated on a bench. The woman was asleep, holding the baby and leaning on her husband. It was a sweet family picture.
Tila said to her husband, "Look at this, everyone in this family trusts each other. The woman is leaning on her husband because she trusts him to care for her. I wish you were like this evangelical. Instead you beat me so much that I am ready to leave you! Why can´t we be like this family?"
Sometime later she had her opportunity. She put on all the clothes that she could, took the daughter, and started to make her escape. She came down a narrow path and there was her husband. There was no way around him without falling off the mountain.
"Where are you going?" he shouted, while still at a distance.
"I am leaving you. I am going to work like a man and care for my daughter. I don't want to be beaten anymore. "
"Don't leave me!" He took up two sticks from the ground and made a cross. "I swear to you by this cross that I will be an evangelical from now on!" So she accepted his promise and they looked for an evangelical church to find out how.
The next day we already had an appointment to do premarital counseling with a couple. (At the moment we are the only ones doing this. (We will be conducting a workshop for pastors sometime on this subject.) In the morning the girl called to ask if we could make time for a troubled couple right after their appointment.
It turned out to be the same couple that Sister Tila was asking about. They are not believers, and although they have been married three years, they work in different towns and are only together on the weekends. (A common situation for teachers here, as the department of education assigns them to whatever district out in the country and they consider themselves fortunate just to have a job.) It is a situation that begs for trouble and the woman was desperate for help. She is sure that her spouse is unfaithful .
We are doing all we can, but we have only a little time that we can dedicate to this ministry. Please join us in praying that God will raise up couples for this much-needed ministry, Americans and/or Peruvians.

US TRIP SCHEDULE: We can visit you!

When we are not scheduled in another location, we will be at home in DeRidder, Louisiana.

Dates	Area	Churches  Scheduled
March 1-8	Central & South Alabama	March 1 - Heritage Baptist, March 8 - Salem Presbyterian
March 11-15	Creston , Iowa	Crest Baptist
March 16-19	Omaha, Nebraska
March 21-22	Henderson, Louisiana	Henderson Bible Church
April  10-12	Baytown, Texas	Baytown Community Church
April 19		Elk Ridge Baptist
April 26	Beaumont, Texas	Beaumont Bible Church
May 14-21	Trip to Peru for Seminary Graduation
May 24	Kinder, Louisiana	Kinder Bible Church
June 8-14	Samson, Alabama	Camp Victory
June 22-28	Reeves, Louisiana	Camp Pearl, Reeves Bible Church
July 12	Leesville, Louisiana	Grace Bible Church
July 26	Moss Bluff, Louisiana	Moss Bluff Bible Church
July 26 - August 3	Peru regional IEP Youth Conference and lead Mission Trip from Lima to the Andes.
August 4-31	Reserved for family events & vacation

 We will be here through February of 2016, so there is still time to schedule a visit.

2 IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS PART 2

2 Important Announcements (Part 2)

Second Announcement:

As the SEA becomes independent, we are also changing our Mission Board. Believers Bridge is a Mission that provides a bridge for crossing from a need to a solution. That work in regards to the SEA is done, we will not be working here as part of a “foreign” board, we will be working with the SEA.

It is like a church planting a daughter church. There comes a time when the new church becomes independent. There is still a very special relationship between the two churches and there always will be. But the new church is a real stand-alone church. In much the same way, Believers Bridge has planted, nurtured, cared and provided for the SEA, but now the SEA is stepping out into the world. It is a proud moment for all of the parties.

As far as our relationship with Believers Bridge, it is coming to an end this month. Although in some point in time we may work with them again in starting a new work. We are burning no “Bridges”.

We are happy to announce that we have a new Missionary Agency assisting us, with administration and office work in the US! World Outreach Ministries, Inc. will serve as our home office. They will send Tax Deductible receipts to our supporters and facilitate Online donations from anywhere in the world

2 WAYS TO DONATE

1. Online Donations 

www.WorldOutreach.org/donations

Select Mike & Tammy Riggs #400

(USA & International Cards accepted)

2. Mail Checks to 

World Outreach Ministries

P.O. Box B

Marietta, GA 30061

(designate for Mike & Tammy Riggs #400)

We want to make it clear that we are continuing and even EXPANDING our ministry in Peru.  This

is just an administrative step that will help us in many ways.

WE THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR LOYAL PRAYERS AND SUPPORT AND THANK GOD FOR YOU ALL ALWAYS!

   

2 Important Announcements! (Part 1)

First Announcement:

 In 2007 we began to work with Believers Bridge, Our one over-riding goal  was to do whatever God would lead us into in such a way that the work would be able to be a Peruvian ministry.

 That was behind all we did as the Lord led us to found the Evangelical Seminary of Apurimac (Seminario Evangélico de Apurímac or SEA) in 2011.

We are proud to say that the first big step into this independence has been taken! In December of 2014, the staff, faculty and students of SEA voted to elect their first Board of Directors.

• Mike will remain for at least two more years as the General Director 
• The SEA has yet to become fully self-supporting 
• (like all colleges will always need donations, but the goal is for the funds to come from Peruvian sources in the future).
•  The new Board is in the process of putting the SEA in line with other Peruvian Institutions, so: 
• The SEA will be formally recognized as a degree granting college, and will be able to get State benefits (access to statewide education funds for improvements, for example).
•  The SEA will also be able to receive items from abroad without paying exorbitant taxes or risking the impounding of said items.

It is as if our child has gotten her first job and we are so proud of the leadership of the new Board. Step one has been taken.

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.