Sunday, December 22, 2013

PERUSING PERU Newsletter December, 2013



Amazing cloud formation in the village of San Eugenio declaring the majesty of God!

           
            The follow up trips to the Shishinahua and Yanuyacu Rivers to check on the stoves that were done by U.S. teams this past summer proved to be very encouraging.  As we went house to house we found that the women were only using the chimney stoves that we built for them instead of the hazardous open fires they had been using.  This is especially good news since the toxic smoke they had been inhaling by cooking this way over time can cause severe upper respiratory problems.   The men and the women were very pleased with this new addition to their homes and were very grateful for it.  Below are three families representing the three villages that received chimney stoves.


    
                     Yarina                                               Santa Clara                                 San Eugenio


Our Young Christians Are Starting to Walk

            What was most encouraging on this trip however was the strong desire among the people for more of God.  Since the conference in early November the people of our three villages, Santa Clara, Santa Rosa and Yarina, have shown such resolve to know God more and follow Him more closely.  One expression of this was their willingness to lead a group through Scripture reading.  This is a very simple exercise where the leader would read a few verses and then ask the group what was just read.  By doing this it requires everyone to listen carefully and process what they’ve heard in order to repeat it back to the leader.  Through this everyone, including the leader, learns the Word of God.  We started this with the women earlier this year and after several days of working with them they were able to recount the birth of Christ according to according to Matthew 1:18-21 on their own.  The fact that some of the men want to take the initiative and lead a group is monumental because they had never wanted to do this before.  When they were asked in the past to do this for their village they agreed but then would not follow through with it.  Now they are excited to do it and this wonderful change came since they attended the conference. 

  
Santa Rosa:  Elies (blue shorts in picture on the left) is reading the scripture while the men listened and then translate into Shawi for the women (pictured on the right during a break).

Santa Clara:  Tito (seated with guitar on his lap) had been reading scripture to the people and asking what they just heard.

            The genuine hunger that so many of the people in these villages have for more of God was triggered by a revelation from the Holy Spirit that God is real and what He says is true.  When they realized how their lives were separated from Christ and how they are now with Christ it thrust them into a deeper, more commited relationship to the Lord.  I saw this first start to happen during the conference as they heard from different people but especially from the two Shawi pastors I had asked to come as guest speakers.  These are men who lived and thought just like the villagers did but are now totally transformed.  The cultural standards of the Shawi communtiy are no longer the measuring line for these pastors of what is or is not acceptable.  Now it is the Lord Jesus Christ through His Word that defines right and wrong for them.  As the villagers heard this and saw the life style changes these men had made it absolutely rocked their world and they wanted in on it. 

            One of things that was addressed was the custom of the Shawi community to drink a fermented drink called Masato.  This is a very strong part of their culture and is offered as a social gesture to anyone who visits their house.  However, it is most commonly used to get drunk especially during celebrations like the community anniversary, intervillage soccer games or just the weekend. 

            During one of his talks Pastor Roque was saying very matter-of-factly how he saw that drinking Masato was very wrong and simply did not do it.  The reality is that it is very destructive because it encourages men to shed family responsibilities and drink as a passtime.  Gloriously as a result of this at least one man verbally stated that he did not want to drink Masato anymore!  Others may have been moved the same way as well but he actually stated it.  Glory to God!  The fallow ground is being broken up and the soil is being plowed to receive a good seed that will produce a multitud of blessings.

            These are very exciting breakthroughs that we can truly thank and rejoice in the Lord for.  The most magnificant part is that we all have a part of what God is doing in the lives of these percious people.  This is the Body of Christ working with the Head to bring a lost world into the Kingdom of God.  Let us continue to pray and lift up these fragile believers so that they will quickly grow strong enough to stand on their own.  God bless each of you for joining in this work through your interest, prayers, encouragement and financial giving each one doing their part to complete the work.

Reaping the Harvest Together,
Sharon Malcolm

Sunday, November 24, 2013

PERUSING PERU Newsletter November 2013

Biblical Foundations Training Level One

Pastor Roque (Rocky) preaching at the training conference

We had our very first Bible training conference this past weekend (November 1 – 3) with a total of 19 participants representing the three villages of Santa Clara, Santa Rosa and Yarina.  It was an incredible time of teaching, demonstrating and practicing the Biblical principles necessary for strong, hearty growth in the Lord.  I want to thank all of you that stood in the gap for this event so, so very much.  Without your faithful intercession this could never have gone so well.
Our meetings were strategically planned to concentrate on the men, women and youth during our time together by breaking them up into groups and holding their specific training classes in different buildings on the farm.  This proved to be quite effective since each group had very different comprehension levels and this allowed us to address them appropriately.

         
         Pastor Roque teaching men              Sharon w/translator teaching women      Pastor Rufino teaching youth

            I had arranged for two Shawi Indian pastors to come and minister as well, Pastor Roque (pronounced Rocky) and Pastor Rufino, and they were absolutely amazing!  Although total opposite of each other in expression they delivered their sermons during the evening services and the training classes during the day in such a way that the people were hanging on their every word. 
            Pastor Roque is a very charismatic, dynamic speaker and incredibly free in his worship to dance and enjoy the presence of the Lord.  As he did, this broke through a never-before-challenged cultural response from the Shawi Indians that came to the training.  The look on their faces as Pastor Roque danced, jumped and shouted uninhibited to the Lord to give Him true worship was alone worth all the planning and set up for this conference.  The Lord used him to literally change the atmosphere of the entire conference through the freedom that he was expressing in his genuine worship to the Lord.  It was so out of character for a Shawi Indian to behave this way that it shocked the onlookers (even Pastor Rufino!) to the point that all they could do was stare.
            Pastor Rufino, on the other hand, is very conservative in his expression of worship and public speaking although very confident in who his God is and what his relationship to Him means.  This comes out very clearly in his mature, balanced teaching of the Word and because of this, I observed, it established a foundation of trust in the Lord that the people did not have before.

Three Shawi women came with their native hand woven skirts, headdress and string of seeds (percussion instrument) to help lead in worship.  The man in the background is also wearing typical native dress for men.


            We held five sessions a day with a church service at night teaching on how to listen/study the Bible, what is worship and praise and how to do it, what is prayer and how to do it, repentance, and several other subjects as well.  As much as possible with each lesson we had included a time where the participants were actually doing what was being taught.
            An example of this is in the photo below.  Tito from Santa Clara, standing in the background on the platform, is reading a few scriptures from the Bible and then asking the people what was just read.  Camilo, in the while shirt in the foreground one of our Christian workers, read the same scripture in his Shawi Bible so that the women could understand what was read.  While this is a very simple method of studying the Bible it forces the listeners to pay close attention to the details of what is being read in order to be able to repeat it back.  In doing this they will be able to retain what they hear longer allowing the Holy Spirit to work in their souls through the power of the Word of God.  As they get more accustomed to doing this we can move on to something more complex.

Tito and Camilo doing the Scripture reading exercise

            The conference ended with everyone being thoroughly blessed, equipped and challenged to move higher in the Lord.  I told them that we will be continuing this once a quarter to complete a total of four levels over the next year and they were very happy to participate.  The goal of these training sessions is to firmly establish them in the Word of God and in their relationship with Him so that it is clearly expressed in their daily life.  As they grow in the Lord their life’s responses will be very different than before.  Instead of going to a witchdoctor for physical healing or to resolve a conflict with a neighbor they will seek the Lord and realize their authority as a child of God to resolve these issues.
            I am so overwhelmed at what the Lord did this weekend and can’t thank all of you enough that prayed for this training.  I pray that you will be just as blessed, rewarded and encouraged at your part in this as I am in mine in seeing our brothers and sisters leap forward in their relationship with the Lord.  God bless you hugely in all that you do!

Participants with their certificates of completion and the trainers

Monday, October 14, 2013

prayer letter update

Dear Prayer Warriors,

I want to thank you so very much for your intercession while we were on the river.  The water was very low, which is typical for this time of year, and so a 9-hour trip took 13 to arrive at the villages and nearly 15 hours to get back!  We did a lot of pushing, pulling and lifting the 1 ½ ton boat we traveled in but praise God we got there and back without any injuries.

The trip proved to be very encouraging in that we were able to share from the Word of God and pray with the people in the three villages of Santa Clara, Santa Rosa and Yarina and they were very responsive.  We also told them about the 3-day conference we want to have November 1, 2, and 3 for these villages and we got a very good response to that as well.  As of when we left 18 adults and 5 youth expressed a strong interest in coming.  I will be contacting them via ham radio next week to get a final count but this is more than I expected.

The purpose of the conference is to bring the people out from all the demands of daily life to an area where they can fully concentrate on the Word of God, get trained and then use what they’ve learned in their villages when they go back.

Some of the topics that we will cover are:  how to worship, pray, listen/study the Bible, lead a meeting, what is the local church and repentance.  We are praying that as we go over all that we want to do and have them practice what they learn in each class they will become more and more comfortable and will begin to implement it as soon as they get back to their villages.

Would you stand with me in praying for the success of this conference?  My goal is to have a conference like this once a quarter to fully equip the villagers in their walk with the Lord.  In this way when the water is too low for us to come in they will be having meeting themselves and will not have to depend on us to bring them the Word of God.

Thank you so very much for your prayers, faith and commitment to this work.  I am so very privileged to be joined with you to bring in the harvest for the Kingdom of God.   God bless you mightily in all that you do.

Reaping the Great Harvest Together,
Sharon Malcolm

Sunday, August 11, 2013

PERUSING PERU July/August, 2013

           

A family in San Eugenio using their wood-burning chimney stove for the first time

            A group of eight people representing three churches came from the States to work with me in the Spanish village of San Eugenio to build wood-burning chimney stoves for 12 families.  As you can see from the picture above the stoves are very effective in containing the fire in the stove body eliminating burn accidents and dangerous smoke inhalation that the village women are normally subject to when cooking over an open fire. 

       
Team gathering tools and equipment to start the first stove together.
     
The team divided into groups to work on different houses at the same time in order to finish the stove project.
  

The Lord´s Provision


We were enormously blessed on this trip as a direct result of the combined prayer for the Lord´s protection and provision.  To start with, the mayor over the district of which San Eugenio is a part heard that we were going to one of his villages to do a stove project so he offered his boat and 60 horsepower motor to take us there.  This reduced a 10-hour trip an amazing 4-hour trip!  Next, when we got to the village we found that not only had each family correctly prepared their platforms upon which the stove would be built but they also had gotten the required amount of sand from the river´s edge so that we could start mixing cement right away to make their stoves.  Because of this we were able to move quickly from house to house as we divided into three to four groups allowing us complete all 12 stoves a full day and a half early!  This extra time gave us the opportunity to minister the Word of God to the community through children´s programs, adult Bible studies and evening church services.

  
Team members using an “Evangecube”              Children´s afternoon Bible story class followed by an activity
to tell the story of Jesus to village children.                                  to reinforce the lesson.



        
    Sharon leading adult Bible study with Daniel            Daniel (striped shirt, far right) leading Bible study himself

Maria and team leading evening worship followed by the Word of God

            The results were truly amazing as the Lord poured out His love, compassion and truth through the different ministries to the whole village of San Eugenio.  We even had the opportunity to minister to the neighboring village of Baranquita when they came to San Eugenio for a village activity then chose to stay for our evening service.  During our time together everyone who attended the services heard the Word of God and had the chance to receive personal prayer. 

The people are very open to the Word of God in this village and want very much to learn more.  Unfortunately, this community has had not one but three pastors come and go over the last several years due to moral failure or unwillingness to finish the required pastoral training necessary to fulfill this role.  Now however, there is a young man in their village named Daniel, pictured above leading a Bible study, that I had the privilege of leading to the Lord just about three years ago.  Since he accepted the Lord he has had an insatiable desire for the things of God and so when the opportunity came to him to participate in a correspondence course for pastoral training he immediately accepted it.  He is now in his third year and will finish in February of 2014.  I have already approached him with the possibility of going to YWAM for three to six months for further training and he is very open to that as well.  It is my prayer that the Lord will use him to lead his village into the greater things of the Spirit and help his people establish their faith while learning to apply the Word of God to their personal lives.  Please pray with me for Daniel and these very important next steps towards his calling.


Outreach to Cusco


            Our time together as a team culminated with a 4-day tour in the “state” of Cusco, the mountainous part of Peru where the famed Machu Picchu ruins are and the Sacred Valley.  It was an amazing tour highlighting the history of the Incas and the Spanish.  Although I had learned the history of Peru earlier this experience gave me such fresh insight into the roots of this incredible country in order to know how to minister more effectively. 

When our tour ended we still had several hours in Cusco before we had to fly back to Lima, the capitol and so we decided to have an evangelistic outreach to minister to the people.  We split up into three groups and went in three different directions praying with people and sharing the Gospel with them.  As a result at least six people prayed with us to ask Jesus into their hearts!  This is very significant because although this is an extremely Catholic country due to the Spanish conquest in the 1500´s, the original Inca beliefs have not completely died.  According to the tour guides most of the Cusco population from all classes of society faithfully and with great conviction still make sacrifices to Mother Earth including the tour guides themselves.  I was so astounded to learn how deep the mixture of the Inca and Catholic belief systems were that it drove me to pray with urgency and passion all the more for the redemption of the people of this area. 

From my experience in Cusco I feel I have gained a much clearer understanding of the people that the Lord has given me to work with and a wiser perspective on how to pray and minister to them.  I want to thank my home church in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and the supporting church in Stafford, Virginia for making this extremely important trip possible for me.  It has helped me tremendously and has given me great insight into the minds of the people.  God bless you in every way for this invaluable gift!

I also want to thank each person who faithfully stood in the gap for our time on the river.  I absolutely believe that so much was accomplished because of the strong intercession and combined faith of committed prayer warriors.  I am truly honored and blessed beyond words to be united with you in this great work of the Lord.  Together we are seeing the kingdom of this world become the kingdom of our God.


Serving With You in The Great Commission,
Sharon Malcolm

Sunday, June 9, 2013

PERUSING PERU Newsletter June 2013

Thank You For Praying

            I want to thank each of you that prayed for us during this last river trip.  I am joyfully able to say that the Lord answered our prayer and we did not have the citywide strike that was planned for late May or early June.  He also blessed us mightily with His protection as we traveled and enough rain to fill the river so that we did not have to push the boat at all to get in or out of the village except for getting stuck a couple of times on some felled trees. 

The other prayer requests for open hearts and minds to the preaching/teaching of the Word of God were met in abundance as well.  On one of our evening meetings we had just the children in attendance and the Calvary Chapel team that came from Colorado ministered with the Word of God and prayer to each one.

            At the other evening meetings we were able to minister to adults and children in the same way so that by the time we left everyone had the opportunity to hear the Word and received personal prayer.  Gloriously, we even had one teenage girl request to get water baptized which, of course, we were very glad to do.

     
Maria, a Shawi YWAM missionary, baptizing Alaina in the river.  Alaina´s mother was baptized one year earlier.
_______________________________________________________________________________
The purpose of this trip was to minister the Word of God and to build wood burning chimney stoves for each house in the village of Santa Clara.   The project went very well and we even finished one day earlier than planned.
  
 Making the stove platform
     
Mixing cement
 
 Muddy path to the other side of village
  
Laying brick for the chimney
 
Finished stove

            Our time in Santa Clara was challenging and the work was hard but the results far outweighed the hardships.  We were able to finish the stoves and minister the truth and reality of God through our love and service to the community via the stoves, the evening meetings in preaching the Word of God and through personal prayer for all who desired it.  Although this will be the last time we can get into Santa Clara before the next rainy season due to the lack of water in the river, we are planning to have a conference in September to bring in anyone interested for a 3-day intensive training on the Word of God.  We will be inviting the other villages that we have been working with as well so that as many as possible can be trained on how to study the Bible, worship the Lord, pray for others, lead a meeting and many other topics.  This will be the first time we are trying this and so please keep this in prayer.

            In the meantime we will again be traveling to the Shishinahua River with another team from the States to do more stoves in the village of Yarina.  Our dates of travel will be June 23 to 28 and I would ask your prayers for this trip as well for:
  • Safe travel since we will be taking at least two boats and the team will be split between them.
  • The conviction of the Lord upon all who hear the Word of God during our evening meetings so that true repentance can take place.
  • Sufficient rain to get in and out of the village as quickly as possible so that no time will be lost in the village in order to finish the stoves and minister to the people.
  • Anything else that the Lord lays on your heart.
I want to thank you so very much for the intercession for this work and the people.  It is without a doubt that so many have been touched, healed and come into the Kingdom because of our combined prayer.  I encourage you therefore to continue with me in prayer to see the completion of the will of God for this people.  What a privilege we have to be a part of what God is doing in their lives!  God bless each of you for all that you for the Kingdom.

Reaping the Harvest Together With You,
Sharon Malcolm

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Prayers for our next trip

Our next trip, which was scheduled for the 19th was postponed until Sunday, the 21st.  We will be going to the three villages that we have been concentrating on, Santa Clara, Santa Rosa and Yarina to minister the Word of God and pray for all who are interested.  I am especially praying for the opportunity and acceptance of concentrating on a few interested people that expressed a desire to be leaders.  If they could assume this role this will be extremely helpful because they will be able to initiate and lead meetings when we can´t get in due to the dry season and low waters.  Our dates of travel will be Sunday, April 21st to Sunday, April 28th.  Please keep us in prayer for the following:
 
1)    Safety as we travel.
2)    Divine wisdom on how to reach the villages with the Word of God that will result in changed lives.
3)    Desire from the people to assume responsibility for ministering to not only their own village but their neighboring villages as well.
4)    Anything else that the Lord shows you.
 
Thank you so very much for your continued prayer for Lucas and for the villages of Santa Clara, Santa Rosa and Yarina. One day we will have the privilege of rejoicing with our Shawi brothers and sisters in heaven!

God bless you all and thank you so much again.

Gathering in Harvest Together,
Sharon

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Healing and Rededication on the Shishinahua River

I am so thrilled to be able to share with you the tremendous things that the Lord has done on this last trip to the villages of the Shishinahua River.   It started with a direct healing for Maria, the Shawi woman that has been traveling with me since last March.  When she, her brother and their nephew arrived in Yurimaguas from their village (about 8 hours away by boat) the day before we were to leave she was terribly sick with a burning fever and headache.  I wasn't sure she would be able to travel but she insisted that she was going to make the trip with us and so before we parted we prayed together for her healing and sure enough the next day when we met to leave she was completely healed!
The next miracle happened in the village of Santa Clara.  One of the village leaders´ 1 1/2 year-old-daughter was sick with diarrhea and so he asked me if I had any medicine that could help her.  I said that I did not but I did have faith to believe for her healing and so he allowed me to pray for her.  It was one of those times when I could tell that the Lord was already answering our prayer and healing the child as we spoke.
The next day when I asked Asunsción how his daughter was he said she was fine and had no more diarrhea.  His response to what God had done for him was so mild that I had to remember that the Shawi culture does not allow for over expression when things like this happen.  He did however, share with Maria privately and in their Shawi language he said that he was really, really surprised that his daughter was healed and that it now made sense to him what we had been saying about the Lord all this time.  He understood that the Lord, and not coincidence, had healed his daughter.  Praise God!

Later that day we had our evening meeting and the daughter of the main village leader and her husband came with their 12-day-old baby.  I didn´t know that their son was sick but Asunción knew and told the father to ask for prayer since the Lord just healed his daughter.  So Tito came up and explained that their son was feverish and was not taking his mother´s milk.  It would be cause for concern if this happened in the States but out here it can be fatal if a baby is sick like this.  Once again we prayed and once again I could tell that the Lord was already touching this precious child with His healing hand as we petitioned for his health.  I was able to tell Tito after we prayed that the baby will start taking his mother´s milk now because the Lord has healed him.

We continued with our meeting, adjured and turned in for the night.  The next day when I saw Tito I asked him how his baby was and he told me that he no longer had a fever and that he had started taking his mother´s milk!  His response, like Asunción´s, was so mild that I felt that I had to get excited enough for the both of us.  I later told him that the Lord had done this for him to show His great love for him and his family and to prove to him that He is with them and will take care of them as they trusted in Him.  Tito and his wife prayed to accept the Lord the night we prayed for their son and now, the next day he was very eager to learn more about his new found faith.

The healing of his daughter and Tito's son so impacted Asunción that although he had prayed to accept the Lord with us before, now he said that he wanted to live only for Him.  He even got the rest of the village to agree to build a church building to hold our meetings instead of the school where we normally met.  He pointed out that when school is in session we don't have use of the building for the morning and afternoon meetings (which apparently he wants to continue) so a church building would accommodate this need.  He and the others even picked out a place where they want to build and so together we are moving forward to build the first Christian church in Santa Clara. 
This is nothing short of a miracle from God and clear evidence of His mighty hand moving on the hearts of the people that He has sent us to minister to.  We all have a wonderful and incredible part of this manifestation of God´s saving grace and it is changing the lives of the people that we have together labored for.  I want to thank you so much for all that so many of you have done for this work in seeing the Kingdom of God established in this area.  May God mightily bless you in all that you are doing for Him.
  
We will be traveling again to these communities to continue with the ministry of the Lord on Monday, March 18 through Tuesday, March 26.  Can we be in prayer agreement for the following points of concern so that the Lord can carry on His awesome work among these villages? 
  1. Safety as we travel against boating accidents, sickness and environmental hazards such as snakes, ticks or malaria carrying mosquitoes.
  2. Divine wisdom to know how to articulate the Bible lessons that instruct who God is, what He´s done and how to walk faithfully before Him.
  3. Passion for the things of God for all the believers so that they can apply what they are learning to their daily lives.
  4. Faith and discernment to believe for greater things than these to happen in the Name of the Lord.
  5. Anything else that the Lord shows you.
Thank you again so much for all the ways you have joined with me in this work and may He direct you to continue mightily in Him.

Your Co-laborer in the Faith,
Sharon Malcolm

Friday, February 22, 2013

Prayer letter Feb 20th

After an extended time in the States to update supporting churches on the work of the Lord and tend to my mom I am again back in Peru and ready to continue to minister to the villages that the Lord has had us concentrate on namely Santa Clara, Santa Rosa and Yarina.  This past year these precious new believers took great strides of commitment to the Lord and I am believing for even greater strides this year.  Therefore I will be traveling to these communities to continue in their discipleship from Saturday, February 23 to Tuesday, March 5.  Would you join with me in praying for the Holy Spirit to touch these lives with greater comprehension and application of the Word of God as they hear it and divine wisdom for us to know the best way to present it.  Please join with me in prayer for the following points so that we can see the Kingdom of God established in these hearts and lives:
 
1)    Safety as we travel.  Thankfully the river is very high right now due to the rainy season and so that means less trouble getting in and a quicker ride.  However, it also means that the river current will be very strong and will probably have more floating and submerged branches, logs and trees that can be very dangerous if not seen immediately.  Please pray that the boat drivers will be alert and cautious as they drive so that there are no accidents.
 
2)    Clarity of the Word of God as it is presented so that it can be understood, received and applied to daily life of everyone who hears it.
 
3)    Wisdom and sensitivity to the Holy Spirit to move as He directs in order to accomplish His full will.
 
4)    Anything else that the Lord lays on your heart.
 
I want to thank you so very much in advance for your support of the ministry in this way.  I am truly honored to be able to join with you to see the Kingdom of God established in this part of the world.  What a privilege we have to be able to be a part of it!  God bless each of you mightily as you follow the Lord for His will for your lives.
 
With Loving and Deep Appreciation,
Sharon Malcolm