The Ashénika Tribe

The Ashénika village called Santa Rosa

     According to the Joshua Project, which is a data-collecting ministry of all the unreached people groups in the world for the purpose of praying for salvation, the Ashénika tribe has a population of 58,000 people.  Only 2% are reached with the Gospel.  Through a series of contacts I was able to visit one of the Ashénika villages called Santa Rosa and minister the Word of God to them.  The response was very positive and the people showed a great hunger for the Lord by praying to accept Him as their Savior.

     I was able to make a second trip in December to bring Bibles and short Bible studies for the people to continue in their walk with the Lord.  The Church of God has started a work with this community in the past and has been training a man named Juaneco in the village to be able to lead the people in the things of God and has plans to build a church in the community.

Juaneco handing out Bibles to the new Christians in Santa Rosa

People of Santa Rosa with their new Bibles and Bible studies

      I will continue working in this village with Juaneco and the Church of God to help the community with their growth in Christ and visit other Ashénika villages as well.  Our purpose is to train up more people in the villages like Juaneco to reach their communities with the Gospel and disciple new believers.

     

    We also are continuing to train the Shawi Indian villages that we have been working with since 2007 to raise them up to be leaders in their villages to evangelize and disciple their own people as well.  This past November we had a 3-day training on how to study the Bible using 3 simple methods. We then used these methods to study the birth of Christ, His baptism and His resurrection.  After examining the Scriptures in this way the people were able to explain all of these on their own.  Our goal was to teach these methods so that they can continue using them with their people when they return to the their village.

Participants of the 3-day training on how to study the Bible

     I want to thank you all so very much for standing with me in this work through your prayer, encouragement and financial support.  As we combine our resources to reach and train the communities we are seeing more and more fruit for the Kingdom of God.  I pray rich and abundant blessings to each of you for this Christmas and New Year.

Sharon

9 Water Filters Completed in October 8^th

for the Cocamarillo Indians

Cocama-Comacamilla Indians of the village of October 8th

                       The trip to the village of October 8^th was a glorious success in that we finished 9 of the 11 bio-sand water filters we set out to do.  The remaining two will be done by one of the village leaders because the families were not able to wash their sand while we were there.

People washing sand for water filters

Carrying washed sand to their house

          The process of doing a project like this allows us to form lasting relationships with the people in the village and have the opportunity to witness and pray with each family as we install their water filters.  This was the case in this community and the result was that two more families prayed to accept the Lord!

Testing the flow rate of the filter and then praying with this family to accept Christ.

           On my first visit several people of the 16 families that live in this village asked Jesus to come into their hearts and I left them with Bibles and short Bible studies to do together since there is no pastor or church and some were actually doing it. 

            The next visit brought in a few more to the Kingdom and this visit brought still more.  The seeds that are planted with each visit need to be watered and cared for in order for them to take root and grow.  This is what I am praying for with the village leader who is the only strong Christian in this community who’s name is Melchizedek.  This man had a very dramatic conversion and so after only living in the village for two years he not only has a heart for the people but was actually elected by them to be one of their village leaders.  He has proven to be a wonderful example of integrity and commitment to the Lord, his family and his community and so it is my prayer that the Lord will continue to use him to reach these precious people with the Truth and lead them in the things of God.  Please keep Melchizedek in prayer with me so that he can be the spiritual leader as well as the physical leader for this village.

            We will be traveling again next Monday, November 14 to the 18^th to the Shishinahua River to meet with and invite the villages that we have been working with to the 5-day training that will start on the 19^th.  Would you keep us in prayer so that as we travel we will be safe under the  mighty hand of the Lord?  Also, so that everyone will receive all that the Lord wants to give them through this training and that it will be presented very clearly to the people so that they can understand and use what they are learning.

            I want to thank each of you who are standing in the gap with me for this work through your prayers, encouragement and financial giving.  I pray the Lord's blessing on you in every way as together we share in the reward of the Savior's suffering through seeing souls come into the Kingdom.

Your Co-laborer in the Harvest,

Sharon Malcolm

Reaching Out to Other Tribes

            After much prayer and soul searching for these last several months the Lord has opened doors for me to reach out to other Indian tribes here in Peru.  While the need to continue with the Shawi communities we have been working with is desperate the same is true for those tribes who have never heard the Gospel message yet.  Therefore, I am asserting my efforts to reach the less-reached villages as well.

            Since May I have been able to visit and work with three different Indian groups in bringing the Gospel message to them or help train them for evangelism.  In May I joined with another American missionary to help him and his team do a 5-day oral training for the Condozi Indians, in August I went to minister the Word of God to the Cocamillrio Indians (not sure of the spelling), five hours north of where I live.  Last week I met an Ashéninka village and in the New Year I will try and make contact with the Maijuna Indians.  I also had the chance to meet another Shawi village, which I visited on several occasions with Peruvian teams to minister the Word of God.

Ashéninka Village of Santa Rosa, a two-day travel from my
house to this village by plane and car.

Health post of the village where the nurse lives and where I stayed
while in the Ashéninka village of Santa Rosa.

            The most effective way to reach these tribes is through tribal members who have accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior.  I have seen how much of a quick and forceful impact they can have on their own people when they stand for Christ.  Therefore, my goal is to locate these people, help develop them with any resources I have and help mobilize them to reach their neighboring villages.  There are pastors and missionaries that are working toward this end and so I am trying to connect with them to help in the process.

            This December I will be traveling back to the Ashéninka village that I just visited for the first time last week to help the only Christian man in this community put a roof on a church he wants to build for them (I will do this financially not physically).  I was encouraged to hear that both he and the village leader said that the community wants to hear about the Word of God and wants to have a church to be able to meet in.  With that in mind I took the opportunity to ask the school director if I could share at the grade school about the life of Christ.  I was granted permission and after the talk I ask how many would like to pray and ask Jesus to come into their lives and all of the children prayed with me.  I realize that the Lord will have to solidify this commitment with clarity and understanding but I know that He has planted some very fruitful seeds in their hearts through this encounter.

            Later that night we invited the community to see a movie called “The God Story” which goes from Creation to the White Throne judgment.  While not everyone in the community came out there were about 35 who did and most of them stayed for the whole movie.  When it was finished I shared what Jesus had done for them and how much He loved them then asked how many wanted to receive Him as their Lord and Savior.  Gloriously everyone who was there did, which was about 20 people.  It was clear to me that the Lord was truly moving on their hearts and so I said that I would come back in December to bring some Bibles for each family and also fund the roof for the church that Janeco, the only Christian there, wants to build.

            

      I tell you all this so that you can see that together we are really breaking ground in other tribes and in so doing helping to close the gap of the unreached or less reached people groups in Peru.  According to the Joshua Project, a data collecting organization on unreached people groups in the world, the Ashéninkas have a population of 58,000 and only 2% are reached with the Gospel.  The other tribe I that mentioned, the Maijuna Indians, have not been reached at all yet.  As we join together in prayer, physical resources and human resources we can effectively reach those who still have not heard the Gospel message.  With that in mind would you stand with me in prayer for the following trips so that the power of the Gospel will be shown and people will be brought into the Kingdom?

Nov 2-6:  Cocamillrio Indians to make 11 water filters for some of the families in their community and to present the Gospel.  Their village is called “October 8” (probably named after the date they were officially a legal entity).  Please pray that their hard hearts will be soften by the love of Christ and they will be moved to the point of surrender and acceptance of His incredible love and forgiveness.

Nov 10-14:  Shawi Indians on the Shishinahua River to coordinate our next 5-day training and do some discipleship classes with the three villages that we have been working with, Santa Clara, Santa Rosa and Yarina.

Nov 18-22:  5-day training on how to disciple new believers.  This would be a follow-up session on the last 5-day training we did on how to evangelize.

Dec 1-4:  Ashéninka Indians to bring Bibles, fund a roof for the church, minister the Word of God and visit a new Ashéninka village with a Shapibo Indian pastor.

Dec 6-Jan 22:  Travel to the States visit supporting churches in Florida, Colorado, Virginia and Pennsylvania as well as visit family for the holidays.

I want to thank all of you who stand with me in prayer for this very important task of reaching the lost for the Kingdom.  May the Lord bless you in every way.

Your Friend Always,

Sharon Malcolm

Dear Prayer Warriors,

During the lull of the dry season when the river is too low to visit our Shawi Indian villages I have been visiting two other communities in the meantime to establish relationships.  One community is called Ocho de Octubre (October 8th) and are Cocamarilla Indians (not sure of the spelling) and the other is called Charapilla and they are Shawi Indians.  Both have a need to hear the Gospel and both have already made an initial response to the beckoning of the Lord to come into His Kingdom.

I will be traveling to both of these villages this week to continue the work and this time Pastor Rufino and Maria will be joining me to visit Ocho de Octubre.  Our plan on this trip is to minister in a local church that is about a 15-minute walk from the village as well as minister in the village through discipleship lessons and prayer.

Sharon walking from Charapilla with team

The team ministered in the Word of God and
personal prayer for this small community of
16 families resulting in 7 salvations.  

Our team on this trip L to R:  Rufino, his sister, niece and wife and Maria
(Shawi missionary who has been working with me for 6 years) walking to Charapilla

My trip to Charapilla this time will be to bring in a man from another ministry to evaluate the land in the village in order to determine how he can provide clean drinking water for the community.

I am praying for both villages, October 8th and Charapilla, to be firmly established in the Kingdom of God through His saving grace and that a viable church can be planted in each community since there is not one present at this time to nurture and care for the new believers.  Would you stand in prayer with me for these precious souls?  Several in both of these small communities have prayed to accept Christ as their Lord and Savior but without proper discipleship and leadership continued growth in their faith would be very challenging.  The dates and prayer points are listed below to help guide you in your intercession.

Charapilla:  Wednesday, October 5; 3 of us will be traveling:  Jorge, the man who will dig a well; Josué and I.  We will go and come back the same day.

October 8th:  Saturday, October 8-12;  Rufino, Maria and I will be traveling to minister in a church and in the village for 4 days.

1)  Safety as we travel to both villages.

2)  Wide open hearts in each person as they hear the Word of God so that they can be truly impacted by the Gospel.

3)  Divine wisdom from the Lord as we minister to know how to present the lessons clearly and simply.

4)  Clear weather as we travel, especially as I travel to Charapilla since it requires an hour and 40 minute walk through the jungle.

Thank you so much for joining with us in this wonderful opportunity to reach the lost for the Kingdom.

Your Co-laborer for the Harvest,

Sharon Malcolm

Dear Prayer Warriors, Family and Friends,

            I just wanted to give you a quick update on the wonderful doors the Lord is opening for the Gospel to go forth in other communities and Indians tribes.  Last month I made contact with an Indian tribe called the Kocama Kocamirlla (not sure of the spelling) through an Indian advocate office here in Yurimaguas.  This office steps in to help settle land disputes between villages and when I went to speak to them about going to some of the Indian communities they work with it just so happened that there were two men from one of their villages that were in Yurimaguas at that time.

            I had the chance to meet with these men to tell them what I do and it turned out that the only Christian in that village was one of the two men sitting in front of me.  His name, appropriately enough, is Melchizedek.  We made plans for me to visit their village the following week, which I did, to have a community meeting to discuss doing a water filter project for each family in the village.

            During the community meeting I had the opportunity to explain who I was and why I was there which led into the Gospel message.  We did not have the chance to lead people in prayer to accept the Lord at that time but Melchizedek set up an evening meeting to have a Bible study and several from this small village of 16 families came.  There, several adults accepted Christ as their personal Savior and Lord!

            The next day we had a children’s meeting for the same purpose and several children also accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior.  While there is no church in their village there is one about a 15-minute walk from their community, which just happens to be a church plant of the church I go to in Yurimaguas!  In fact, my pastor just came back a few days ago from visiting them!  Melchizedek, his family and apparently several of the children attend this church but the community, as a whole does not.

            Our plan is to go back to this village called October 8, and do the water filters, minister the Word of God and also minister in the church that is 15 minutes away. (I know this is a very odd name for a village but it’s very common to name a village after a date.  It could be the date the village came into existence.)

            The next opened door to minister in other villages came through a pastor friend, named Elwin, who had been telling me about a Shawi Indian village not far from his house (“not far” is an extremely relative term) that has no church and so we made plans to visit that village as well, which we did this past Saturday.

            To get there it took me a 45-minute car ride over an asphalt road to get to Pastor Elwin’s house.  Then a 45-minute forgon ride (a three-wheeled car with a pick-up bed in the back) over a very bumpy dirt road and an hour and 45 minute walk through the jungle only to find that the meeting that we were supposed to have was not communicated well enough and so hardly anyone was there.  This did give us a chance to rest and have lunch though before we could meet with those that were present.

            As it turned out there was a visiting family from another village who’s mother was very ill with severe pain in her shoulders, arms, hands and legs.  According to the daughter she had been that way for the last three months and was not able to get up and move about in her daily life without a great deal of pain.  She had gotten some shots from the doctor to relieve the pain but it was not able to cure it.  The daughter asked Pastor Elwin if he had any pain medication or shots that he could give to her mom but since he didn’t he said we could pray for her.

            We went right next door to where the mom was and she was lying on some wooden boards they used as a bed for her.  She appeared to be in a great deal of pain so Pastor Elwin read a Scripture to her and the family and then prayed.  When he did God’s power to heal was present and so when he finished I asked her if she still had pain.  She said she did so we prayed again taking part by part of her body that had pain and each part got healed.  When we finished with her upper body she could sit up without pain and raise her arms over her head, which she could do before.

            Then we started with her lower body.  We prayed for her lower back and especially her very swollen right knee.  As we prayed successive times I could see the swelling in her knee go down and Pastor Elwin had her stand up and walk around.  She was weak at first but was able to walk, which she could not do before.  The more she walked the better she got.  Her upper body became more mobile as well so that she could raise her arms much easier and much higher than when she first got healed.

            Pastor Elwin then led the whole family to the saving knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!  We made plans to go back to this village as well in two weeks to continue with the Word of God.

            I tell you this so that you can rejoice with me in the salvations and the manifestation of the presence of God to show Himself strong to a people who have not known Him before.  As we stand together in prayer to reach these communities who sit in darkness the Gospel is going forth and people’s lives are being changed!  This is real and it’s because the Body of Christ is joining hands together to form a long link to reach those that were once unreachable.  I want to thank you so very much for taking your part in this work seriously enough to pray for the lost to come into the Kingdom.

            I also want to strongly encourage you to pray for those around you who do not know Christ that the Lord will give you opportunity to share the Gospel with them.  You may very well be the only Light they will ever have the opportunity to see and know.  God bless each of you for all that you are doing for the Kingdom.

In Him and for Him Forever,

Sharon Malcolm

Amazing 5-Day Training

Sharon and Pastor Rufino teaching a class during 5-day training

      In spite of low attendance due to the river water level which prevented several families from coming in, we had an amazing 5-day training!  The emphasis was on discipleship and evangelism.  We taught people how to write a brief testimony of how they came to Christ, how to explain the Gospel to unbelievers and how to lead someone in a prayer to accept Jesus as Lord of their lives.  We also had the privilege of having Pastor Dale Hewitt and Greg Abernathy from Grace Church of Fredericksburg, VA join us to teach all of the Christian growth and discipleship material.  The purpose of the classes is to help young believers understand what the Lord has done for them and then be able to share that with others.

     To help facilitate this we broke off into pairs (pictured above) to practice sharing the testimonies, the salvation message and leading someone in a salvation prayer.  This process greatly helps reduce the intimidation that people feel when trying to share their faith.  The more prepared and comfortable they are the easier it is for them to tell someone what the Lord has done.  This is vitally important for the Shawis on the Shishinahua River because when the river water is too low and we can't get in they must be able to share their faith with clear understanding and conviction of the Holy Spirit.  Our goal is to bring them to a point where they are the evangelists and disciplers of their people and we are just brothers and sisters who help them in their work of the Lord.  We have already seen this begin to happen in some of the villages.  One man has been holding regular Bible studies in his home for his family, in-laws and anyone else that wants to join them.  Ignacio, a man in another village asked us to help him build a "house of prayer" so that he could invite the neighboring villages on either side of him to come to church, which we finished the basic structure in May.  A man named Nilton, who came to the training lives in one of the neighboring villages of Ignacio and has identified him as a leader and contact person for ongoing meetings in the new house of prayer.  Nilton also expressed a desire to start Bible studies in his village as well.  There are many other incidences like this happening among the people in different villages as a direct result of what God has done in their lives which stimulates a desire to know Him more.  These are the beginnings of the rumblings of a mighty move of the Holy Spirit as we continue to train and equip the villagers with as much knowledge, practice and prayer as we can give them. Please continue to pray with us for the full manifestation of the saving grace of our Lord in these communities so that they can be the advocates for the rest of the villages that have yet to hear.  

     Immediately after the training we went to Maria's village of Varadero so that Pastor Dale could perform a joint wedding ceremony for five couples.  Maria is the Shawi missionary who has been working with me for 6 years and co-pastors a church in her village.

     The Shawi culture does not have wedding ceremonies as we do in the States. Instead they come together through an agreement with the parents of couple.  In the past these "unions" were arranged by the parents and not necessary motivated by a love relationship from the couple.  While this is still the case today more couples are together because they chose to be rather than because of an arranged union.  When the Shawi come into Christ however, they have a desire to be married in the eyes of the Lord through making a public confession of their commitment to their spouse before God and the Church and so they often ask for a pastor to marry them.  This was the case in Maria's village where five couples from her church wanted to get married and so when Maria asked me if Pastor Dale could do the weddings we were very eager to accommodate them as is pictured above.

     This is one of the five couples that got married, Jonie and Alcidia with their daughter.  Although they have been together for a few years already they have just now gotten married.  For special occasions the Shawi women paint their faces, hands, legs and feet with a black ink that comes from a plant and lasts 7 to 10 days.  Their skirts are handwoven and the necklaces are made of tiny beads that are strung together to make very intricate designs as shown in the elaborate necklaces that Alcidia is wearing.  The headdress of the women and the criss-cross torso fitting for the men are pom poms woven together and often the women add colorful bird feathers to further adorn their headdresses.

      After the wedding ceremony there was a time of refreshment and later an evening church service to celebrate the events of the day.  Some of the Shawi women choreographed some dances that they often use as part of the worship in their regular church services.  This is very unusual for Shawi women to be so publicly demonstrative but again, it is the result of a changed life that has been set free by the power of Christ and we were so privileged to be able to see this.

      As if the weddings and church service were not a tremendous enough experience for us we also had the privilege of baptizing four new Christians from Maria's church the next day!  It was a very full time of ministry and opportunity to express the love of Christ to our Shawi brothers and sisters.  I want to thank all of you so very much who stood with us in prayer during this time.  Every event was extremely significant and will produce lasting and abundant fruit to years to come. God bless you in your part in this ministry and please take the time to give praise to God for what He has done through you in this amazing work.

Forever In Him,

Sharon Malcolm