A team from my home church in Bethlehem, PA came to Peru in mid June to work with Maria and I (Maria is the Shawi missionary that's been working with me for 6 years) to do six bio-sand water filters in the village of San Francisco. The 8-day trip was an arduous 13 hours up and 13 1/2 hours back of pushing and pulling a 2-ton boat over a sand-bottom river because the water was so low. But praise God, we made it and we were also able to visit the villages that we normally work with of Santa Clara, Santa Rosa and Yarina.
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| Sharon explaining why water filters are important to the families that will receive one |
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| Team washing sand with villagers to make water filters |
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| Village woman putting river water in filter to be filtered |
While we were working on the water filters in San Francisco Maria's brothers were working with one of the men in Yarina to build a church that we had been planning on doing for quite some time. The initial phases of the church were completed on this trip and although the building is not finished yet it is now ready for use. We will be continuing to work on this project but we would like to wait to see the response of the people first to see if they will come. This is our first church building on the Shishinahua since I've started working with the villages in 2007! Praise God for His goodness.
The village of San Francisco is a community that I had worked with several years ago but had to stop because of lack of interest. Recently however, the people have been responding much more and so we've started to work with them again. Our heart is to not only evangelize but to equip and mobilize new believers to reach their own people with the Gospel and then disciple them on a regular basis. Since this village has heard the Gospel through us and maybe others, there are a couple of hopeful men that prayerfully will take up the charge of being advocates and trainers for the Gospel.
To prepare people for this we have an intense 5-day training in the town where I live called Yurimaguas and we invite every family from all the villages to come. Their travel in and out, food and lodging are provided for while they're with us. We've been doing this for three years and it has proven to be a very effective tool to bring the light of the Truth to the people in a personal way.
We will having our next training July 28 to August 1 and so I would ask you to please keep us in prayer for this event. Would you join with me in praying using the following prayer points?
- As stated earlier the river water is very low so it will be difficult for the people to get out but please pray that they will come anyway.
- Complete safety as they travel back and forth to this event.
- That the Holy Spirit will touch hearts and open minds to receive all that He has for them so that they can be ministers of the Gospel to their people.
- Divine wisdom and discernment for us as teachers, in knowing what and how to present the material in the most effective way. The teachers are: Maria, Pastor Rufino and Sharon
- That the children and youth will be touched powerfully by the Holy Spirit as well so that they become carriers of the Word to their peers.
Thank you so much for your commitment to pray and see God's glory revealed in the lives of these precious people. It is our mandate to "go and make disciples of all peoples" and that is what we are striving to do. As we work together we will see this come about. God bless you all for all that you are doing for this work and everywhere else that the Lord has you minister.
Forever In Him,
Sharon Malcolm
