Blessings to Everyone as you read this,
I am writing to give you an update on the status of Yurimaguas, the town that I live in, and the ministry to reach the communities for Christ. I am writing this on June 28 and on June 30 Yurimaguas is scheduled to be open. The stay-at-home order has been lifted in degrees since my last newsletter in May to where we are now allowed to leave the house at will as long as we wear a mask. Needless to say this is a huge relief as I’m sure each of you have felt as the restrictions were relaxed in your areas. I have not heard yet what “being open” will mean as far as river travel or any other travel outside of Yurimaguas since the main city just 2 ½ hours from us is now a hot spot and many of our products in Yurimaguas come from this city.
I have not heard either if public gatherings in Yurimaguas will be allowed but
businesses will be able to function more than before. We still have the
police and military patrolling the area especially around the town square and
what was the open-air market. This has now been delegated to individual
stalls that people can rent inside a building instead of having tables set up
in the middle of the street as before that attacked huge amounts of people in
very close contact with each other.
Peru has a population of 33 million people and since the start of the virus
there have been over 279,000 cases and over 9,000 deaths, at least that were
reported. The economy has suffered greatly in that 40% of the country’s
economy has dropped since the shut down order was in place. I can see the
affects of this strain even where I live in that many businesses have closed or
have reduced their trade to its minimum. The citizens are receiving
support checks from the government much like our stimulus checks that were
distributed to help with nation’s livelihood.
I have taken full advantage of the stay-at-home order in that I am taking some
online courses to better prepare myself for the work, developing a church
planting program through a discipleship method that I learned and am still
learning where disciples make disciples (as per the Great Commission), and a
radio program to broadcast Bible studies that will reach the rural
communities. All of this is very time consuming but I feel strongly that
it must be done in order to reach the lost in the most efficient, most
effective way.
The goal is to see the New Testament Church realized in the communities where I
work and beyond using the premise of the Great Commission where Jesus said to
“go and make disciples”, not converts, who will go and make disciples and those
will then go and make disciples, etc. Where this method has been done it
has been very successful and so it is my heart to implement this in the
communities of the Shishinahua River. When we are able to travel safely
again this will be first on our agenda. In the meantime I am hoping to
get the radio program up and running as soon as possible. Between another
missionary and I we already have half of the twelve Bible studies recorded and
I am working to complete the rest in between the course studies and the
preparation for the discipleship program.
I want to thank all of you so very much for joining with me in this effort to
spread the Kingdom of God to those who have yet to hear and to those who have
yet to commit. Please continue to stand in faith with me for these new
endeavors as the Holy Spirit prepares the hearts and minds of those whom He has
appointed for the Kingdom at this time. Many blessings on you in every
way as you serve the Lord in all that you are doing.
Forever
in Christ,
Sharon
Malcolm
