Peru Update

Nilton (red polo shirt on the right) teaching a Bible story in San Marcos

Nilton sharing a meal with the men of San Marcos

From the last newsletter I mentioned that I sent three people from the Shishinahua River, Nilton, his brother Richar, and Dolibeth, their niece, to Lima for training in Bible storying (orality) and that my hope was that one or all of them could come to the other river we work on to teach the Shawis there. In the above picture Nilton and his wife Paula (not shown) came with us to San Marcos so that Nilton could minister to them in Shawi with the Bible storying he learned in Lima. It was a tremendous time to see him and his wife interact with the Shawis in San Marcos and to see Nilton teach them the stories that he learned in Lima. That is what it is all about and why we are doing what we are doing. The goal is for the people in the villages be the ones who are evangelists, church planters, pastors, etc. and that goal has well begun to be realized. 

San Marcos is a small Shawi community on the Paranapura River where Maria and I started concentrating our efforts four or five years ago. Since Maria now lives and works in Yurimaguas, she is not free to travel with me as much as before but she does coordinate the trips to San Marcos and her village, which is about a 20 minute walk from San Marcos.

In working with San Marcos they expressed a desire to be a church and so we have been working to train some people to be church leaders. Recently they also wanted to build a church building and so they constructed a typical frame and then we supplied the roof.

Frame of the San Marcos church building

San Marcos church building with roof

Following this event we had our quarterly two-day training with the people from the Paranapura and Shishinahua Rivers where all three of the people that were trained in Lima helped teach the people Bible stories and they did exceptionally well (although I may be a bit biased). For anyone not used to public speaking and then having to memorize the material presented this can be very intimidating no matter how small the group is. But all three, Nilton, his brother Richar, and Dolibeth, did very well and were able to engage their listeners not only while telling the Bible story but also with asking the follow-up questions as well.

Nilton (red polo shirt) teaching Bible storying

Dolibeth (woman standing) teaching the women a Bible story
she selected using the method she learned in Lima

Richar (light blue shirt) teaching a Bible story he learned in the Lima orality conference

Miriam (red shirt and jeans), Go To Nations missionary who now
works with me, guiding the women in how to pray for one another

Antonia, Maria's sister-in-law, praying 

with Antonia from San Marcos.

Sharon teaching the women during the 2-day training

We will be traveling tomorrow (Friday, the 16th) to do a Christmas outreach on the Shishinahua River for three communities. It will involve serving the traditional hot chocolate and panatoni Christmas cakes, an art activity for the adults and children, and ending with the movie, "The Nativity Story" in Spanish. I will also bring a nativity scene to do the Bible storying of the birth of Christ so they will have a visual as well as a verbal explanation and then have them take turns telling the story. Please pray with us that hearts and minds will be open to the gospel and people will receive the gift of salvation this Christmas season.

Other news that will happen next year is, I will be sending Nilton and Richar and possibly others on their first missionary trip in May with an evangelistic ministry that will be coming to Yurimaguas for a city-wide outreach and then continue on to other locations along a major river to do the same. It will be a time of intense training (4 days) and then evangelistic outreaches in several locations. This trip's team is made up of purely indigenous tribes of Peru, instead of people from the States so this is especially beneficial for those that will participate so that they can see how other tribes relate to one another. The ones that I will be sending will have to fly to the starting destination (Iquitos) and then board a large 2-story boat where they will be trained everyday for the four days it will take to get from their starting point to Yurimaguas. Once here, they will do their first outreach and then take the boat back to Iquitos stopping along the way to repeat the outreaches in several locations. I am very excited to be able to do this with the Shawis we have worked with for so long. To see them at this point is truly amazing. They've never been on a plane before so they don't know how to navigate the airports or get from the airport to where they should meet their team so I will be traveling with them one way and the John, Miriam's husband who now works with us, will be accompanying them the other way.

I want to thank each of you for your continued commitment to this work and the people we are trying to reach with the gospel and the ones we are trying to raise up to be church leaders. It is exciting to see the people we have worked with for so long take their stand as mature servants of God reaching their neighboring communities with the gospel and actively starting new churches. This is all possible because we have joined our resources together to effect a lasting change in the lives of the people we are trying to reach. God bless you for standing with us and I pray that you have a wonderful and rich Christmas and New Year.

Together With You in the Harvest,

Sharon Malcolm

Serving with 

Go To Nations since 1998

 

Getting the New Leaders Trained

 Training New Leaders Through An Orality Conference

Some of the leaders from the San Francisco church attended this conference

Since most of the women in the villages where we work do not read and many of the men who do read do not read well, Bible storying has been a strategic way to teach the Word of God. This past August I sponsored three people from our first church plant of San Francisco to attend a Bible storying conference in the capitol city of Lima, to give them the opportunity to meet other national ministers working with this technique so they could see how it works.

L to R: Nilton, Dolibeth (Nilton and Richar's niece), Sharon, Richar (Nilton's brother)

Richar with his certificate

It was their first time going to the capitol (28 hours by bus) and the first time attending a conference like this. It was wonderful to see them interact with the other attendees from different parts of Peru to hear about their ministries and how each are ministering to their people. Each attendee then got a certificate of completion at the end of the conference (Richar is shown above with his).

The most important thing that came out of this conference was the three people I sent got the vision for this ministry to use in their communities. In fact next weekend Nilton, and hopefully Richar and Dolibeth, will be coming to the other river we work on to teach the Shawis there how to use this method since most of the people in this village do not read. This is a huge step towards getting the San Francisco church leaders to see how to reach the Shawi communities with the gospel and how to disciple them so they can grow in their faith. We have done things before to help train the leaders how to minister but this will be the first time they are going outside of their area to minister and so this is an exciting event.

Training My Local Church

Sharon doing a deliverance training workshop

One of the needs in the local church in my area is the need to know how to pray for deliverance in a healthy and biblically balanced way. Due to the high level of demonic involvement through witch doctors and superstitions many people are greatly oppressed (not possessed) by unwanted "intruders." This is especially prevalent in the village communities where going to a witch doctor is the norm even among Christians. Animism (the belief that everything has spirits) is the common world view and so many people open doors to the spirit realm that should never be opened. 

While the non-indigenous have less issues with superstitions many still go to witch doctors whenever they have health problems or anything else they want resolved. Once they come into a relationship with Christ however, they cease going to the witch doctor and go to Jesus for their needs. 

In doing this training with my local church it opened people's eyes to realize the authority that each one of us has in the name of Jesus Christ as believers. The classes dealt with the authority of the believer, forgiveness, and prayer for deliverance in a biblically balanced way. This training became a need when three youth from our church started to manifest during the worship at different times over several months. Added to that, two women in a village where we are planting a church also started to manifest during a simple worship time. Gloriously, all of these people were set free through the power of the blood of Christ and their lives have been significantly changed. Just giving people the understanding of what the enemy does and what they can do about it in Jesus' name brings a huge amount of empowerment. It encourages them to realize that they can take back areas of their lives that was dominated by the enemy due to a lack of knowledge and authority. Jesus said, "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32).

My plan is to also do this for the believers in the San Francisco church to help them realize the power of the cross in their lives and the victory they already have in Jesus' name.

I want to thank you so very much for being such a vital part of this work through your prayers, encouragement, and financial support. It is because we, as the Body of Christ, are able to link arms in reaching the unreached and discipling those who have come into the kingdom that the Lord is able to move in such mighty ways to bring transformation to people's lives. Many blessings to you in every way as you serve the Lord in all the ways He uses you.