August newsletter

Training Session for the men

Maria, Rufino and I rotated through each of the 5 sessions per day of the 3-day training teaching the men who could read, those that couldn't and the women so that each group received all that God had for them.

I want to thank you all so much for praying for us for our three day training this past weekend. It went very well and I am pleased to say that everyone seemed "full" by the time they left.

These trainings have proven to be very effective because when the villagers come they are completely relieved of all of their daily responsibilities of farm work, child care, food gathering and preparation and water collection. Since all of their meals are provided for and there is child care the only thing they have to concentrate on is the Word of God and all that God wants to do in them.

The goal of this training is to prepare and equip the believers with a firm foundation and how it applies to them so that they can share it with others. I have been encouraging them that they are the best ones to tell the people in their villages about the saving love and grace of Jesus Christ since they live right there and the people already know and trust them.

It is still quite intimidating for them to share their faith but little by little they are becoming more comfortable with it. In fact one man wants to build a church in his village,  so that we have a meeting place when we come and also to accommodate a neighboring village who does not have a church either. Already they are thinking outside of themselves and toward others, praise God!

Eloisa teaching 5, 6, and 7 year olds

Carola teaching 8 to 15 year olds

At the end of our time together I asked if everyone would like to have the training last for five days instead of three and they were in hearty agreement. We also planned to have a three week training in February when the children are on summer vacation so this was very encouraging. We want to do all that we can to give them all that we have so that they can be strong, viable Christians that will stand in the midst of any trial. I want to thank all of you that stood in the gap for this training and for every other activity that we have been engaged with in this ministry. It is because of this that the people have risen to this level of commitment and interest in the things of God. May the Lord richly bless each of you for your very vital part in this ministry.

Prayer for 3-day training

I want to thank you so very much for your faithfulness to intercede for this ministry. The Lord has moved mightily through our combined intercession in reaching the lost with the Gospel and discipling the new believers in the Word.

I would like to invite you again to stand with me in prayer for the upcoming event starting this Saturday. It is our quarterly 3-day training in the Word of God for the Shawi Indians that we work with

We will be bringing them in from their villages to participate in the classes for three days starting Saturday, August 1 and ending on Monday, August 3.  It will be an intense time of learning for them but one that is desperately needed to be able to stand against sin and compromise and grow in their faith and understanding of Who God is and what He's done for us. Therefore if you would please pray for us during this time so that:

1.  the Lord will open the minds and hearts of all who come so that they will make a decision to follow Him with all their hearts, souls, minds and strength.
2.  We, as the facilitators, will communicate clearly the content of the lessons and that everyone be able to grasp the meaning and application of what we are teaching.
3.  Everyone will be safe as they travel to and from their villages. We have people coming from two other rivers as well so we ask the Lord's blessing of protection on them as they travel.
4.  The child-care workers will be creative and articulate in presenting the Word of God so that all the children, no matter how young, will receive from the Lord.
5. Everyone will walk away satisfied with what they gained at the training so that they will come back when it is offered again.

Thank you again for your ministry of intercession for the Shawi Indians and may the Lord richly bless and keep you in all that you do.

Standing With You for God's People,

Sharon Malcolm

July Newsletter

Traveling the rivers to minister to the Shawi Indian communities

I want to thank all of you so very much who prayed for us during this last river trip. I am very happy to report that there were no mishaps, near accidents or low water that would have made travel more difficult. This was actually quite a relaxing 10 hour trip going up and an 8 hour trip coming back. Praise be to our God!  Although this river, called the Yanuyacu, has many curves and can be very difficult to navigate a 2-ton boat that is more than 30 feet long the boat drivers did an excellent job of getting us there and back safely and soundly.

Our 3-day training on the Authority of the Believer went very well also. The village where we ministered is called Nueva Papaplaya and it is mostly a Spanish village. It has a strong church and the pastor is a friend of mine and so we’ve done several projects of water filters and wood burning chimney stoves for his people. However, in this village there are also seven Shawi Indian families that we wanted to target along with ministering to the village church since not all of them speak Spanish and so cannot take advantage of the preaching of the Word. I asked Marcos, who is the leader of these families, to teach the material in the Shawi language which he was very glad to do so.

Marcos is a key person in working with these families because he not only speaks and reads Spanish and Shawi very well but also has a strong burden to see his people grow in their faith and understanding of the Word. I have been praying for more people like him that can lead their people into a strong, viable relationship with the Lord and so I am doing everything possible to train him, give him material to share with his families and opportunities to share in our trainings. The village church also allows them to have their own service each week on Wednesday nights where Marcos shares and of course the families are very welcomed to join in the rest of the services the church has during the week as well.

Marcos teaching on the Authority of the Believer to his people

We will be having another 3-day training in August for the villages that we work with on the Shishinahua River and, as before, I have invited Marcos and the other Shawi families to join us. He will be sharing the same material he did with his people but now he will also share it with all those who attend our training as well.

While I was with Shawis during this trip I had the chance to talk at length to Marcos and the rest about our call to fulfill the Great Commission and how they can do this starting from right where they are. I was encouraged to see Marcos’ interest and the others at least sincerely thinking about it. It is a new concept for most of them and so the how, when and where needs to be worked out but I believe we can do this very well and very soon. We also want to concentrate on the villages where Maria lives (she is the Shawi YWAM missionary that has been traveling with me for about 5 years) so that more and more people are mobilized to share the Gospel. When Maria is not traveling with me she helps pastor a church in her village. Her people have had much more exposure to the things of God and are very accustomed to “church”  therefore it should be much easier to explain the call of evangelism and help set up a strategy to reach out to those who have not yet heard.

We are continuing to work diligently to train and encourage our villages on the Shishinahua River to become advocates for the Gospel as well. This is a bit more challenging because most of them did not have any previous point of reference for the things of God and so do not yet understand the need to share about it. However, I have seen the Lord move so mightily in these villages to bring to clear light His Truth that in no time they will be evangelizing their neighboring villages as well.

I will be sharing more about this endeavor soon but in the meantime as the Lord lays these plans on your heart would you pray in agreement with us? I am becoming so very aware of urgency of the times and so it is vital that all of us move forward aggressively to complete what the Lord has given us to do on the earth. God bless you all and thank you so very much for joining with us in prayer by standing in the gap for our Shawi brothers and sisters.

Together With you in Christ,

Sharon Malcolm

July prayer letter

Dear Prayer Warriors,

I want to thank you so much again for your faithfulness in prayer for us as we travel the rivers to disciple and encourage the new believers.  It is because each of us are doing our part in this great work that the Holy Spirit is moving so mightily to bring people into a saving knowledge of Jesus and those that know Him into a deeper, richer relationship.

I am writing again to inform you that we will be traveling to minister to a village named Nuevo Papaplaya on the Yanuyacu River.  This is a village that is mostly Mestizo (Spanish decent) and has a strong church.  The pastor is a friend of mine and we have done several projects in his community in the past with the purpose of evangelizing and discipling his village.  We are going again, this time to do a 3-day teaching on the Authority of the Believer for his congregation.  We will be having 3 meetings a day; one in the morning for the Shawi Indians that do not speak Spanish or speak it well, one in the afternoon for the children although everyone is invited and one in the evening for everyone.  We will be praying for people as well at the end of the services for any needs that people may have.

Would you join with us in prayer so that these meetings will be powerfully effective in bringing down strongholds of ignorance and unbelief in the people?  As we present the material we are praying that everyone will understand the spiritual battle that we are engaged in and how to use the Word, prayer and praise to defeat the enemy at every turn.  The more we are educated in what is available to us the less the enemy has to work with to blind us from the Truth.

Our dates of travel are Thursday, July 9 to Monday, July 13.  Please agree with us in prayer for:

1)   Safety as we travel.  The river is low due to lack of rain and so there will be many fallen trees, branches and tree stumps in the water, some exposed and some underneath.  This river also has many curves so please keep us in prayer for wisdom for the boat drivers as they take these curves (we've already have two collisions in the past, one of which resulted in severe injury to a passenger in the oncoming boat) and so that they have clear vision to see the obstacles in the water to avoid them.

2)   The people to receive everything that the Lord wants to give them in every way.  Our goal is to equip them so that they can take the initiative and defeat the enemy on their own as well as join with others in prayer to see powerful victories in every areas of their lives.

3)   Each of us as we deliver the material so that it is strongly anointed and very clear to everyone who hears us so that it can be applied to their daily lives.

Thank you so much again for standing with us in prayer, I so appreciate your faith and commitment to all that the Lord is doing in these communities.  God bless you richly and in every way!

Sharon Malcolm

June Newsletter

Why Your Prayers Mean So Much To Us

Rainy day in the village of Santa Rosa,

viewed from the house where we stayed.

Our last 5-day river trip was completed on June 9 and, as usual we did our dicipleship classes with the believers and then coordinated with them when our next 3-day Bible training would take place. We were very pleased to hear that there is strong interest among the villages for the training and so we planned it for August after they would have prepared their fields and planted their crops during the months of June and July.

This trip, like every other, was very important in bringing the Word of God and prayer to people who would otherwise not receive it. Every time we go out it is with the intention of planting more viable seeds of the Word into their hearts so that the harvest is 100 percent not just 30 or 60. We are looking for full growth and bountiful return on these souls so that they can be the advocates of the Gospel in their area. Our goal is to bring the people to a clear understanding of how much God loves them by what He did for them, who they are in Christ and how much they can do for Him when they are yeilded to His will.

The cost of completing this work however, is not without it’s challenges and dangers which is why I would like to share with you what happened on this trip so that you may know what you are praying for more specifically when I ask for protection as we travel.

The gas tank of our 13 horse-power motor holds one and half gallons of gas and allows us to travel about two hours before filling up again. Our two boat drivers, Tedy, who is Maria’s nephew (Maria is the Shawi YWAM missionary that has been working with me for about 5 years) and Edinson, who is a new believer that Maria led to the Lord filled the tank as usual by stopping the motor, filling up the tank and then starting the motor again. However, when we were about three hours from Yurimaguas, the town that I live in, they decided not to stop the motor this time and filled the tank while it was still running. I had seen them do this a couple of times before on prior trips but didn’t say anything thinking they knew better (I know, I know…big mistake!) so when I happened to glance back at them doing it again I thought I should say something this time but before I could a spark in the motor ignited the gas and in a second the whole tank burst into flames! It quickly spread to the rest of the motor engulfing the whole thing in a ball of fire. As the plastic parts of the motor burned it only fed the fire making it bigger and stronger. Instantly Maria and I jumped in the river on either side of the boat and prayed ernestly that the gas wouldn’t explode. Florentina, who has been traveling with us for about three years, stayed in the boat but moved toward the front farther away from danger.

The impact of the fire burst caused Tedy and Edinson to jump back and I was yelling to them from the water to jump in the river fearing the worst that the motor would explode. Maria urged them to move the tank reserve used to fill the motor out of the way so that it wouldn’t ignite as well. The men did as she said and when they could see that the flames were getting higher and bigger until it reached the plastic roof covering of the boat, which was now on fire, they moved closer to the motor to try to put the fire out. The whole boat is wood and everything in the boat was highly flamable so time was of the essence in controlling the fire.

By God’s incredible providence there just “happened” to be two or three other boats nearby that saw the whole thing and instantly rushed over to us to help put the fire out. We also just “happened” to be fairly close to shore when the fire started so that the men were able to get the boat to the river bank in order to unload the cargo.

Then, with four or five men working feverishly to put water and mud on the motor the fire was brought under control and finally put out. Just then a big passenger boat who also saw what happened slowly approached us and as they did the boat driver called out to me. “Sister Sharon, Sister Sharon...!” I couldn’t imagine who would possibly know me on this big river. I’ve traveled so many times on this river over the last eight years and I don’t ever remember anyone knowing me by name but sure enough this man did. He continued to call out to me until I could respond to him and he said, “You could use my motor to get back to Yurimaguas and I’ll pick it up from there when I get back!” Really?! I could not believe what I was hearing! For the life of me I could not remember who this man was but I was so incredibly grateful to him for his offer. Maria later reminded me that three or four years earlier we rented this man’s motor to do a river trip (it died on the way but that’s beside the point). Now here he was driving a big passenger boat traveling on same the river at the same time as we were to arrive at this exact moment to see what happened. More than that, he “just happened” to have this same motor with him in his boat so that he could lend it us (it didn’t die on the way this time)! Oh the mercy and providence of God.

The story ends with us getting back to Yurimaguas and everyone save and sound. Edinson suffered three burns on his leg that were much better by the time we got in. I treated it with antibiotic cream and then put a cold, wet cloth on top them to stop the burning. The rest of us recovered from the shock of what happened and were much calmer by the time we reached Yurimaguas.

I tell you this so that you know the power of your prayers. If we had been in the middle of the river when this happened I honestly don’t know if we would have made it through this. This is a very wide river and so it is not unusal to travel for quite a long time without ever seeing another boat near you and so for us to have been near the river bank when this happened and then to have other boats within reach of us was clearly the hand of God. Not to mention the incredible meeting of the man who lent us his motor.

The last great thing that happened was that when we got back to Yurimaguas Maria and the guys brought the motor to the store where we bought it (Maria and I went in on it) and it was covered under the warranty! How incredible is that? We only had to pay a small portion for parts and labor but the majority was covered.

This is only one example of God’s protection through your prayers. Others include protection from being severly injured or crushed by fallen trees or branches of low lying limbs when the water is low or by the boat itself as we had to manouver it to dislodge it from the sand bottom on the Shishinahua river, which is where our villages live. Snakes, small stingrays and other water animals are also an issue as we travel since we are in the water quite a bit to move the boat when the water is low.

I have learned that I cannot take any trip for granted and that each time we go out I must ask for prayer. I did not send out a prayer letter for this trip but after what happened I will not fail to do so in the future.

I know that there are many of you that committed to pray on a regular basis for this work and I am so very grateful to you. Please don’t stop! My sister, Sue Malcolm, who has served in ministry in various ways for over 25 years, five of which as a missionary with YWAM, has offered to coorindate specific times of prayer focuses for this ministry. If you would like to be a part of this intercession you can email her at hadassahsong1@yahoo.com. I will however, continue to send prayer letters to you in the same way I have in the past so that you will be receiving the prayer notices as before but now you have the option of joining with others in collective prayer. If you would like to be on the prayer list please email me at reaper4him@yahoo.com and I will gladly include you.

I want to thank you all so very much for your strength and commitment in prayer as we join together in this work to bring the Gospel to those who are learning and to those who have yet to hear. May God richly bless and keep you in all that you are doing for the Kingdom.

Together With You in the Harvest,

Sharon Malcolm

Three-Day Training, a Huge Success!

The three-day training that we just completed over a week ago was a glorious success! We had a total of 48 attendees including children who participated from six communities. Eight of the 48 people were there because they heard my radio announcement reminding the three villages that we work with when to meet so that they could be picked up and brought to the training. Oddly, I never mentioned the village of these eight people in my announcement because I've never met them before or knew of their village but praise God they took my announcement as an open invitation and joined us!

Our training included classes on the authority of the Bible, the authority of the believer, Scripture reading and comprehension, Bible storying (for those who couldn't read), literacy, discipleship and how to share their faith.  We had five sessions a day with an evening activity in Word where three of the students shared one night, we attended a service at my local church on the second night (some have never been to a church service before) and at the closing meeting on the last night we gave out gifts and certificates.

The reason that we are investing so much time, energy and money into these trainings is so that each person who attends will be adequately instructed in what they believe and why so that they can grow firm in their faith with clear understanding.  While the teachings were new to some of them everyone walked away with so much more understanding of who God is and what He did for them than what they came with.

These are the seeds that will cause growth and maturity for a life time of transformation in the Spirit and I want to thank all of you who stood in the gap for this very important event.  It is so important that our Shawi brothers and sisters get trained in the Word so that they can not only continue strong in their faith when we are not able to get to their villages but also so that they can share their faith to their people with clarity and understanding.

Besides the training classes once a quarter we will be resuming our radio broadcast of our Bible studies in the Shawi language as well.  The purpose is so that not only our villages can continue to learn but also a host of other Shawi villages within the listening range of the broadcast can partake of the Word of God and understand His incredible love for them and His purpose for their lives.

None of this could be done without each of us linking arms through our various callings to realize the will of God for these people.  We are seeing the fruit of our labor together and watching our "children" take their first steps of faith as they rise to their feet and begin to walk.  This is so exciting and I pray that you will be as encouraged and blessed as I am in being a part of what God is doing in this part of the world.  Thank you so very much for all that you have done and are continuing to do as the Lord leads you.  I pray you are richly and abundantly blessed in every area of your lives for your faithfulness.

Bringing in the Harvest Together,

Sharon Malcolm

May 11th prayer letter

My Dear Prayer Warriors,

About a year and a half ago we started three-day trainings once a quarter to bring in the Shawi Indians from the villages where we've been working to the town that I live in.  We wanted it to be a concentrated time in Word through discipleship and practical lessons on how to pray, praise and repent along with some other topics and it has proven to be very effective.

We will be continuing with these trainings throughout the year and our next one will be this weekend on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Would you stand with us in prayer for this very important time with our Shawi brothers and sisters?  Our goal for these trainings and for the Bible school that we just started in March is to train and equip the villagers to become the messengers, leaders and trainers that God will use to bring in and disciple a huge harvest of souls in their area.

Therefore, would you pray with us so that:

1. Every person will be open and receptive to all that the Lord wants to teach them with clarity and understanding of the Scriptures so that it will have a life-changing effect on them.
2.  They develop a passion for the Word and the things of God and will walk faithfully before Him forsaking every temptation to do otherwise.
3. Everyone who is supposed to attend will come without any hindrances whatsoever.
4. They will have safety on the river as they travel to and from Yurimaguas.
5. God will bless them mightily for their commitment to come and for their desire to know Him more.

I want to thank you so very much for your intercession for this very important event.  I am believing God for great things to happen during our time together and that people's lives will be dramatically impacted.  God bless you for your prayers.

Joined Together for the Harvest,

Sharon Malcolm