How beautiful on the mountains

It's early Monday morning and after additional training, great fellowship with my team at a prayer retreat and a fun super bowl party I am about to start packing up for my first village trip.  Our departure should be for sometime tomorrow evening or possibly early Wednesday morning.  I am so thankful for this opportunity and eager to see how the Lord is going to use my team and I in the village of Santiago de Chocorvos.  

I am part of a team of three.  It is made up of Salomon, Tiffany and I.  Salomon is a peruvian and he has traveled as a translator numerous times and has some experience in the village to which we are going.  He will serve as leader of the team.  He speaks english well and will be a huge help as we may not understand everything in the early weeks.  Tiffany is a college student and she is taking this semester to serve in Peru.  I admire her willingness and excitement to do the work of the Lord.  I think we are gonna have a great team dynamic.  

My team and I will be spending approximately two months in the village.  We hope to meet believers in the town and see where they are in relationship with Christ and begin some discipleship and bringing up strong believers, even leaders.  We want to continually be spreading the gospel to those who do not believe.  We are also looking forward to beginning some ministry with the children.  One of the biggest ways we will reach the people is through storying the Bible.  We are going to be learning and memorizing numerous stories in spanish and sharing them with the people daily.  The Lord has already blessed my team as we practiced storying here in Lima for the past few weeks.  The people of this culture really respond to the stories and He is going to use it in an awesome way in the villages.

I would like to give you some very specific prayer requests as this journey begins.  My team and I need your prayer more than ever if we are going to see lives and villages changing and turning to Christ.

Prayer requests:

- safe travels to the village

- Salomon 

- Tiffany

- the people of Santiago de Chocorvos and then surrounding area, that the Lord will prepare their hearts for receiving the good news

- fluency in the language 

- good health

- a personal passion to grow in the Lord through scripture and prayer each day

- my family as I may have very little contact with them

- the other teams that will be traveling to villages in the south of Peru 

I am praying with boldness and confidence about what the Lord is going to do and claiming this verse:

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all that we ask or imagine, according to the power that is at work in us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!  Amen."               -Ephesians 3:20-21