Final Day in Matucana

Greetings,

I can´t believe that this trip is almost over. So much has happened in one week, and so much more still needs to be done, but praise God that He will continue the good work started even before our team arrived. We have been so blessed to be a part of what God has been doing. We agree with Paul in 2 Corinthians 4 that the only reason why we are here and preaching His gospel is through His grace. God has seriously taken these earthen vessels and glorified His awesome Name by what has been accomplished.

Today we split up into a few groups again. Joel went back up to Marachanca for the day because he felt that there still needed to be work done there. From what he tells me that village is ripe for harvest and those who are believers are ready to be discipled. Joel is definitely sad to be leaving, but at the same time he is placing his trust in the Lord. The rest of us relaxed a little today; one group went to a market nearby to look for some trinkets to bring home, and the other group hiked up the mountain to see the waterfall that Matucana is so proud of. I was in the waterfall group, and it was beautiful (we have LOTS of pictures). Once everyone got back, we all went to a professional soccer game that was being hosted at the stadium right outside Matucana. We cheered and booed along with the rest of the crazy fans--it was so much fun!

Even amidst our relaxation, God was still working. Apparently on Friday night, Dan had set up a meeting with a woman for around 4:30 today to go over a Bible story. The problem was that he forgot to share what her name was and where she lived before he left last night. So Joe, Chad and I partnered with Ryan our translator went to the town square and hoped that whoever this person was would show up. After waiting about 15 minutes, she did show up and took us into her home where we met the rest of her family and relatives (8 people total). We then took the family through John 3 and guided them through the text with questions and other interaction. It was great! They were totally into studying the passage, and the entire family participated in finding out what the passage was saying. One of their first questions was, ¨What does Jesus mean by ´born again´?¨ After spending about two hours with them, we saw the entire household come to Christ. The story of Cornelius was resounding in my thoughts as this happened, and we were glad to leave them two Bibles in which they had immediately began studying and asking questions.

To quote C.S. Lewis, ¨Aslan is on the move.¨

Tomorrow morning we leave for Lima. We will be spending a few hours shopping and walking about the city. Our should leave around 11:20pm.

On a very important and urgent note, Dan´s flight was cancelled last night due to a bomb scare, so he still has not left Lima. He needs to be back in Orlando by Tuesday so that he can leave for Togo, Africa. Pray that he will be able to fly out ASAP and that there would be no further delays. He still has a little cushion timewise, but he is still under the gun. Please pray.

This will be the last post for the Peru missions trip. Everyone else is doing great and is sad to leave but excited to tell everyone all the various stories that could not be captured on a blog site. Thanks for your prayers and support! We´ll see you back home.

In Christ Alone,
John

6th day in Matucana

It´s been so good to see God at work on this trip. It´s humorous to think that one of the concerns of the group was that there would not be enough to do here. It´s been such the opposite that Dan wasn´t able to update the blog last night, so don´t worry...we´re all still alive and doing well.

Yesterday one of the mountain teams returned from Marachanca. They could only bring good news about what happened there. From what they have told me, there was at least one conversion there, and many chances to share God´s Word with people. No one knew how many Christians were actually in that village, and after the team went around talking to everyone that they met, there ended up being quite a few believers. A house church could very well be underway soon, and maybe even within the next few weeks (God willing). One of the (many) great stories that they brought back was that there was a man who had apparently been praying for God to send him someone to tell him the truth about Christ. He did not know very much of the Bible, but he explained that he felt that something was wrong about the Catholic belief system, although he didn´t know what or why. The team stumbled across him on a hike up to some of the Inca ruins and shared some Bible stories with him. They began to ask him questions, and eventually he became so fed up with the questions that he finally interupted them and asked, ¨What must I do to follow Christ?¨ Folks, we now have a new brother in Christ. He was so excited that he apparently ran over to one of his Christian friends rejoicing about what had just happened.

Amazing!

Today, my (John) team arrived back from Collana. We also brought good news with us as we saw incredible things happen in that village. Once we arrived in Collana on Wednesday, we immediately went over to the school and got to meet the kids and team them some English. We used that opportunity to also share a Bible story with them, but what I think is even more important is that we got to meet the teacher, Beatrice, who we were able to share the gospel with (pray for her and her father--they did not make a decision, but are VERY close). We met some of the people and set up appointments to talk about some Bible stories with them, and everyone that we encountered were extremely nice and gracious. We stayed with Irma, a woman who owned a conenience-type of store as she let us share half of her and her family´s living quarters. The girls got the bed and the boys got the floor, and let me tell you--IT WAS COLD! Anyways, when we arrived both David and I were wondering what we were going to do in 3 days, and it turned out that 3 days was not nearly enough time for what we needed. Some of the cool things that happened in Collana was that we were able to disciple a man named Arnaldo, the local cheese maker (awesome cheese!!). There was already a small evangelical church in Collana that a pastor from Lima travelled up once a week to preach at. Our group saw incredible potential in Arnaldo, and the discipling process was incredible. This man was a cup that was ready to be poured into, and a servant of God with joy that exploded out of every pore. We shared with him the story about Jesus choosing the disciples and explained that just as Christ had to leave, the pastor had to leave every week and we had to leave in just a few days. We explained to Arnaldo the importance of carrying on the work of Christ during the week and meeting with other believers, that through the power of prayer, evangelism and discipleship, Christ would turn Collana upside down.

We still believe that is possible.

I´m still collecting all of the great news that has been happening amidst our group here in Matucana (and surrounding), and I promise you that these are only teasers of the plethora of news that you will be able to hear once we get back. Pray that God will find men and women to follow up with Marachanca and Collana, and that greater things will be accomplished in those villages. Pray for us now as we are united once more in Matucana that we will not grow weary of doing good and that more opportunities will present themselves. Pray also for Dan as he just left to go back to Lima (he is flying back early so that he can then hop on a plane with his Grandmother on a missions trip to Togo, Africa). Pray that God will give him strength and stamina and that everything will go fine in his travel.

Can´t wait to share more once we get home! To quote Chris Tomlin, ¨Greater things have yet to come, and greater things are still to be done in this city!¨

Until tomorrow, and always in Christ alone,

John

4th day in Matucana

Hey everyone,

It is amazing how fast time has flown by with all of the things that we are doing here in Matucana. Each day we have had to write down our schedules since there have been so many opportunites to reach out here in this community. It has become a top priority to spend time with people at their houses sharing stories and challenging them with the gospel. The Lord has been doing so much work in this town that there will be a team of missionaries coming next week from Lima to Matucana to spend time training the new believers. We will also be having a baptism for the new believers Saturday morning.
Last night was a sad scene here on the streets of Matucana. As we were spending time with people out on the streets and setting up times to meet with them, there was a crowd of people carrying a shrine of Mary down the streets while playing music, throwing flowers, and blowing smoke on the shrine. I (Dan) was sick to my stomach and angry at the defaming of God´s name as I watched this procession going on and then it became even harder for me to bear as I was approached by a bunch of the kids I am reaching out to. They offered me a communion cracker as a part of the ceremony. The idolatry present during this time was evident as the ceremony carried on throughout the night followed by a celebration of heavy drinking. They not only are dishonoring the Lord but are also ruining the testimony of Mary found in Luke 2 (a humble servant giving all glory to God). In spite of this idolatry present here in Matucana, the gospel of Jesus Christ is going forth and penetrating the hearts of many people. To be honest, I don´t want to leave this town any time soon but we all continue to be in awe of the Spirit of God flowing through this area.
Please pray for the two mountain village teams. One will be returning tomorrow while the other won´t be back until Saturday. Matthew (Miss Janet´s son) returned back today since he had gotten a bad case of altitude sickness although he is feeling much better now. Continue to unite with us in prayer as we go forth in the power of the Holy Spirit to put Christ on display here in Matucana, Peru.

3rd day in Matucana

Thank you all for your continued prayers for our team and these people in Matucana. Our 2nd team of ¨mountain men¨ left this morning and we are excited to hear how the Lord has worked through them there. We don´t have any contact with those two teams in the mountains but they will be returning on Friday. Our remnant left here in Matucana is now down to eight. One of the teams continued to teach English in the schools today while the other two teams had several house visits with people to share stories from Scripture and engage them with the gospel.
Joe, Chad, Ryan (our translator) and I spent most of the day with a new believer named Gary. The power of God is at work in Gary´s heart constantly since he was saved a month ago. We hiked with him part of the way to the waterfall while he shared stories with us about the culture. He explained the syncretism in the Peruvian culture next to one of the shrines on the mountian. They combine their traditional beliefs in gods such as the sun God and moon God with their Catholic beliefs which results in one big mess. It breaks our heart that they know about Christ yet have added so many other gods to their beliefs. It reminded me of the Israelites in the Old Testament as well as many of us in America, full of idolatry in our lives. Gary brought us back to his house where him and his mom cooked us an amazing dish called Lomo Saltado.
We were then supposed to meet with the owner of the hostel but she left right before our meeting. The missionaries here told us how they are constantly ditched by the Peruvian people when they have times set up to meet with them. We got a taste of that today which was very frustrating. Later we met with another lady at her house where we shared the story of the Samaritan woman in John 4. God´s Word penetrated her heart during this time and we left there after an hour and a half with her telling us, ¨I believe that Jesus Christ is my Savior yet I am afraid of the transformation that will happen in my heart.¨ We will be getting together with her tomorrow to continue to teach her and pray that she comes to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior.
Please continue to pray for our entire team. The specific requests can be found in the earlier blogs. We all are excited about the evident power of the gospel of Christ flowing through this town of Matucana, Peru. We can´t wait to share with many of you once we return home to the U.S.

In Christ´s Hands,
Dan

End of the 2nd day in Matucana, Peru

As our 2nd full day in Matucana is winding down, I think I can fairly say that we are all in awe and wonder of our all-powerful God. He has been pouring out His Spirit everywhere we seem to go and we are amazed at how open and receptive these people are for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Much of the issues in our conversations with them have been through their influence from Catholicism. Yet their respect and high value of the Word of God is evident. Through this we have shared with them what the Scripture truly says about salvation through Christ alone (Ephesians 2, John 14:6). God´s Word is truly alive and powerful and we are seeing it pierce the hearts of several people who we have talked to. Here in Matucana we have shared through music, skits, and Bible stories in the town square where we have seen some great crowds, mainly kids, to spend time with and talk to.
As John shared in an earlier blog, four of our team members (Joel, Tim, Matt, Martin(our translator)) left for a mountain village named Marachaca and will be roughing it out for 3 days before returning to Matucana. Janet has nicknamed them the mountain men :) Pray for them that they would follow the Spirit´s leading, build relationships, and preach the gospel in both word and action. Pray also for those who they will be discipling. We have no contact with them ourselves so they have been constantly on our hearts and in our prayers.
The other team leaving for another mountain village is heading out tomorrow at 8 am. This team is John, David, Tiffany (the missionary), and our translator. Please continue to pray for them as the conditions in that village are similar to the Marachaca village, not good at all. They have concerns over the fact that there are no bathrooms or food they should eat. The last team that came from there all got sick so they will be bringing their own food to keep from the same thing happening. Pray for their hearts to be at peace during their time there as well as their focus and passion to be on Christ as they reach out to these people through the gospel and God´s Word. Pray for the hearts of those villagers to be opened to the gospel and that they would come to a saving faith through the power of the Holy Spirit.
The rest of our team will be staying in Matucana. Two of the teams here in Matucana will be teaching in the school (Miss Janet, Celine, Katie, Morgan and Alnardo, plus Britney (one of the other missionaries). They had their first day teaching today and are all excited for the privilege of teaching these children and sharing the gospel with them. Pray for their hearts to be submissive to the Holy Spirit´s leading as it is hard to know exactly how to interact and speak to these children to direct them to Christ. Pray as well for the hearts of these children as well as their opportunities to go home and share Christ with their families.
The other part of our team (myself (Dan), Chad, Joe, Ryan (translator)). We will be focusing on building relationships with people and setting up times to meet with them at their houses or somewhere in the area. We have had some great opportunities to share Scripture and the gospel with people in the town. We have three home visits tomorrow with people who we have spoken to and want to learn and grow more. The three people are Gary (new believer), Amancia (owner of the hostel we were staying at), and a woman from the town square we met tonight. All of them seem to have hearts which are wide open to the gospel and excited to grow. We sat down with Amancia today for awhile and answered her questions through God´s Word, specifically combating her Catholic religion with the truth from Scripture. We walked out of there with her saying that she understands that it is truly through Christ alone and her pleading for us to come back tomorrow and share more through Scripture. We shared with the other woman who saw Jesus as a good example with good teachings about forgiveness. We were clear with her that Jesus teaches that He is God and the Savior who has come to the world to offer salvation from our sins and take on the punishment that we deserve. Please pray for all these people as well as others who we will be meeting.
We thank you all for your faithful prayers and we are seeing the results of God´s people who are supporting us in prayer. Of course everything that has been done and is going to be done is by the power of God and is all for His glory alone. Please continue to be diligent to intercede for us and we pray that God will fill you with the joy of being a part of His kingdom work in Matucana and surrounding villages.

Always in Christ´s Hands,

Daniel Rumeau

We´re Here!!

Hey everyone,

I just wanted everyone to know that the group arrived safely. What we have seen so far in Peru is absolutely beautiful. Everyone in Matucana is very nice and very gracious, and they are enjoying our stumbling over our communication difficulties. Once we arrived, there was still a group from the University of Florida staying (they left today), so we had a great time listening to what God did through their trip and finding out what other things need to be done.

Thus far, the only real frustrations that we have had are the altitude and the language barrier. The translators were still helping the UF group, so we didn´t have access to them very much yesterday. Many of us expressed how we longed to talk to people and conversate, but found it almost impossible since our spanish is so weak. The altitude is higher than most of us have ever experienced. Matucana itself is over 7,000 ft. No one is sick, but the simple things like climbing stairs prove to be more of a challenge than it ever would back in the flat state of Florida.

One of the things that we found happening once we arrived was the group from UF was helping the missionaries here show the movie ¨Facing the Giants¨, and we wanted to help with the promoting and everything. We all got together and met at the town square and sang and played our instruments in order to draw attention so we could invite them over to see the movie. It worked out great, and there were many opportunities to share the gospel via translators while many of our group went through the crowd and gave bracelets and other trinkets while also explaining a little bit about Jesus. It was a great way to introduce our group and give first impressions. It was amazing to see the crowd and even the response to coming over to see the movie. Unfortunately, since Peruvians are not as bound by the clock as us Americans, the movie did not start for another 3 hours! But, we still used that time in between to bond with the children and youth. Many of these children will be at the same schools that we´ll be teaching at.

So what´s next?

Well, we are splitting into 4 groups. One of these groups is travling up right now to the mountain village of Marachaca and will be roughing it out for 3 days before returning to Matucana. They will be doing much of the same missionary work there as here, but the soil is even fresher as there has been less work done in Marachanca as has happened already in Matucana, so the group has their work cut out for them. Pray for them that they would follow the Spirit´s leading, build healthy relationships, and preach the gospel in both word and action. Pray also for those who they will be discipling. The guys that are going are Joel, Tim, and Matt (plus a translator).

Another group will be leaving tomorrow for the mountain village of Corillana. This village is a little tougher as the UF group was not able to make as much headway here as in Marachanca. But we will be returning with one of the same missionaries that went last time, so we´ll be able to follow up on the work already laid out. Pray for strength (as we will be working in the fields with people), pray for guidance, pray for opportunities, and pray for strong stomachs. Both groups going into the mountains will be experiencing Peru the most authentically. Hopefully we won´t be served one of the dishes that was served to the last group, which was a soup that consisted of cow intestines. :) This group is myself (John), David, Tiffany (the missionary), and our translator.

Of those that are staying in Matucana, one of these groups will be working a lot in the schools teaching english as a second language. The schools like us doing this because the teachers who teach english can´t even speak it, so having authentic english-speaking Americans is really helpful. While they teach, they can incorporate Bible stories and such so that the gospel can still be preached even if it is more subliminal. Pray for perseverance, the ability to keep the kid´s attention, wisdom and discernment. Pray also for protection. This group is Miss Janet, Celine, Katie and Alnardo, plus Britney (one of the other missionaries).

The last group will be consuming their time working with those in Matucana, building relationships, discipling and evangelizing. I don´t think they even realize all that will end up being on their plate as they continue throughout the day. Many of the things that they will also be trying to do is connect with the children and youth after school hours and setting up times for discipleship training. Pray for opportunities, pray for protection, pray for guidance and for strength. Pray also that they will not do anything of their own power, but everything by the Spirit. This group is Dan, Joe, Chad, and their translator.

Well, that´s it for today. Hopefully we´ll be able to post more in a day or two.

In Christ Alone,

John

Flight Info

Hey everyone,

Here are the flight numbers for the Peru trip:

American Airlines

To Lima, Peru: AA 2111
To Miami (from Peru): AA 918

Dan will be coming back early, so his number is: AA 2110 and AA 1808 (Miami to Orlando)

Keep praying for us!

-John