One of the strange and wonderful events of the weekend was witnessing the grand opening weekend of the new mall in Cusco, Real Plaza. Rumor had it that only 3 stores would be open this past Friday, so David and I went to window shop this afternoon. Literally half of a half-a-million people were there. You have to keep in mind that some Cusquenos have never ventured outside of Cusco before so this was probably amazing for people. The fact that you can walk into Plaza Vea (the Peruvian equivalent of a Wal-Mart or Target) and buy for example: milk, batteries, a tank-top, Captain Crunch and a blender all in the same place really is incredible. People were losing their minds like it was Black Friday in the States. Families with 2-3 kids in their buggy crammed with 6 3-liter sodas (because they were on sale), plastic tupperware, Barbie dolls and socks, while pulling along grandma by the hand behind you (because she’s completely overwhelmed at what she’s seeing in one place). Some people have protested the mall while phase 1 was being built (in the center of a neighborhood), but it has created hundreds (and soon thousands of jobs). It has really transformed the city of Cusco so far. (Cusco prides itself on the historic traditional, hence why there are no golden arches downtown advertising McDonald’s and one can forget that this, along with Starbucks and KFC exist in the Plaza de Armas unless you are looking for them). As far as the Carter household goes, we can’t complain. As joyous as it was to see the reactions of other people, I’m sure our faces reflected the same. It makes it a little more easier to live here knowing that we can get “everything” in one place (verses scouting the city and “hoping” you run into what you need).

We are particulary excited about the upcoming additions of phase 2 and 3 when they open the Papa Johns, Infanti (the baby store) and the Cineplanet Movie Theater. We think about doing future “treasure hunt prayer outreaches” at the mall with teams or DTS students and then reconvening at Dunkin Donuts to swap stories about what God did. It’s very strange to think, “wait, we’re still in Cusco….15 minutes from where we live…” However, this has been a “long-time-coming” for Cusco and we are grateful to live in a beautiful place that is embracing convenience.

The cool thing is that you can look at the giant infrastructure and say “it’s just a mall”. It looks like any other newly constructed mall in the States. It’s nice and clean inside. But what we are seeing is God using it to bring more cultural identity and value to the people of Cusco. Every Tuesday night for the past year and a half, our leaders host a “Prayer For the City” night. After dinner, we pray and worship over our city because God said that it is the key to transforming our city. We have been praying for cultural transformation and we are seeing it with the building of this mall.

We felt like God was saying:

“Cusco is worth having nice things. Cusco is just as worthy of a city as Lima (or Atlanta or Charleston or Pamplico or Swansea). The people of this city are coming out of the old, or maybe traditional ways of living and stepping into a new season. It’s symbolic of the growth in the city but also a growth to be hungry for change. A change that will be created by Me.”

Meanwhile, everything is going well with the school. We are all getting ready to go on outreach, making final plans for the churches that we’re visiting. We’ll explain just a bit about how the outreach phase of the DTS works. Our goal is partner with and work alongside of local churches. So to that end we generally stay with a church for a week at a time, serving in whatever capacity needed. As a team, we come with a set of things that we can do to serve the local group of believers (dramas, teachings, kids programs and preaching) but at the same time we are flexible and try and do our best to meet the needs of the individual church. David will be going on the first week of outreach to some communities in the Sacred Valley (Dec. 16-23). Then they will be coming back to Cusco for three days to do some Christmas outreach in the city and to celebrate Christmas. After Christmas, the students will leave with Edgar and Saulo to visit two more communities in the Sacred Valley, then off to two weeks in the jungle (Puerto Maldonado), then to Arequipa (Peru) and Iquique (Chile).

Prayer Requests:

1. for the DTS students’ financial provision by Dec. 15th so that all of them can leave for outreach, and for their evangelism and service alongside the churches they will work with over outreach phase, for open hearts of the people to receive salvation, healings and miracles!

2. for financial provision for our family (we are going to Bolivia at the end of December) to renew our tourist visas (good for 6 months).