Author: David Carter
Family in Pucamarca with Spirit-Led Expeditions
David and I got a chance to catch up with some of our family in the village communities of Chinchero and Pucamarca last night. For about 9 months, Spirit-Led Expeditions (ran by our friends, Eric Lovin and Jen Smith) have seen God do amazing things in such a short period of time. 9 months ago they sent a short-term team from Georgia, USA to share the Gospel and spend a week serving in this community. They witnessed Pucamarca having no discipleship classes or training for believers, little to no church involvement and no growth. There was nothing going on in this town.
Fast forward 9 months: God has connected Eric and Jen with Pastor Ciriaco (a pastor in Chinchero), together with Pastor C they have graduated a class of 15-20 youth/adults from their 13-week discipleship program, they are starting on a 2nd level discipleship class, the community President of Pucamarca has joined their group, they have all-night prayer vigils once a week, volunteers in the class are stepping up to lead outreaches and kid’s Bible studies and the community is planning to run a soup-kitchen to feed their own village. God did this in 9 months. That same group from Georgia is coming back this summer and the Lord is going to show them so much harvest and fruit from their previous efforts!
This is Pastor C’s newest addition: 5 month old Andrea! I got to hold baby girl for an hour. She was super entertained by my “gringa skin” and a sleeve of plastic cups. Pastor C’s 4-year old daughter, Rebekah, is peeking around the corner.
Last night we got to meet with two very enthusiastic teenagers: brothers, Elisban and Joel. These guys are on fire for the Lord and very “wise beyond their years”. The Lord is so creative in how he is using youth to transform communities like Pucamarca and the rest of the world!
Thanks Eric and Jen for inviting us out to see what God is doing in Chinchero and Pucamarca! We are so excited for you guys and for the Quechua coming to Christ! God is moving!!
Left to right: Eric, Joel, Celia (his mom), Elisban and David
Jen Smith helps Julio (Joel and Elisban’s little brother) read a chapter in Esther
Welcome to Winter
I’d say that it’s Winter weather. We’ve skipped autumn completely. And Cusco lacks our favorite “pumpkin spice” flavor at this time of year.
Speaking of coffee….A HUGE thank you to everyone who supported us by purchasing coffee over the past few weeks! We think it was a successful fundraiser this time around to pay for some of our traveling expenses when we go home to South Carolina for a month. If you are a little sad that you didn’t purchase coffee this time around, no worries; we will do it again the next time we plan another trip home.
Over the past few weeks YWAM Cusco staff has been getting together promotional materials together to advertise our September DTS. We are about to start a HopeMob campaign to crowd-fund for some of our necessary expenses to run the school (ex. books, classroom tables and chairs, and the bunk beds for the girls’ apartment). Praise: we were able to buy mattresses to outfit the bunk beds in the 3rd floor (boys’ apartment for DTS)! If you feel led to contribute to our school needs for this coming September DTS, please let us know and we can direct you on how to do that.
PRAISES:
1. We’ve had a lot of interest in our bilingual DTS for this fall. This includes Peruvians and international students from all over the world who have been contacting us about our school.
2. Kristina, from YWAM Cartagena (Colombia), came to visit us this week to encourage us and share her vision of Cartagena’s School of Strategic Missions. Super encouraging to see Latinos mobilizing to work in the Middle East and Asia. They are able to work and spread the Gospel where most Americans or Europeans cannot.
Kristina, who leads School of Strategic Missions in Cartagena, Colombia (she lead an outreach team of Latinos to work in India)
3. David and I have been doing “treasure hunts” (or prayer outreaches) in the city every Tuesday. We’ve seen a lot of fruit being able to intercede for people and the city of Cusco. We have also made friends with a few of the street vendors who are starting to recognize us each week and start friendships with them.
Prayer Points:
1. Pray for the students beginning to apply for DTS.
2. Pray for more staff to join us (especially for Latino/as).
3. Our landlord, Roque, is in the process of purchasing land/house for us to rent. Pray that all of the paperwork will be released in his name by the end of the month and for speedy repairs on the house so that it will be move-in ready by the end of August.
4. Pray that our time home in SC will be a time of rest and a time of encouragement. We don’t want to exhaust ourselves when this is supposed to be a vacation.
Love Coffee?
We are taking pre-orders for 1-lb. bags of 100% organic, Arabic-blend, Peruvian coffee from now through May 15th. $16 a bag (both whole beans and grounds available). *We are only bringing home coffee to the States for orders that have paid by May 15th.* You may place orders through our PayPal button (also on our “Partnering with Us” page.) Please specify the quantity and if you would like whole beans or grounds. Also, add your mailing address so that we may ship it to you if you do not live in the state of South Carolina. (We will bring your coffee to the US the first week of June). Thank you for your support! Buy one for yourself or bless a friend this month : )
Taking Cusco For God
“Build yourselves houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat the fruit of them.6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not be diminished. 7 And seek (inquire for, require, and request) the peace and welfare of the city to which I have caused you to be carried away captive; and pray to the Lord for it, for in the welfare of [the city in which you live] you will have welfare.” – Jeremiah 27:5-7-
The Lord has brought up this verse a lot this week and we feel like it captures our heart and vision for what we are doing/want to do in Cusco. We read it as a part of David’s weekly John Piper devotional, and again in “Taking Our Cities For God” (by John Dawson) and again when Jordan brought it up during our staff meeting. We want to seek what is good in our city; find out and intercede for the promises that God has spoken over it. It won’t come overnight and at times it’s really hard to see the good of a city when you are surrounded by the powers of darkness working against you. In our city, there are so many social justice issues (abject poverty, no help for the homeless, human trafficking and domestic violence to name a few) and problems that you could strive to deal with and fix, but namely we are assigned to call out what is good. To seek the peace and welfare of the city and in turn we will have peace and welfare.
This week we did see the good. We talked to people in the Plaza who had smiles on their faces because we found out that they love Jesus and love their work. We prayed for Vilma and Walter. We small talked with a homeless man. We sat and watched a parade that involved every school in the city “inaugurating” all of the student leaders from each school and each child marched in smartly dressed uniforms, waving Peruvian flags; while their proud parents cheered and took videos.
Jordan went up to Cristo Blanco to cast vision for our city. He told us that he was reminded over and over how Cusco is promised to be “a wellspring bubbling up and flowing out”. How it is prophesied as a “sending place.” People have and will continue to flock here (because of Machu Picchu and the historic architecture) and then go back to their home countries. He thought about us, as YWAM Cusco, digging wells (not literally; metaphorically). We are digging wells, searching for water and life, in a desert environment. In a city where hearts are dry and thirsty and most don’t even know it. We are called to just dig them and there might not be a season of rain right away, but one day, the wells we had dug will be running over with living water. Revival and the season of rain is coming to Cusco. People will come to this city because of what God is doing, then they will be filled up themselves and then sent back out into the world. “What you dig the well with is what you have in your hand…..what do we have in our hands?” (This is something that Jordan said, but what Darlene Cunningham talked about at the DNA Conference in Thailand in October of 2012).
Yes, we can scramble to dig with the thing nearest to us to solve the nearest problem. But really, we need to use what’s “in our hand”, in other words our individual talents and resources that God’s already given us (or what He’s promised to us). We may be small right now, but the Lord has equipped us with tools to dig in dry places. For David and I, we are good friends to others. We bring genuineness and loyalty and want real friendship and relationship with others. We just love to love people. That’s one of the tools I have to work with…
What’s in your hand?
Jen & Amauta.
We have the privilege of having Amauta and her husband Jesús as friends. We stopped to take a photo yesterday after language school with a parade going on in the background.
Team Carter's Big Adventure 