“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?

Hey friends and family!

The past 2 weeks have been an exciting line-up of events taking place for the upcoming World Missions 101 Program and more importantly, for the upcoming bilingual DTS in September! Our national YWAM director, Clark, came up from Lima last weekend to go over some YWAM DTS principles and we started work on a massive preliminary budget plan for out staff and students. Praise God, we’ve gotten several inquiries about DTS for student applications coming from Ukraine, the U.S., Canada, Honduras, Peru, Colombia…and they are going to keep on coming! Please continue to pray for Latino staff to join us and for Nate, Edgar and Saulo who are discerning about joining our staff. The YWAM Cusco website is up and running: www.ywamcuzco.com. Soon it will be available in Spanish. Tell your friends.

In other news with renting a house, we haven’t been finding much in the newspapers these days. However last week, by an act of the Lord’s spontaneous creativity, our current landlord, Roque, called us and said that he and his wife are thinking about buying a piece of land (in our neighborhood) which already has an unfinished adobe house on the property and fixing it up. We had no idea that he was even thinking about that! We would love it if we could continue to rent from the guy that we already know and love. We’re not sure as to what condition the house is in, or what needs to be fixed, or if it will even be “move-in ready” come late August, but we are praying for a speedy process in finding out. Otherwise, we know that God will make it apparent if it’s not the right one for us (ex. we were 25 yards from the house we were going to look at this weekend, when the owner called and said someone bought it….obviously not the right one).

 

We love Roque! (& Dave Snyder, who we selfishly hope will come back to work with us in Peru)

On a fun, cultural note: to give you an idea of how time works in Peru, after 4 days of traveling back and forth to the Claro store (for a new phone plan) with Jordan, they finally were able to get new data plans. When we went to a printing shop this week to get the new YWAM Cusco receipt books printed, the guy said “come back in an hour.” We came back 2.5 hours later, after language class, and he was on a break. We called the phone number he left on the door and 30 minutes later he came back and started working on our order. I guess he meant “if you come back in an hour, then maybe I’ll start working on it.” When I went into town to meet a friend for coffee, 2 American guys were sitting near us and the 4 of us started talking about the “time difference”. You never think you have a “type-A personality of a New Yorker” until you leave the country (unless of course, you come from New York and you have a type-A personality; then you probably know it).

We hosted our good friends, Amauta and Jesus, for a “Great American Cook-Out” at our place. Turns out, pineapple-edam (a type of bland, white, cheese) burgers have mixed reviews. But the good thing was we talked for three hours, non-stop in Spanish about a hodgepodge of topics (success!). We even forced Amautita to tell a story in English and she did a great job! It was a mind-trip to be able to be so absorbed in her story about her student election campaign in high school because she only speaks Spanish around us and our brains were so enthralled (“Why can I understand EVERY word of what she’s saying?! It’s like she’s speaking English….oh wait, because she is!”). It was pretty awesome.  One day, we plan to road trip together—maybe we’ll start out small, like going to Pisac, but eventually we have dreams of traveling together to Mancora (the beach in northern Peru with the longest left wave in the world, for surfing), and then one day to tackle the Eastern coast of the U.S.

Taken off the internet, Mancora waves; in their amazing left-set glory! One day, I will be surfing this…

Lots of excitement and dreaming this week folks! Thank you guys for praying for 1. the WM101 and DTS students, 2. our Latino and gringo staff that will join us, and 3. our housing situation (either with Roque or someone else) before August. How can we be praying for you? Feel free to drop us a line or call us anytime. Dios te bendiga! Nosotros te amamos!

 

Thanks ya’ll for all of your amazing art forms and how you praise the Lord with them!

This week I was pulling out my journal from a year ago and going through what God was teaching me then and what He is teaching me now. In the hodgepodge of a year ago: coming back to the States for 7 months after our DTS in Thailand, recording and interpreting some crazy dreams, praying specific prayer requests for people (and to see now that their prayers have been answered—Brittany Jones, you now have a new car! Praise God!) and ironically, my own prayer requests from last year are being repeated this week. Last year I had recorded in my journal, “I know that God is telling me to be still. I know that he doesn’t want me to feel lonely. I know that he provides all things….the Lord will fight for (me); (I) only need to be still. (Exodus 14). For the past 2 weeks I have been trying to control things that I can’t control. I want to be able to control certain situations or people or the timing of when things happen and I’m so powerless to do so. I tend to have a really bad habit of striving for things. I had some wonderful alone time with God this week and He reassured me that He’s got my back and that everything is perfect in His time. He is my Daddy and He can take care of me, of us, of everyone. But especially me. So this week, being “Semana Santa”, or Holy Week, I’ve been thinking a lot about what Jesus did for me, for us, so that you or I can sit in his lap and to say “I love you. I trust you. I’m counting on you. I know you. I love spending time with you. I love talking to you. Thank you for taking care of me.”

In other news, between many Skype dates, emails and a surprise care package David and I feel so encouraged and loved. Thank you for your continued prayers and support! Keep it coming! Don’t stop now : ) As you know, David and I have been praying for a house and last week we stumbled upon IT (we couldn’t find the address and only meant to see it from the outside and a stranger in the neighborhood helped us find A-1 Los Portales and we were introduced to Hugo, the owner, who gave us a tour and everything). This house meets all our “requirements” and then some! Winning. Please pray with us this week as we are seeing so many confirmations about it already. We are claiming it in Jesus’ name as ours. That God would set it apart as holy and ours. Pray that we will see this house become ours by the end of next month and pray that God would make it so evident that it is perfect for us!

PHOTOS OF THE WEEK:

My friend, Jen Smith and I went to Chinchero (a Quechua community about 30 min. outside of Cusco) to spend a morning knitting with her and her Quechua discipleship ladies. They have a co-op of about 10 women who make (by hand) incredible creations out of 100% alpaca wool. They literally spin the yarn from the sheared alpaca themselves and are in the process of trying to get their goods in stores in the States. Who wouldn’t want to knit with this back-drop?

 They are in the process of filling an order of “coffee cup holders” (the purple llama)

In town for lunch today we were able to watch the festivities for Holy Week or “Semana Santa”, the week leading up to easter. This particular celebration is unique to Cusco. “Senor De Los Temblores” or “Lord of the Earthquakes” is celebrated every Tuesday of Semana Santa to thank God for protecting Cusco from the earthquakes that are common in this area. One year when there were bad earthquakes, they took the statue out of the cathedral and paraded it once around the Plaza de Armas. Since then, Cusco has only experienced one earthquake.

Happy Pi Day everyone! (March 14, or 3/14 for 3.14) In high schools and universities everywhere, math teachers are trading in the books today for games, shenanigans and eating all sorts of pies for the auspicious holiday known as Pi Day. Today, we salute you, Mr. 3.14159265359….. and maybe after some apple pie we might watch the new movie, “The Life of Pi” which we heard won many awards. Viva 3.14.

 

 

In other news, whether Peru knows that Pi Day is an international holiday sensation or not, we just want to praise God for the many blessings that he has given us this week. This week has not been an emotionally easy one for either one of us. In fact, circumstances beyond our control with people back home in the States (that we are so far away from to be present with right now),as well as our own personal “hash out” times with God over personal circumstances at the present time were difficult. However, we praise God for so many things:

1. The MAD team from Brisbane was able to leave in 2 shifts on Wednesday and Thursday to start their journey back to Brizzy for DTS graduation. It was wonderful to be a part of their debrief session and to hear what God has been teaching them over the past 7-8 weeks. It makes me think back on our own DTS outreach and how the Lord grew me so much and now that I’m removed from that season I can clearly see what the Lord was growing and pruning in my life. 

The PhotogenX team is doing amazing things for the Kingdom!

2. The Kona PhotogenX team (a second-level school that has lectures around the world while doing photo-journalism about social justice issues) is also here from helping Bud Lenz in Puerto Maldonado. Five wonderful girls stayed with us (and the 3 guys got to stay with Eric) for 2 days until the MAD team could move out of the 3rd floor. I know that they will only be with us in Cusco for 2 weeks, but the body of Christ is so amazing! Only through the nature of Christ and His love in us for other people make 8 new strangers feel like family in a few short hours of conversing and eating pizza together. And small world, one of the leaders Andrew, was telling us that their next step after Peru is to travel to Thailand! And when I asked, “Chiang Mai?” he said “Yes, and do you know Emmi? (Emmi is our friend that runs the Christian coffeehouse in Chiang Mai, called WonGen) and the PhotogenX team is going to hep her in a few weeks to serve at WonGen! Wow, small world! (For those of you who don’t know, David and I did our DTS Chiang Mai just outside of the city in Mae Taeng).  

3. Another cool blessing is that as we were saying our “see you laters” to the MAD team (I don’t do well with the word, “goodbye”), Amanda (from Singapore) came up to me and told me that “This is really hard for me, because I love these pants (indicates a pair of emerald green Thai fisherman’s pants) but I feel like God wants me to give them to you, so here you go!” What amazing generosity on her part! But what I told Amanda is that she could not have known this (I never told her, “hey, I’m going to steal your cool pants”), is that I’ve been telling David every now and then, “man, I really wish I would have bought some fisherman’s pants in Thailand…but I didn’t…. (I didn’t bring any “lounge around the house” pants with me) and through Amanda’s generosity, Jesus said “you see how much I care for you? You think that I wouldn’t notice this one tiny desire that you had. But I want to bless you by giving you this tiny wish that you wanted in the back of your mind so that you will trust me for the bigger things that you want and that you will KNOW that I will deliver all of your wants and desires.” Thanks Daddy! I needed those words this week!

 

picture these in an emerald green color: these are fisherman’s pants from Thailand. 100% cotton. 100% comfy. 100% a blessing!

4. To prove those words even further, several financial things have been met this week that we didn’t publicly announce, but through many people, God has provided YWAM Cusco with enough money to purchase all of our bunk beds and mattresses for the new teams that will come in the future! God also provided David and I with enough money to purchase a washing machine from a friend (when we move soon) and to bless one of our friends moving back with his family to Argentina. AND we were able to pay for our one-time property insurance fee with Pacifico (which is giving us peace of mind as well as protecting our possessions while living in Peru). THANK YOU JESUS! YOU PROVIDE IN SO MANY LITTLE WAYS AND WE LOVE IT!

5. We also were able to start saving some for our future vehicle and our new place. Moving note: David and I are moving out of our current apartment before September in order to make room for our DTS students who will be coming! This is a really exciting time to see YWAM Cusco expand and grow! Our friend, Rachel Lenz, has decided to cut her teaching hours down so that she can be on staff with YWAM Cusco! Welcome Rachel! 

 

SO MUCH TO BE THANKFUL TO GOD FOR! Please continue to pray for YWAM Cusco; for Latino/Peruvian staff for this upcoming DTS in September. PRAISE: we have inquiries about students for the upcoming World Missions 101 Summer Program so pray that God will provide financially for these high-schoolers/college aged youth who feel called to come serve with us this summer. Please pray for our residency process to start. Please pray for provision of a new apartment/house (specifically in Larapa/Santa Maria neighborhood, a place with good lighting, space for a garden and a garage)

And please send us your prayer requests so that we can be praying and partnering with you too! We love each and every one of you and thank you, just for being yourself. Blessings amigos, I’ve got a slice of pie to eat!

This past Thursday, I (David) had the chance to go on an adventure. Our neighbor, Eric Lovin, is with Spirit Led Expeiditions, a missions organization out of Elberton, GA.  Eric asked me to accompany him in taking a lady, Nancy to a mission hospital 3 hours away in Curahuasi (pronounced cor-a-wasi). Nancy, a mother of 5 is the sister of  a member of the discipleship group that Eric runs in the village of Chinchero where she lives. Nancy has had two brain surgeries in the past year for “Trichinosis” (also called trichinellosis, or trichiniasis, is a parasitic disease caused by eating raw or undercooked pork or wild game–Wikipedia). The second surgercy did not go as planned and Nancy ended up with severly limited brain fuction. I’m not sure of all the medical exactitudes but at this point she is basically a vegetable. We took Nancy to Curahuasi to seek a third opinion, because the hospital there has an incredible reputation and gives free care to Peruvians. We drove the three hours through the mountains, past landslides and incredibly narrow roads to arrive at the Hospital. After a brief wait (3 hours, brief for Peru) Nancy was seen by the doctors and was told what everyone suspected that there was nothing they could do. I was struck by the doctors care as the entire staff stopped what they were doing and prayed for Nancy. After a brief conversation with the Hospital pastor we were ready to go back.

As we drove home I kept thinking about the unjustice of the situation. (My thoughts) Nancy is 38 with 5 kids, the oldest is 14, she deserves to see her kids grow up honestly I was frustrated at God for not healing. I have no idea why when we pray sometimes people are healed and sometimes people are not. I wrestled with this for most of the ride home back past the landslides, narrow road and beautiful views. I wish I could say that I came to a neat conclusion or had a revelation but all I was left with was the thought of injustice.

We live in a beautiful, harsh, unjust world. Peru sometimes seems more so other places but that’s probably just because we live here. We sat with the family for a while when we returned home as they grieved their mother, I grieved with them. I was able, if only for measure, to share their experience. It’s easy, for us, to think that we are bringing answers/solutions to peoples lives, and while thats often true and there are many practical things that we can and should do. Being reminded of how short I fall is a heartbreaking necessity. 

In our job, we have no option but to be totally dependent on Jesus. Although we forget, it’s good, even if a little painful, to be reminded. To hurt with people is sometimes all we can do. 

“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

Galatians 6:2

Loving, fulfilling and imitating Christ. I love my job.