This week the boys (including David) went off to Puerto Maldonado in the Peruvian jungle to help Bud Lenz construct and prepare the land for the kids who will be moving from El Arca’s Cusco location.  When I talked to David on the phone, he said that the jungle was “a man’s playground. We are all running around with our shirts off, wielding tools…digging an irrigation ditch in the mud. It’s a good time. It’s like camping.” Wonderful. He worked with a team from World Challenge which were installing solar panels and also helping to put walls in the dormitories.  When the work in the jungle gets finished, El Arca’s vision is to be totally self-sustainable (they grow their own food, raise their own animals and plan to give the kids skills and trades such as animal husbandry, carpentry, welding, farming, ect. so they have a valuable skill-set when they leave the Lenz’s custody).

The girls didn’t sweat as much as the boys did in the jungle this week, but that doesn’t mean that we didn’t put in manual labor. We spent two days painting Clinica Huanbutio, a free medical clinic run by volunteers about 45 min. away from Cusco. We heard stories from the volunteers from Jordan and Joy’s church tell of a woman who hiked 8 hours through the mountains to be seen at the clinic. We are praying that this clinic (that is fairly new in this community) will thrive by the love of Jesus and be able to impact and provide care to so many needy families in the surrounding areas.

This is the front of the clinic after we were almost finished

The last outreach team that was here, Beach2Bush DTS started the side and we were able to finish their work! (missing you, Laurinda Rapp)

Even though my eyes are shut, we really loved working with Carlotta (grandmother), Carla (mother) and Patty (daughter). Such sweet women!

Cool story this week: Misha needed to pay her student loans and wanted prayer that God would do something amazing because since she is volunteering with YWAM, she is not making a salary to pay off those loans. We prayed for her that God would provide financially and when she went online to pay her loans, #1 loan was postponed until October and #2 loan was showing up as $0.00 owed. YAY GOD!

Also, the team is doing a treasure-hunt today and we felt like God wanted to release them in confidence and freedom to go out by themselves. David and I don’t need to be present for God to reach out and touch people on a daily basis. We don’t need to be the reassurance factor in the equation. So we really encouraged them that they have (AND YOU HAVE) the power and authority to go out and love one person everyday. To be confident that God will speak to you on a walk, or at the grocery store, or while you are on the bus to invest in the life of one person. To ask them “hey, how are you?” is really simple. To be obedient to go and follow God’s instructions. To pray for someone. YOU can do this. Walk in freedom, friends! We know that this team is going to go back to Brisbane and then their home countries to release the power of the Kingdom wherever they go. Excited to hear stories about what happened today, but even more excited to hear about what God is going to do through them in the future!

Our good friend, Jeff Hennessy went on a 3,000+ mile cross-country bike ride across the USA for 5 weeks with our other friend/missionary Simon Guillebaud (Great Lakes Outreach, Burundi) in a documentary known as “Bike for Burundi”. The film was shot by our other amazing and talented friend, David Strauss. Hadrian Hobbs from the UK (and a part of our small group at City Church) also joined in for the last 100 miles of week 5. If you have a free evening, you should definitely watch it! SO WORTH IT! Thanks for supporting our awesome friends and learning about how awareness can support Burundi!

<p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/59063538″>Bike For Burundi Documentary</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/user10959561″>David Strauss Photography</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

Thanks Christian for using your talents as a film-maker and capturing all of our adventures on camera! Looking forward to more. Here is the team working 2 weeks ago at El Arca…

<p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/59932318″>El Arca</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/user13168272″>Christian Eichmann</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

Today, Saturday, we took the team into the Plaza San Blas (the touristy/artsy side of downtown) to do some Treasure Hunting/Prophetic Prayer Outreach. Eric and Jen Smith from Spirit Led Expeditions joined us for a good time. After worshiping and hearing from the Lord, we left for the Plaza. Common words/pictures that people received were: “people on the stairs of the church”, “by the fountain”, “praying over The Meeting Place (a cafe) and “various people sitting in the plaza.” One team member, Jun (the same guy who had inflamed his knee while hiking last week and has been on crutches all week) received a dream last night (and then saw it again in worship of him standing on a stage/dancing). His art form is breakdancing.  He thought that it was crazy saying, “I can’t even walk this week; how am I supposed to dance?” He felt like he should bring his computer to outreach, but was worried about how he would perform and the lack of speakers. We prayed for speakers to be already in the plaza. When we got there, the Saturday craft market was in full swing and (praise God!) there was a stereo attached to speakers blasting Andean whiny music. We split up into groups of 2-3 and got a chance to pray with and talk to lots of people. Christian was able to walk around with his video camera to capture the events unfolding and people were being encouraged left and right.

About 30 minutes before packing it up to leave, Jen Smith catches up to me and says, “Get ready for a show. Jun is going to dance!” So we gather the team, round up some Peruvians that we had just made friends with and go over to the stage area in front of the fountain. We prayed for Jun’s knee one last time that God would bring full healing and amazing dancing ability, 100%. Jun gets up there, we played his song over the speakers and a Peruvian man graciously offered his USB cable to the computer and he nails this awesome breakdancing routine. THEN as a crowd had gathered, he (and Jen Smith) translate his testimony and how he is using his dancing ability for God. The straight-up Gospel and how Jesus loves them. How everyone has a talent for God to use, whether it’s dancing or something else and that he loves using ordinary people. WOW. Way to go Jun! YAY GOD!

The crowd was insistant for another dance, so he did! And his knee, as far as we are concerned is healed. Not only can he walk on it (where he couldn’t for a week put any weight on it) to breakdancing–twice. You could see such joy radiating in this guy, who was super down-in-the-dumps a few weeks ago (especially after the hike) to triumphantly proclaiming what God has done in his life and the joy of being able to dance again.

So what’s your talent? How can you glorify God with your gifts this week?

This week has been hard. David and I have been in charge all week while the Allen’s have gone to Lima to get the kid’s residencies finalized (I think they did it! I think ALL of their kids now are Peruvian residents! YAY!) and meanwhile back here it seems that at every turn things happen that are out of our control. The Lord has pulled through for us yet again and reminded us of all of our blessings and His goodness. So I’m going to write about His goodness, instead of focusing on our problems:

1. He managed to bring a fun-tastic group of Brits and Americans together for a dinner party in a broken down VW van on the side of a roundabout in the rain. We talked about Cusco, and home, the Spice Girls, what the Lord is doing now and all things “chav”.

2. We met a nice, new mechanic named Corneilio who after having the VW for 2 days fixes the gear box for an amount that was cheaper than expected and that we had in the team ministry money account. His wife thought David was a well respected man (because of his beard) and C. equated me with Jennifer Lopez (because of my name and good looks of course).

3. The team hiked up Mt. Pikol while I was sick. Didn’t know at the time, but as I was sick one of the team members hurt his knee on the trail and couldn’t walk. So they carried this person down, but because of the slow-going, someone in the group (not on the team, but hiking alongside) alerted the Volunteer Fire and Rescue squad. Eric and I got to rescue the rescue squad (twice) because of a lack of gasoline in their van. Yes, they drive a mini-van…up mountains. After a 10-hour ordeal everyone came off the mountain and is ok. Even the team member with their knee will be ok after a few days of rest and some medicine. My sickness disappeared as I was driving with Eric up to the base of the mountain.

4. We had amazing worship this morning as we watched a worship session from Bethel Church  (on iBethel.tv) and got ready to do a treasure hunt at Cristo Blanco. Well the VW broke down again and the team managed to get to the top of the lookout by taxi. A few hours later Corneilio came and helped David and even in the pouring rain, I got to have an inner-healing prayer session with one of the girls on the team. Hooray for releasing the Kingdom and Jesus releasing freedom and forgiveness. In my opinion, it was totally worth the rain.

5. Valentines-Day with David was very nice. After a chaotic day of feeling sick and skipping Spanish lessons, to my surprise, my tutor Amauta LOVES me. She and David came back to the house (with cake) and our assignment was to create V-day cards in Spanish for one another. After a day of driving people around and translating at doctor’s offices and running errands, we were able to have a nice dinner at home (homemade pasta with MEAT sauce) and he bought me a whole sleeve of Twix (which I’m sure cost more than it should have).

(David Writing)

6. Even though things have been tough we have been learning amazing things. I was able to add several new spanish vocabulary words (all dealing with cars and automotive things), namely the word for tow-truck, clutch, gear box and “start the car”. All-in-all not a week I would want to re-live but I feel accomplished and re-assured that God gave the wisdom to make decisions and the ability to communicate well enough to work through the many problems. Our life is not always easy or simple, but it’s never boring. We feel so privileged to be serving God here and wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.

Starting this summer (in July/August) we will have two 2-week sessions at YWAM Cusco for high school students, aged 15 and up, to come with their youth leaders/parents/chaperones/even whole families to experience serving in foreign missions. We want this to be an introduction to what a Discipleship Training School is like (but for youth who are under 18). Therefore, for two weeks students will pray, worship, live in Christian community and serve at our various outreach locations while they are in Cusco. We want this to be a growing experience for high schoolers who are already walking out their Christian faith, but are craving more. We are putting together a World Missions 101 packet of information that will be finalized by the end of this month. If you, or your church family would like more information about this exciting summer program, please drop me an email and I would be more than happy to get that to you. We love how Daddy God is providing the resources and creativity for this program and would be thrilled if you could join us!

The MAD (Music, Arts and Dance) team from Brisbane came Tuesday afternoon  after a record 65+ hours of traveling! After they rested for a few days and had orientation, we jumped right into their “Vision Week”, or the week when they practice hearing from God. After watching “Finger of God” and “Furious Love” (They had watched “Father of Lights” at the base before they left), we put it into practice.  Part of “Finger of God” shows students from Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry doing “Treasure Hunts”, or prayer outreaches around Redding, CA.  Basically the students hear from God about who to look for, or where to go, or words for people and then they compare notes with each other. Then they go out into their city and it’s like “Blue’s Clues” with God because He shows you the clues you got beforehand.  So, we applied this same model with the team. Our Peruvian friend, Andres, joined us for the hunt.

 

We spent Saturday morning in prayer and worship and the Lord was releasing his freedom. People confessed, forgave, sang, danced and got rocked by the Holy Spirit. Awesome. Then we each went off to pray by ourselves and then came back to compare notes on what we heard. Common themes were: “blue hat”, “old man with kids”, “person by the fountain” (purple jacket), “brokenness”. There was more, but of course we leave it up to God to tell us in the moment too.  Once we got into town we split up into teams of 2-3 and here are some stories of what happened:

 

(Jen Carter, Amanda and Christian): Christian took his camera (film student) and began filming. Encounter #1: We went for the fountain in the Plaza de Armas and there we found a girl, Janelle, (who was obviously Muslim with a purple head scarf). She was also wearing a purple jacket. She was with 2 friends, Nadine and Rachel from the UK on holiday. Got to talk with all 3 and pray over them as a group; for traveling & protection, university graduation and jobs. God showed us that Janelle wasn’t offended (like I thought she would have been). They all left with JOY on their faces.

Encounter #2: Got a word for my friend Sandra (who works as a restaurant hostess next to our language school). Asked her if we could pray, but she couldn’t because she was working and didn’t want to cause trouble with her boss, but 2 girls that were offering massages (Sabrina and Reina) overheard our conversation and wanted prayer. They invited us to their massage parlor (literally, a closet) and wanted prayer for their families and business. They were curious about what we were doing and seemed like they were searching for more in their faith. God protect the truth that you’ve put in their hearts (someone had given them a tract from a cult and they were very curious as to how we were different from the tract. Didn’t bash the cult with words but tried to explain that the Bible is the ultimate truth. Go with that, not the pamphlet).

Encounter #3: We were sitting on the cathedral steps and lots of vendors came up to us. We got to talk and pray to a teenaged girl selling bracelets, Roberto (the charango player) and Endro (the artist) who thought they would walk away with money, but since we had none, they walked away knowing that God loves them and prayer for health and family issues.

 

(Andres and Jen T.): Found “old man with a kid” and were able to pray for them about blessing his family. A group of shoe shiner boys (one with a “blue hat”) came over and they started talking about how they were praying and hearing from God and the kids thought it was pretty cool. When Jen asked the kid in the blue hat what they could pray for him (since God had told her to find someone in a blue hat), he started crying and said that his mom was an alcoholic and he didn’t want to go home because she beat him. Then he asked if they had any Bibles (which they didn’t, because we don’t’ go with an agenda, but only to love) so they went to several stores (with the kid following them) and they bought him his first Bible (from a store that Andres said was never open, but today they just so happened to be open and they were selling Bibles). Praying that God will help this little boy understand what he is reading and keep him zealous and protected.

 

(Elizabeth, Misha and Johnny): Johnny prayed for a wooden saxophone vendor on the street (found out he was a Christian too) and then the guy started praying for Johnny. Then the man took him out for coffee to talk.  Misha found Pedro at a café and they struck up a conversation about how he was also a Christian and he used to go to church and found out that they both have a background going to a Presbyterian church. She was able to pray and encourage him. Before we went out, Elizabeth got a picture of “a woman with 3 braids” and later she found her on the street and even though she looked Peruvian, when E. asked her if she spoke any English the woman started speaking in GERMAN. (E. is from Germany!) So E. and Marta talked for an hour about her life and E. got to pray for her and her boyfriend, Cesar, who is an alcoholic and works in the mines. Marta lived in Germany with her first husband, but is now divorced but lives in Peru for half the year to be with her mom. E. told her about when they were in Australia they prayed for a man on the beach who was in a drunken, coma-like state to “get up in Jesus’ name” and the guy stood up and any indication of alcohol was out of his body. He could walk, talk and function normally.  God could do this same miracle for Cesar too. E. got to pray with her and got an invite to M.’s house to pray with her mom too.  At first M. didn’t want to pray because her friends were next to her (and believed in spirit worship/nature) and would be offended. E. told her that she respected her for that, but that she respected Jesus more (boom!) and that she could pray for her without her eyes closed and in German (just like a normal conversation), so M. loosened up and even wanted prayer a second time! Pray that Johnny, Elizabeth and Christian, who all speak German, can continue to build a relationship with Marta/her mom/Cesar.

 

Kale was able to talk to a guy from the UK, Tom, about his life and what he is doing in Cusco for holiday and love him as a friend for an hour. He got a wicked sunburn for it too.

 

David felt like he should be the intercessor while all of this was happening, so we put worship music on his iPhone and prayed in the Plaza. He said while he was sitting on a bench a bunch of kids (some selling stuff and some not) kept coming up to him wanted to talk to “this gringo” so that was encouraging for him. Also, he was able to encourage Kale to go sit with Tom at the beginning.

 

God really blew everyone’s opinions and expetations away this weekend (like he usually does)! It was such a joy to find people that God had highlighted earlier (if you try to rationalize why someone is wearing 3 braids, you can’t do it and then later you realize that God is making it VERY OBVIOUS who the person is). Praise be to God for all of the divine encounters we had. Praise be to him that this outreach team was bold and pushed through fear and awkwardness to love on people and to talk with them. Thank you Daddy that you love the people in Cusco so much that you would tell us, perfect strangers, to go tell them. Thank you for open hearts to receive the words of encouragement we had for them. Thank you for safety and fun! And we boldly ask for more next week! (The team was so pumped up that we want to do this every Saturday afternoon, if possible with the schedule). MORE LORD!!!!!!!

In the past 2 weeks, we are resting and getting ready for the next Brisbane team coming at the end of this month. We are doing a lot of “behind the scenes” work to get ready. We also have finished language school  and instead of going every day for four hours, we want to continue to practice with Jimmy and Amauta for 1 hour each every week. To celebrate 3 months of hard schooling, Jordan and Joy treated us to dinner at this posh, organic, gourmet restaurant called Sara’s. Highly recommend.  Our final “test” was to watch “The Lion King” in Spanish without subtitles to see how much we could pick up.

We were going to take the next two weeks to collect all the necessary paperwork for our residency process, but this week we found out that the organization that we were planning to go with has lost its credentials and ability to grant anymore residencies after this coming week.  We talked to our friend, Eric, who has just recently gotten his residency through a Baptist church in Lima. It is this church’s ministry to help other missionaries get their residencies through a non-Catholic visa (which the government is making it harder for missionaries to obtain).

Please be praying for our residency process that things will run smoothly and quickly and for God to be in our conversation with the lawyers and church.  Also pray for us to be able to rest this month until the new team arrives, and for Jen’s health.

We love you all! Thanks for all of your prayers and encouragement!

 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year everyone!  We are looking back on a year of blessings and thankfulness. In one year we graduated from DTS in Thailand, moved four times, received jobs for 7 months and learned/are learning Spanish.  I nannied 2 of the cutest kids over the summer. David learned about constructing houses and (in the words of Jacob Graudin) “learned how to dig holes and then fill them back up.” We walked through dry seasons and arrived into new seasons in faith journey with God. 2012 was a learning year. God loves to provide in every way possible.  We learned that despite our circumstances our decisions can’t be made based on fear.  We are so blessed to be encouraged by our old and new friends. As for the New Year, it has been said by some that 2013 will be the year of “missions and for missionaries to be called forth.” Yep, we receive that one and a whole lot more!

Some of our dreams/goals for 2013:

1. To continue a season of generosity and hospitality. We have seen over the past year seeds being sown in God’s economy. We have personally seen and experienced the rewards of being generous to others and want to keep at it.

2. We want to be granted Peruvian residency (the equivalent of a “US Green Card” in Peru). Yes, we can assure that we will still be full US citizens; however with a Peruvian residency one is allowed to live and work in the country as “non-Catholic missionaries” and receives the same benefits as Peruvians would (ex. you can have bills in your name, open accounts, drive, own a car, ect.)

3. We want to live out worship and prayer in Cusco. We want to staff and help establish a YWAM Cusco base (help raise a property or location to house classes and students for long-term), and this includes a Discipleship Training School (DTS) for youth of all ages to receive missionary training and to send them out.

4. We want outreaches for God to encounter every type of people in Cusco: the backpackers and tourists, the Quechua people, Peruvians/Cusquenas. We want to maintain and build relationship with other missionaries, local churches and programs while at the same time building our base.

5. We want God to dream over us this year. When our dreams and plans become aligned with His, good stuff happens. We look in joyful anticipation to 2013. Here’s to the New Year!

our DTS class

we got to spend lots of time at Camp St. Christopher (again!)

David and Hadrian Hobbs participated in their 1st Sprint triathlon

we found community (in US and in Peru)

and got to spend lots of time with family and friends.

Thank you 2012, goodbye. Hello 2013.