This week has felt very busy with the anticipation of Christmas. The team came back from hiking the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu and had an adventure of their own. They were able to talk to about 20 other hikers of all different nationalities (2 were from SC, hooray!) about what God has been doing in their lives and encouraged people. A bunch of the other hikers had a bad image of Christians/Christianity before this trip and the team said that “seeds were planted in so many conversations that changed people’s outlooks and lead them closer to accepting Christ.” Praise the Lord! They invited the whole group for Christmas dinner and 5 gave them a “maybe”, so perhaps some will come to Larapa for a Christmas meal away from home.

Meanwhile, in the city, panetons (Christmas fruit bread) replaces the entire cereal/oatmeal/quinoa aisle at the grocery stores. People are making stock-piles of fireworks for Christmas Eve. Our phones keep text-messaging us about special Christmas offers from Claro. This time of year is also a great opportunity for many churches, Catholic and Evangelical alike to host “chocolatadas” or hot chocolate socials for the communities surrounding Cusco and the homeless. These functions provide a wonderful opportunity to share the Gospel and love of Jesus to people who might not otherwise hear it. It keeps the “Christ” in “Christmas” from all the commercialism that believe it or not still exists in countries outside the US.

This past Saturday, we went to 2 chocolatadas with some of the team. The first one was with the Allen’s friends, Jose Luis and Samuel and their church in the village of Mishkiunu (in Quechua, it means “Sweet Water”) which is “just over the hill from Cusco.” The team played some games with the kids, sang songs and performed a skit. Turns out another church had planned a chocolatada for this town on the same day, same time so we just combined into one big party. We set up a distribution center in an abobe room for the community to hand out clothes for all the men, women and children. Lots of mud in this village which has mining construction next door to mine gravel. But today, there was much joy on the faces of kids who were receiving bread, hot chocolate, and presents. More importantly, the love of Christ was definitely displayed. We had to leave this event early to catch our friend Eric for chocolatada #2 in Pucamarca with the Quechua.

When we arrived in Pucamarca we had an hour of play time with the kids to attract people to the chocolatada. It’s so funny how kids in pretty much every culture, but especially this kids were entranced with balloons, or in Spanish “globos.” We could hardly tear them away to play soccer or tag. We did introduce to them what a “Scream Race” was. What was neat was aside from us playing with the kids, Eric put the Quechua in charge: cooking, serving bread and hot chocolate, sharing the Gospel and giving testimonies. It was really awesome to see the Quechua hungry to spread the Gospel in their own village and it wasn’t “just the white people coming in to hand out free stuff”. The pastor that helps Eric with his Wednesday night discipleship group in Pucamarca (that we went to this week and it was awesome. We started with 3 people and ended with 15) handed out “Jesus loves You” hats and t-shirts. The kids were so happy and we really enjoyed it. David and I also got a chance to translate (more or less, interpret) for the team and speak to the Quechua that knew Spanish. It made almost 3 months of language school so worth it to understand and speak it all day long. PRAISE GOD!

Please pray for the Christmas Eve outreach we have tomorrow night where we will go downtown and pass out sandwiches, hot chocolate and blankets to the homeless of Cusco. Many people sleep in the plazas who are from the country villages who have come to sell their goods at the Christmas Eve day markets. Pray for God-encounters in conversations and that we would be able to bring hope and love to people this Christmas.

We were delighted to meet Victor and his wife, Peggy at the Cono Norte Conference. This couple now lives and works in Colombia. Peggy was a part of an outreach team that came to Cusco in 1989 when YWAM Cusco existed for 10 years. This is her story she shared with us:

“(In 1989), a group of about 400 YWAMers gathered in Cusco to pray over the city during the Inti Rami Festival. 400 was considered a big group back then. This festival is a ceremony held every year by Inca tradition that worships the sun god, Rami. If the sun shines while the ceremony is taking place, then it means that the sun-god is pleased and it will be a good year for crops. If the sun doesn’t come out, then it will mean a year of bad harvest. It was at this gathering that 3 women out of this group held themselves up in a hotel for 3 days and prayed that during the ceremony that clouds would cover up the sun and that God’s glory would be seen and worshipped instead of a sun-god that doesn’t exist, but is kept alive through spirit worshippers. She said that at the ceremony that year it was a clear day, not a cloud anywhere and once the ceremony began, clouds came and blocked out the sun. There was a terrible harvest that year, but God made his presence known that year.”

She asked how the spiritual climate was over Cusco at the present time and we said that in general, people are open when you ask to pray for them (in our experience) and we know the curses spoken over our city, but we hope in God’s grace and transformation of hearts. We want to continue to be rooted in prayer. (If God can do it in Cali, Colombia, he can certainly do it in Cusco and in so many other cities). Her last suggestion was to “serve. When things get crazy and there’s a lot of fighting even between ministries or whatever; serve. When you serve, you love.” Thanks God. Thanks Peggy.

The Cono Norte Conference took place at the YWAM/JUCUM base in Leticia, Colombia from December 8-12th. Bases came from Colombia, Venezuela and Peru (Ecuador was absent this time). Craig Hill was the keynote speaker, focusing on covenant relationship we have with Father God that carries over into our marriages or relationships with other people, our kids and families and our finances. How do we bless our families? What does that look like? How can changing our mind-set of how we bless our families change a nation?

The first night we had a time of inner-healing prayer (called “Sendas Antiguas” or “Ancient Paths”). We worshiped, prayed and heard reports of all of the bases in attendance and heard about their ministry opportunities and needs. For the record, a lot of bases in all of these countries need volunteers to help with children’s ministries, maintenance work and staffing YWAM schools (if you’re interested). It was very encouraging to meet new friends with ministries and leaders and to practice our Spanish. We felt lost trying to comprehend the meeting announcements, but we noticed that we are faster at responding with answers to questions. Some points that stuck out for us (and these don’t just apply to marriage, but any relationship):

⇒As (future) parents, we shouldn’t rule over our (future) kids with control, but with the holy authority given by God. Depending on age appropriateness determined by the parents we should offer our kids choices and a consequence (good or bad) follows that choice. Ex. “eat peas and watch TV”, or “don’t eat peas and don’t watch TV”
⇒ Ways to bless your family: 1) meet once a week for a meal with real conversation, 2) forgive them 3) affirm them with words, 4) pray with your kids and bless them at least once a week (raises their identity and value), 5) pray with your spouse every night, 6) invite other friends and family to see how you’re doing it
⇒When you pray with your spouse every night, you can keep it simple: 1) forgiving each other, 2) sharing what you’re thankful for, 3) blessing and affirming one another (ex. Numbers 6). Pray together for the next 30 days. After that it becomes habit.
⇒Every person is looking for value. Even asking “how are you?” can be a blessing to that one person because they know that they are being cared about.
⇒ Deuteronomy 5 – honor your parents. If you bless them, call them, love them (even if it’s hard), you will heal wounds. And form relationship.
⇒Keep covenant with your marriage. It was never a contract. (Heb. 13:5) (Rom. 5:8) (Mark 10:1-12). (Craig wasn’t bashing divorced people in the room, but he was saying that from this point on, look at every relationship in covenant as unconditional, irrevocable and unilateral).
⇒ We are seeing that when divorce and remarriage happens in one generation, adultery, abuse, abortion and abandonment follow in the next generation. People believe the lies that 1) God cannot redeem a broken marriage and that He cannot restore and 2) creates a cycle of performance basis to earn love (ex. THIS IS A LIE. “My dad left my mom so how do I know that God will not one day leave me too?).
⇒ Keep covenant with God: if God says, “All that I have is yours!” (Deut. 9), then find out what He has. If you don’t know what you can ask for, you won’t ask. God is a promise-maker and a promise-keeper. Read David vs. Goliath. David is successful because he knows what it is to be in relationship with the Father, he knows the provisions of that covenant (if God tells you that you will one day be King, hold fast to that word) and has the confidence to force that covenant into action (all he really had to do was show up, but he chose to fight the giant)
⇒ Keep covenant with your finances: (Matthew 6:24) “give to God what is holy”. Yes, tithing is good. Do it. (Lev. 25 – The Year of Jubilee) God set it up to have a debt purge every 50 years…Craig made a point of how we see this “involuntary debt purge” in the world’s economies every 70-80 years. It’s called a depression. The last “Jubilee” was in 1930s. (Prov. 13:22) talks about the wealth transfer. (Psalm 37:21) God gives to the generous and those who show mercy. (Matt. 5:5) (Proverbs 22:6). Do what these words say. Be generous, meek (Meek: not weakness but a fruit of power; when a person has power/resources, but when prompted by the Holy Spirit will use less than 100% in action), set up investments, give to offerings (ex. Spread your money out, don’t hoard it all in one place). Eliminate your debt. Ask God what to do with the money you have. Steward it well.
⇒ God loves to multiply! But he can’t multiply nothing, as in 0. He turned a little boy’s lunch into a feast for 5,000. He turned one jar of oil into many. You have to give, even if it’s only a little bit (the widow’s 2 cents) and God can do miracles with it.

At least 10-15 people came up to us and told us that back when YWAM Cusco existed in the 1980s-1990s (it puttered out after 10 years) that they had pioneered work in Cusco, or done a DTS there. Now they were in YWAM for 20-30 years later still doing work in South America and around the world on outreaches! People seemed very excited and interested in Cusco having a YWAM presence again. We are honored to have listened to their stories about what the base and Cusco was like in the past and to continue their momentum in praying and worshipping over the city. Read “Peggy’s Story” to hear one story we heard about YWAM Cusco’s past.

The traveling to and from the Cono Norte Conference was by far the craziest adventure we have ever had in our lives to date. Therefore, I’ll talk about what happened and write a separate post with conference notes and cool stories.  For now, here is our traveling story:

We left Friday morning on a flight to Lima (which we were bumped up to an earlier flight….thanks Lord!). All goes well on the flight to Lima which was celebrated with some Dunkin’ Doughnuts Boston Cremes.  Then, when we tried to get our tickets at the counter for the flight to Iquitos the different airline had declined our credit card with our round-trip tickets. They failed to mention that a week ago when we bought them. However, the problem was that our bank had accepted the charges and wouldn’t issue a refund until they could contact the airline (which they still can’t).  Still waiting to hear something about a refund. We had to buy new one-way tickets with very little money we had left. All 8 ATMs in the airport would not function past $100.  We flew to Iquitos that night. A shout-out goes to Rob, Becky, Sandi, Joe and Addie at the Iquitos base for such wonderful hospitality and understanding of our situation.  Also, a huge thank you to our friends and family who spotted us some cash to purchase food, the hotel at the conference and return tickets. We couldn’t have done it without your generosity. THANK YOU.

We determined that Iquitos, which is an island at the base of the Amazon River reminds us of a lot like Thailand.  We woke up at 4:30am to catch the 5:00am (which didn’t take off until 6am) boat for the 10-hour trek up the Amazon. It takes 10 hours going 60mph. It takes 3 days by a boat with one motor.  Every hour or so we would pass villages with houses made from thatched palm fronds and dug out canoes.  We saw a rainbow. Finally around sunset we reached the 3 Frontiers; the checkpoint where Peru, Colombia and Brazil meet on the river.  After checking out of Peru at Santa Rosa, a town that resembled a very dodgy Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville, we crossed the river by motor-boat to Leticia.  Leticia is beautiful. Picture a Folly Beach-sized town where you can walk around 6 blocks of houses with color schemes from the Bahamas, but on the edge of the Amazon River.  Our hotel had the biggest cockroaches I’ve ever seen in my life.  It also tends to rain a lot in the rainforest.  You can walk 4 blocks down from the YWAM Leticia base and find yourself at the open border of Brazil. In 4 blocks the signs change from Spanish to Portuguese, you realize that Leticia is much cleaner and well-planned city, than it’s neighbor, Tabitanga (Brazil). Both cities boasted colorful music and culture.  A huge shout-out goes to Beth and Clark Barnard who helped us get through check-points, hail a motorboat taxi, find the immigration hut and in general treat us around Leticia. You guys are such amazing adopted parents.

 

Fast-forward through an awesome conference. On the way from Leticia, we spend the night in Santa-Rosa in a sauna of a hostel.  Then the next morning at 2:30am we went down to the docks to leave for our 10-hour return trip.  The boat left the port at 4:30am. At 7:45am one of our motors stops functioning. Fortunately, we are near a small town where we hang out for 4 hours (because it takes a smaller boat much longer to get us the part fixed). We get back on in time for lunch. Around 3pm the same motor goes out. We get stuck on the side of the Amazon while the crew argues to keep going or wait. We keep moving, but the boat has an uneven keel and we are moving at 20mph.  I asked God for a porpoise or some natural beauty (like the rainbow earlier) to know that he would provide help for our boat.  Around sunset, David saw a fin. As night fell at 6pm it gets increasingly dangerous to be on the river. We’re hitting logs and it seems that every 100ft we go, we stop; plus the boat is leaning to the left.  We loose contact with the “rescue boat” coming to deliver the part.  It rains. It was the Lord’s goodness that people were for the most part, calm.  After a lot of praying, the rescue boat comes at 11:30pm. We all leave our stuff aboard the broken boat. We managed to get to Iquitos at 3:00am. Around the same time, the broken boat (we find out later) got stranded on a sandbar and had to get help in the morning.  Our bags arrived with the boat at 11am the next morning.  People lost all composure.  We are thankful that Cusco doesn’t have boats.  It was a blessing that the crew tried their best to be so helpful and communicate what was happening and they opened the packages that were going to Iquitos so that we could have dinner of a pack of crackers, a CapriSun and a lollipop.

Later, the taxi to the Iquitos airport ran out of gas. We got to Lima without problems (praise you, Daddy!).  We slept so well at the missionary guesthouse, thanks Rosa! We felt so well taken care of. Then our flight to Cusco had “technical difficulty” and was delayed 2 hours. However, we are safely home in Cusco.  We don’t mean to complain so much. We just want to be detailed at how sometimes even missionaries get in stressful situations. It’s not always “fun.” What a crazy adventure we have been on!  I’m sure there’s a lesson in here somewhere, but we are so thankful to God that he provided calmness on the river, friends to help us when we were frustrated and an abundance of patience and grace at the airports. We’re thankful in the ways that he provided financially for this trip. In the end we did receive 6 months until our next border run, as well as an awesome story for our future kids.  “When I was your age…we had to trek, uphill both ways…up the Amazon…in the snow…on a boat.”

Often, when we are at school, Amauta and Jimmy will decide to take us on walking field trips to get acquainted with more of the city or to practice more vocabulary with our Spanish.  Tuesday’s field trip was to her former university’s zoo! It had your typical monkeys (monos), foxes (zorros), bears (osos), condors (cóndores), an ostrich (avestruz), rabbits (conejos), a puma (puma), ocelots (tigrellos), owls (búhos), parrots (loros), a peacock (pavo real), a deer (venado), an alpaca/horse (alpaca/caballo) and a warthog (chancho).  And now you have your Spanish fix for the weekend.

Some of the animals we saw:

David has been sick some of this week with the same “out of it” feeling that I had awhile ago.  He’s better, but I went by myself to school on Thursday and Friday.  Amauta and I went and got our haircuts on Friday for “school” because we wanted some girl time (and I really needed a haircut).  I was able to carry on a conversation with the girl cutting my hair and then later Amauta and I had a deep conversation over cake (she’s a fan of going out for carrot cake verses coffee and frankly, I’m ok with that).  It was so cool to be able to understand and hear some of her past and how the Lord was teaching her a lot about where I had been in the past as well.  It felt so good to have a friendship on a deeper level here and to communicate all of it in Spanish! Thanks Lord!!  (and David is feeling better this weekend)

This is the cute hole-in-the-wall place we like to go for good coffee and desserts:

Clark Barnard, the national director/leader of YWAM Peru came up from Lima for Saturday and left Sunday morning specifically (in his words) “just to say ‘hi’ and officially welcome you to Peru.”  What an awesome guy!  If you remember, we had a divine encounter with Clark where we met him the first time at the YWAM DNA Conference in Chiang Rai, Thailand.  He had a neat follow-up story after that conference when he flew out on the same plane as Loren & Darlene Cunningham (founders of YWAM) and the rest of the conference speakers.  Loren was so encouraged and impressed to see Clark come all the way to Thailand from Peru just to hear the original vision of YWAM come from the founders that Loren invites Clark to sit on the plane with him.  When Loren asks Clark what the mission is for YWAM Peru and whatnot Clark said that “It wouldn’t be my place for me to tell you the vision for all of Peru. I could make a strategic 5 year or 10 year plan for the future with our national board, but if it’s alright to say so, you would have to ask each of the pioneering people and families.  It’s my vision to see this grassroots movement of individuals and families fulfilling the specific calling that God gave each of them to do.  It’s about hearing those things from God and watching people fulfill dreams.”  (Loren Cunningham smiled and told Clark not to change a thing about this vision).  We spent Saturday and Sunday morning with Clark soaking in a lot of wisdom and hearing lots of stories and we were so encouraged by his visit.  He’s a lot like us. He considers relationships to be very important.

This is a picture of Clark (on the right) when we last saw him at the DNA Conference (with David Hamilton one of the first YWAM pioneers in Peru and Chile):

We also have all of our travel information in line and ready to go for the JUCUM Regional Conference.  We’re excited (God seems to do lots of stuff in us over conferences we’ve noticed) so we will make the trip from Cusco to Lima, from Lima to Iquitos where we will travel with Clark by boat to Leticia.  Please pray for amazing worship, relationships to be built and for us to be open to what God is saying and speaking over the Northern Cone of South America from Dec. 6-15th.  The actual conference is the 8th-12th.

Thanks guys for your prayers and encouragement! Let us know how you are doing! Love, The Carters

The week has been busier than usual, with the team arriving and Jordan coming back.  Praise the Lord for peanut butter and the camera cable (you may have noticed the dramatic increase in photos)! Our Thanksgiving was very good. We took off from school that day and cooked up a feast (including: green bean casserole  baked chicken, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole  cooked carrots, salad, apple cider, bread, and for dessert included apple pie, peach pie, cupcakes, pumpkin pie, ice-cream and candy corn.)  We also celebrated an international day of thanks with Canadians, Americans, a Peruvian (Corbin Allen), a Norwegian and a Dutchman. This Thanksgiving we are especially thankful for not only good food and friends that made it like family, but for each and every one of you guys! We were able to Skype our families too, which was lovely.

We found out that there is a YWAM conference in Leticia, Colombia in 2 weeks that our leaders wanted us to pray about attending.  It is the regional conference for YWAM Peru, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador and is focusing on “Transforming Families to Impact Generations.”  We have thought about it and want to talk to Clark Barnard (our national YWAM director for Peru) about logistics when he comes next Saturday. So far we haven’t felt God telling us “no” so as of now, we are in! The conference is scheduled for Dec. 8-12th.

Today was a fun filled day of adventure with our tutor, Jimmy and his family.  His entire family rented a bus and invited us to visit Senor de Huanca (a holy site visited annually by Peruvian Catholics).  It is the place people visit to have their mode of transportation blessed. It was about an hour away from Cusco in the mountains and it was gorgeous!  Picture stepping into “The Sound of Music.” We got a chance to tour the grounds, attend a mass and have lunch by a river.  Jimmy has a lovely family and we are so grateful to have spent a perfect Sunday morning/afternoon with them.

A photo of the mountains on the way…

 

 

 

David and I at Senor de Huanca

(Pray for: Meghan, Gert, Glenn, Danielle, Laurinda, Bethany and Idun while they are here until Jan. 1st)

Praises: it’s official. YWAM Brisbane outreach team comes in 2 days.  Pretty excited to have 7 people (including the wonderful Laurinda Rapp) coming and ready to impact Cusco! Our buddy Eric was granted his residency this week and will be moving in next week underneath us.  Jordan also comes back from his time in the States in a few days as well (with our camera cable! yes!).  We are moving on in language school from grammatical things to conversation practice.  We treated Amauta to Starbucks this week and acted out our homework (which was to act out a parable from the Bible using the subjunctive tense) so David and I got our “Jonas y la Ballena/Jonah and the Whale” on in front of fifty or so people. Hilarious.  We explained to Jimmy (in Spanish) how to play “Pictionary” and he is now a raving fan.  Today, we are going to a kid’s festival at Corason that is a fundraiser for a Christian after-school program.  There is a rumor that cuy (guinea pig) is on the menu…we will see.  Then tonight we are having Jimmy, his girlfriend and his son over for dinner (Southern breakfast!) and a Disney movie.  Below is a picture of our new friends Amauta and her husband, Jesus. We have had dinner with them twice and privileged to know them.

I, Jen, appreciate all of your prayers as after a week, my sinus infection/cough thing has gone away! Hooray for not being sick! The Lord was definitely teaching me over the past two weeks that “it’s not about me” (because often I am caught up in the lie that I need to “work harder, or that I need to do a good job at everything” (which by the way is impossible) for things to function as a wife, friend, leader, ect.  So humbled this week to be doted upon by David (got me Vitamin C, cooked, and forced me to stay home from school for 2 days).  To be honest, I really struggled with skipping school for 2 days (yes, I was and still am a nerd when it comes to academia), but I felt as if language school is our only agenda and I can’t even do that well…and Daddy God sat me down for many conversations that went something like this: “Beloved, I love you. You’ve been sick for a week and have to lean on me.  What if you were sick for a month or a year? Would you still believe in healing and trusting that in me, you are enough? Don’t you think that you mean more to me just existing? I love what you can do and even more what you can’t do.” Wow. Thanks Daddy. Needed lots of that, to be honest, I was a grouch last week and the Lord really dealt with a lot of things in both me and David to realize that it’s not about us.  God is constantly working despite our feelings or actions.  We don’t need to strive for good works or the “perfect day.”  It’s a blessing to be here and that God would even consider using us for Peru. But he did and he does because we asked for this.  And we are thrilled to have asked because of his generosity to bless us with more than we asked for.  Not because we are “super-religiously-special”, but because I’m his kid.  We’re his kids.  I think I’m misquoting this from the movie, “Father of LIghts”, but I was reminded of how parents don’t look for anything past love from their kids.  They are happy with an “I love you.” and everything else falls short of being and receiving love.  That’s what I was reminded of this week: “Beloved, you are loved. I love you.” and saying those words back to my Father is all He wants.

Shining Bright, The Carters

This week, the Lord has been giving me (Jen) a lot of awesome, but crazy dreams and the interpretations of them, so that’s been really neat to dive into this week.  Spent “Prayer for the City” (PFC) night doing what we do best, praying for the city and worshipping together.  It seemed way appropriate since we forgot that Wednesday was Halloween (until we got out of language school and the Plaza was filled with little kids trick-or-treating at the tourist stores).  It made us miss trick-or-treating as kids, but then later one of our missionary friends that came to PFC (who has been a missionary kid in the jungles of Peru her whole life) informed us of what really happens in Peru on the 3-day festival of Halloween, Day of the Living and Day of the Dead. In a nutshell, we heard of lot of creepy things of the enemy that happen (which isn’t worth repeating here) and instead we wanted to give God all of the glory (since he has dominion over these days anyway)! As we worshipped, an incredible peace filled the house almost to the point of all of us falling asleep (YES!).  Most of you will be familiar with this because of the email that we sent out and now we’re going to tell you how God answered those prayers. So get ready to exercise your faith muscles and enjoy!

On Thursday (the day after Halloween) David and another person on staff, David Snyder, went on a faith adventure because God wanted them to try and find a boy and a family in a village that David S. went to last year. They had a general idea of where the village was but not the name of the village or even the boys name.  All they had was a cell phone picture of the boy and a general idea of where the village was (near the airport).  They took a taxi part-way past the airport  and walked up into mountains, through brush on a winding trail over hills and through villages leaving the city behind, praying the whole time for God to show them the right place and asking many along the way if they recognized the boy.

After a light rain and 3 hours of walking, they came to the village of Willcarpay (sounds like “will-co-pie”) and asked a group of boys if they knew the kid and they said, “Yeah, that’s the kid in the house over there.” They found the house, David S. got nipped by a dog but the same kid and his twin sister recognized David S. immediately and ran up to him.

They played with him (Anderson) and his sister, Jackie. God rewarded their faithfulness with an incredible adventure and an amazing lunch of cooked corn and beans in a chili sauce and a tour of the families cui (guinea pig) farm. People like these are often time the most affected by the horrific things that go on as a result of the Kingdom of Darkness. Based in relationship (really big for us), this demonstrates that in situations where there are those willing to walk in faith and be obedient there is no such thing as small impact.

Shining Bright, Team Carter

The Lord has shown us so many encounters this week!

 

On Tuesday at language school, we asked our language tutor, Jimmy, about his soccer game the night before.  He said they tied, but the real loss was that he got kicked above the ankle and it hurt him to walk on it. We kept talking and I was like, “Jimmy, can we pray for your ankle?” “Yeah, you can pray” “No, but I mean can we pray right now?” “Sure, you can pray…..in Spanish.” (Great.)  So David and I prayed (limited Spanish, mostly English) over his ankle/shin area and afterwards he brushed it off with a “Thanks.” When we asked if it felt better, he said “Yes, what did you do? Is that magic?” “Um, nope. It’s  the Lord!” : )

 

Then on Thursday, we had dinner at Amauta and Jesus’.  It was so wonderful and just what we had prayed for! Before coming to Peru we had prayed to make Peruvian friends and for our new friends to make us a home-cooked Peruvian meal. What we got was a night laughing, worshiping, singing, and eating the most delicious lomo saltado (rice, boiled then fried potatoes, and beef sautéed with onions and tomatoes = crazy delicious) and they thoroughly enjoyed my banana-chocolate chip bread.  Turns out Jesus knows English (from living in the States for 2 years) and we got to share some of our wedding photos and got to see their wedding video and talk about all things married. We jammed out to Hillsong (in Spanish) and David got to bond with Jesus and Amauta in a jam sesh with a cajon and guitars.  The Lord invaded that night with such joy and conversation and we are so thrilled to have them as our new friends! We hope to invite them over to our place soon for some Southern cookin’ soon!

 

 

On Friday, David and I were at Starbucks hanging out for a few hours before class. After awhile a group of hippie-hipster girls walked in and sat down near us. The Lord kept telling me, “pray for her…” The “her” He was referring to was a girl with dreds who looked like she was either tired, sick or on something.  Honestly I was like, “Lord, not now. These girls are intimidating.” And he kept saying, “It’s her, and I love her, go tell her how much I love her.” 30 minutes went by and I was debating the right time to go over and honestly I was eavesdropping on their conversation how she got sick but missed all of her antibiotics and got sick again…blah blah blah. So I made a deal with God, “Ok, make it an easy transition to talk to her.” God said, “watch me.” (Within 5 minutes, the loud German couple on the couch across from us got up and left and the girl’s 2 friends she was with got up and went to the bar). So I find myself getting up to talk to “her.”  After a brief introduction, I find myself telling her (her name’s Bracie) about how Jimmy got healed 2 days before and that the Lord wanted to heal her. I got a chance to pray for her before her friend’s came back and she went from being this sick/out of it looking person in the Starbucks booth to there being such light in her eyes.  Her reaction was, “Thanks, that was great. You’re very connected.” (whatever that means, yeah, connected to the Lord!)  She doesn’t know how long she’s in Cusco, just hanging out for an undetermined part of time, but I truly believe that the Lord was healing her and I told her that Daddy God must love her A LOT. Enough for Him to tell me about it and I’m a total stranger getting my vanilla latte on.  Thanks Lord! Yeah, it was awkward at first, but obedience is totally worth it!

 

Other PRAISES: 

1. Jordan was granted his residency! 

2. Our friend, Eric Lovin, is going to be our new neighbor mid-November in the apartment below us! Hello community!! 

3. David built me a shelf for the hallway and a bookcase out of some scrap wood in the yard today!

4. We enjoyed some McDonald’s on Saturday night and then hiked a mountain (in a neighborhood, but a mountain nevertheless) and sat at the foot of the Cristo Blanco statue (that overlooks the whole city) and prayed over the city with David Snyder.