Peru 2011 - Marilyn & LTI students - Blog #5

Debie Phillips
soo...right now we are taking pastor cesi, marco and jovana to vote. Today is presidential voting day in Peru and the lines are ridiculously long! They go all the way outside and around the voting buildings. So we are just in the van waiting.

I’m feeling better! Thank you to everyone who was praying for me!! I started feeling better on thurs, praise God because we were in Chincha which is about 3 hours from where we had been staying. We ministered in two services there, one on weds night and one on thurs night. And we also went door to door inviting people to an evangelistic outreach that we did nearby.

After the outreach, we went to the pastors house, which is upstairs on top of the church, and they gave us some “hamburgers” that were very...interesting. I don’t think any of us really liked them at all but we all kept smiling and ate them without making a reaction...except jason lol that was funny, you definitely had to be there for that one to understand. After we ate, we ministered in their Thurs night service. Emily, Dillon and Emily did their skit, I sang in Spanish and then I gave a message. I really enjoyed the service. The worship was very loud and energetic and the people were very responsive.

I really went off my notes and gave most of my testimony which wasn’t planned at all. After I finished, Dillon came and gave an alter call and they prayed for people while I sang. It was a great service for me personally because I really just became vulnerable and went off my notes, it was kind of hard because I felt like I wasn’t going to make sense and I wasn’t going to be capable of connecting all my thoughts to flow together into a message unless I stuck to my notes but I just prayed and asked the holy spirit to completely take over and it was a very neat experience for me.

Service got out late and we made the 3 hour trip back to Jica Marca in a very crowed van...4 full grown men(Jason, Dillon, Pastor David and Marco) 5 women(Myself, Pastor Ceci, Emily, Jovana, and Mrs. Marylin) andddd 3 children, one of which is a baby whose favorite hobby is crying and im not even exaggerating.lol. But it was a fun ride on the way back, we played games and Emily laughed so much that she lost her voice the next day.

Friday, we returned to the school that we visited last week and we spoke to one group of 60 kids who were in 5th grade I believe. We did a skit, drumline and a salvation message. They absolutely loved the drumline, one of the kids got up and started break dancing kinda lol they loved it.
Friday night, we did street ministry near a busy little market in a not so great part of town. We went with a church which was a blessing because they had a sound system for use to use which was a huge help. Emily gave her testimony, we did the drumline and a skit and then Jason stood up on a bucket and preached the Gospel. He did reallyy good! Of course lol. People were really paying attention and seemed to connect with them. The pastor closed out, we prayed for a few people and then left to go eat. Nothing was open, so we drove to the airport since they have a 24 hour Mcdonalds and ate there.

Yesterday,(Saturday) we woke up and worked until around 3pm. Emily, Jovana and I washed all the dusty windows of the church and the side of the building. Then we helped the guys pick out all the rocks out of some soil that their hoping to plant grass on. After that, we ate, showered and got ready to go minister at another service at a church in Lima. Before church, we were rushing in the downtown Lima traffic to pick up Angeline; she was our translator for the night. So we sent jovana out into the downtown “town square” to try and find Angeline, only for Angeline to find us first. So then we were just looking for Jovana. This was not a good idea....to say the least lol there were sooooo many people. Almost like NY city or somthing. So we keep driving around stalling for them to get in the van butttttt...jovana was nowhere to be found and hadnt returned to the van. So we sent Jason out into the crowd to look for her....bad idea number 2! Lol. So we keep driving around the square hoping to spot them but we didnt. After a few minutes, we spotted Jason and he got back into the van and then Marco got out to start looking, while our translator drove the van. Thennn we found jovana!! Lol so now we were just looking for Marco. Keep in mind we had already driven around this square like 50 times! Lol. Once we spotted him, the translator pulled over for him to catch up and get into the van, and she just so happened to pull over right in front of the presidents house...bad idea number 3! So all of the guards with big machine guns started blowing their whistles at us telling us to move. It was a very interesting expirience! But praise God, everyone was finally safe in the van.

Service that night was awesome. The church we went to was predominantly young people and it was a packed house. I sang my song in spanish, dillon spoke a short message and Emily gave the word. After that, there was an alter call and we prayed and ministered to people. It seems that everywhere we go, the people are just so hungry for the word of God and so ready to experience him. It truly is very touching.

Sooo yeah, I think thats all for now, Emily is going to blog next and I don’t wanna keep her waiting any more :-) I cant wait to be home!
I miss you mom and Michael!! Give Eli hugs and treats for me!
Cedric!! I miss you so much!! I love your emails!! Cant wait to talk to you, I love you!

Anna!! Cant wait to see you girllllll!!!!! lol.

Thanks to everyone who has been reading and praying for us!

To God be all the glory!!
Thanks!
God bless!


Jason
The past few days have been great. This week we have been traveling a lot. We have ministered with 4 different pastors in the past four days. During our prayer time in preparation for this trip our greatest prayer was that we would operate in the power of the Spirit. We asked God that He would go before us and prepare the hearts of the people. We asked God that we would not operate in our own power but that we operate only in His, and everywhere that we go we take His presence with us. He definitely answered that prayer for us. At the churches the people have been very receptive to the word of God. Last night we went to a church and they were the most on fire church that we’ve been with. My favorite ministry in the past four days though was on Friday. We did an evangelistic service in a busy part of Lima. I didn’t think that we’d be doing street ministry while here in Peru but the Lord made it happen. The pastor had his own team that did worship then us LTI students did the rest of the ministry. Emily shared her testimony, then we did our drum line, next performed a skit then I had the opportunity to share the gospel. This was a dream come true for me because the Lord has given me a desire to preach the gospel in the open air but I never put any feet to it. (Psa 37:4)Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. The Lord put a desire in my heart to preach in the streets, and on this missions trip he gave me that desire. A year ago if you would have told me that I’d would be in the streets of Peru preaching to the people while standing on a bucket I would have called you nuts. Praise be to God for giving us desires that are pleasing to Him, and then bringing it to pass as we delight ourselves in Him. Yesterday was our last day of ministry, and we have two free days. We were supposed to have ministry today but due to presidential elections all activities have been cancelled. Thank you for your prayers and for keeping up with the blog. Beth I cant wait to see you in a few days! And I cant wait until we can travel and do ministry together. God bless you all, see you soon.


Dylon
It’s ridiculous that God allows us to be apart of His ministry. The move of the Holy Spirit has been with us everywhere we’ve gone. We speak with boldness when we tell the people that God is here to affect them because we know it will be confirmed. This trip has been everything I could have hoped for.

Thursday night we spent time at a church in Chincha. Jason brought encouragement, Debi shared the Word, and I closed with a Scripture regarding what the Holy Spirit was speaking to me for their church at that time. Many people responded to the altar call and the experience was evident in all that responded. We have not been using translators when praying for and laying hands on people, but just allowing our words and prayer language to minister to their spirits.

We got back from Chincha to Jicamarca about 1am and I went straight to bed. Friday morning we returned to the school we ministered to the week before. The target was the older age group, but I don’t believe they quite remembered that we were coming. Upon arrival, we waited 30 minutes before someone invited us to come in. We went through our 45 minute program smoothly and effectively. Then we began to wait for our next group to arrive for an additional 45 minutes. Finally we realized that it was time for school to end and another group wouldn’t be coming… yes, we were forgotten about. But all is well, the director of the school clearly stated that the door was open to him whenever they needed. Having that achieved is a far greater accomplishment toward kingdom advancement in the region then just getting through 45 minutes of our program. There was a great weight that rode on our time in this particular school because it was the first opportunity Pastor David or anyone has had in being able to speak to the kids. The fact that Pastor David is now able to be a voice here will be great towards the growth of his church, the discipleship of believers, counsel for many young people, and ensuring that young men find Jesus rather than the community of local gangs.
Friday night we traveled to Marcus for street ministry. The pastor accompanying us was the blind pastor whose church I spoke at last year. It was great to see him again. I really enjoy his company and way of thinking. The only possible “negative” to the loss of his sight is that his ear has become very fine-tuned. Sound check took about an hour total. We walked around and attempted to invite people at the market to come and enjoy the music or as Jason said “there will be cute boys,” but this was very difficult when we had no idea how this ministry would continue to be delayed.

However, that is the nature and beauty of ministering overseas. In some ways you must completely depend on those you are ministering with. It can be frustrating at times, but its important to keep in mind that it all will happen in God’s timing and the people will be there who are ready to receive what God has given us. The greatest enjoyment of taking part in this two-part trip every year is being completely open to the will of God. You know that every opportunity you have here is according to His will and I love to make the most of those opportunities. Although we may be forgot about or be delayed for hours at a time, it’s easy to say, “It’s supposed to happen this way.”

Our ministry was well received even on the street. We did not see an immediate fruit of souls being saved, but the pastor does similar ministry often and many people do come to his church at a later time to be discipled.

Saturday we continued work in the garden and assembled a wooden beam for the front of the church which Pastor will grow vines over as a decorative piece. Work concluded with lunch and we began to prepare for travel to our next church. This was definitely the youngest church we have visited so far. The worship was loud and guitar driven and very exciting. Jason and I were limited by the pole in front of us to display our usual expressions of worship and I became very familiar with an orange wall in front of me during the message. We all flowed very prophetically speaking very specific messages to the congregation and pastor. This would be close competition for one of my favorite Peru experiences just because of the nature of what was happening.

I’ll say it again because I truly can’t get over it-- what God enables and empowers us to do is amazing. He lets us be apart of what He can already do on His own. Wow.


Emily R.
Well fellow readers at the moment we have been sitting in the car for about 45 minutes waiting for Jovana to vote. The traffic today is insane! Here you have to option to vote and not vote and pay a fee of about $100 or more. Fun. The last couple of days we have had the opportunity to go to Chincha to minister to the word. Jovana has been helping me to break my many fears of ministering the word in Spanish. I’ve had fun overcoming them and even went door to door inviting people to come to an evangelistic service that we had prepared.

While in Chincha, we ate at a really good restaurant call El Baton and stayed in the Christopher Columbus Hotel where the water pressure in the shower almost drowned me. It was amazing! We were able to visit with Pastor Maria Isabel and her father Pastor Honorado and his family. He had hours of stories to tell us while we ate burgers. It was truly an experience.

Friday morning we went back to Emprendedores which is the school that Eliel goes to a few days a week. There we had an amazing time with the kids from age 11 to 15. There we were able to share our drumline, testimony, skits and salvation message. The kids responded well to the things that we shared. They even got involved in playing on the buckets and others danced. By the time we were done kids were asking where Iglesia Vida were and when would they be able to go and speak with the Pastor. Praise God for the lives that we are able to impact.

Yesterday I inspired Jovana to clean to front of the church. It was amazing to see the difference in color once she added a little soap and water. Deb and I were on window duty cleaning them up and making them shine. The boys on the other hand had another day of working in the garden which by the way looks amazing. Pastor David started building a canopy like thing to plant some kind of flowers around it that will hold on to it. Sorry for the vague description but I will post pictures of it on Facebook so that you all can see what I am talking about. :)

Last night we went to a church that full of young people who were hungry for the word! We could all sense it from the moment that we walked in. Deb sang, Dylon shared an encouraging word, I shared a message and Jason closed. Marco then made an altar call which almost everyone responded to and the Holy Spirit showed up to minister to each and every one of them. Chains were braking off, burdens lifted, fresh anointing was coming over them. I’ve never been apart of something like that. It reminds me of how blessed we all are to have a God that is willing to use us to bring His Kingdom to Earth!

Thank you for all of the prayer and support that you have all provided. It encourages us all the keep on doing what God has called us to do! Declaring His will in the earth at all cost. Love you can’t wait to see everyone back home!


Marilyn (known here in Peru as Mama D)
This has been a very full two weeks. I think all of the students are tired from the busy schedule AND the hard work. I know they would like to be able to sleep in – so after we arrive in Ft. Myers around four on Wednesday morning, expect them to be comatose most of the day. LOL!!

They have enjoyed the ministry most of all. I asked each of them what their favorite was – and for the most part, something different impacted each of them and for different reason. Truly - all of them have been thrilled at their ability to move beyond their notes while speaking. Frankly, it is impossible to anticipate where God might take them and lead them. What great times for them to have at such a young age.

They have also worked - HARD!! It is such a blessing for David and Ceci because the help they are given is engergizing to them to complete tasks they have. The work is NEVER ENDING. David and I were looking at things that are still to be done and we had to laugh because every time we think if just these few things could be done – and there are always more. Nearly impossible to believe that it all began just three years ago to see what is here today. Especially when you understand the monumental task it is to complete something and the fact there is no Home Depot nearby if you need something to complete your job.

We are out all day due to the elections. We are at a nice Mall right across from the Pacific Ocean. The kids are going to be going out in a bit to walk “down” to the beach area and to some parks. The rest of us are going to wait in or around Starbucks. Nice having Internet AND some American coffee.

Tomorrow night, Iglesia Vida in Jicamarca has planned a farewell party for us. The students truly have enjoyed the opportunity to get better acquainted with these faithful people.

Probably, we won’t write another Blog. Love to all of you and thanks for your prayers. With the exception of Debie - all of us have remained healthy - a real answer to prayer. The anointing has been evident in ALL we’ve done.