I travelled to Chota last week and preached the night I arrived. There are a lot of youth in that church and it’s growing all the time. Then on Friday we had a church planting training from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and there were 27 people in attendance. Twenty-two of them committed to working with home churches – starting Bible studies in houses – and after a year we should see some new congregations.

We are about to print another 16,000 tracts – different ones from the last printing. When we printed the first time, I honestly thought that 16,000 was a lot, but it all fit in two boxes. We have already distributed about 12,000 of them throughout the country. We’ve given them to pastors and we even have a radio station that is offering them to their listeners who request them.

God is blessing this effort by adding saved lives to our congregations and this is comforting.

These Spanish tracts we are distributing are available to download and print at Christian Triumph’s Web site.

Last night, we visited three churches up in the mountains. I went to two in towns and Pastor Jorge from Chota visited one out in the countryside. The congregations were very happy to receive teaching and our help. We took tracts and 30 copies of Mensajero de Esperanza for each congregation. We got home at 12:30 a.m. this morning.

This weekend, I’m travelling to Bambamarca and from there into the mountains to visit some other small groups and to receive a new group of brothers who wants to join in our fellowship.

Women Working for God in Peru

Every day the church continues to grow in this region and we are so happy for that, but now I have a lot of work to do because I need to visit the different places each week where new churches are starting.
We are starting two new churches in the mountains, and in March, I am going to travel with Pastor Jorge from Chota eight hours into the mountains –up and down and there is one part that lasts for three hours where the road is about a half-mile above a drop to the river down below. If a driver were to go off that road, he would be a goner. In one of the new groups there is a high school teacher and a nurse, as well as some high school students. We meet in a room provided to us by the local clinic – interesting.
Last Saturday we had a meeting of the region’s pastors to plan the work for this year and how to reach new areas. Soon we will have 20 churches in this region. When Udelia and I arrived four years ago, there were just eight or ten congregations. God is really blessing now! I am preparing Bible lessons to send to the local church leaders for them to use.
I also have to prepare the missiology institute materials. Every other month the group gathers for one week of intensive classes then they take home lessons to study in the interim. This year, we have 14 students who came to the on-site classes and four others who could only study from home. There were three professors. We were encouraged that some of the new students are young people who we believe will be ready to go into these new churches when they finish their studies. It was also a surprise to us this year to have three women among the students. In years past, there has only been one. God is calling women this year.
We are so grateful to Christian Triumph Company for the offerings that pay for the professors’ room and board, the course materials and to hire a cook for the week. And we are now stocked up with literature for use in edification of the church, El Mensajero de Esperanza, as well as tracts for evangelism, thanks to CTC.