28th July 2010 - Headlines 18
Getting the house prepared for one of our Vineyard church meetings...
This is not a quick process! Not only do we have to be on top of the housework – something we are not hot on, but we also have to make the place child-friendly.
We learned the hard way during our first two meetings. The bathroom was a source of fascination, as much for the adults as the kids. Peruvians, who don’t usually use other people’s bathrooms, all suddenly had reasons to use ours several times during the meeting. Our toilet roll bill has rocketed. Our liquid soap was GREAT FUN and we had so much less within two hours of people walking in the door. Our toiletries were never in the same place at the end of the night and the rest of the house was a TIP. It’s a lot of work putting on a meeting!
So we learned our lesson and took out EVERYTHING that wasn’t necessary for a usual visit to the toilet (toilet roll, BAR of soap, and one visitors towel to be removed at the end of the night just in case the soap wasn’t used!!)
The second meeting was more of a success. But the bar of soap was nowhere to be seen at the end of the evening!
Last week…
During our time of worship and singing, three of the youngest children were heard in our bathroom playing with our running water and soap. Rachel goes through to tell them that it is not to be played with like a toy … until she sees the look of glee on the face of one boy who had come for the first time. Ahhh… such delight being able to wash your hands with soap and running water… seems a shame to spoil the fun, especially if he doesn’t have water where he lives. So Rachel joins in… lots of lathering, rinsing… then here comes the big towel (opening it’s jaws like a monster) to dry those tiny hands… more squeals of delight. Little Jean Pierre (sounds a bit French but he is Peruvian) leaves the meeting insisting that his mum bring him every week!!!
Last night… was film night – we had 37 adults and children … we were packed!!!
Miracles in Lima… Vineyard Lima recently experienced many answers to prayer at there regular youth meeting. 8 people were prayed for, all of whom were healed of medical conditions and one girl who WAS vertically challenged grew an inch and a half!!! We are all very excited about recent events and the growth we have seen in Huancayo. May God continue to do the stuff!!
16th July 2010 - Headlines 17
New chairs and stools!
Thanks to the promise of a generous donation from Gateway Vineyard in Norwich, we have been able to buy a dozen new plastic chairs to accommodate our growing Vineyard homegroup. We ourselves have also bought a dozen stools for the children so we hope to be well equipped in the seating department for the time being.
New Bibles
In response to our last email a few of you have kindly donated some money towards buying new Bibles for our Vineyardgroup. To date we have been given enough money to buy about 8 new Bibles. They cost around £7.50 each (to get a translation in simple language) if anyone is interested in helping us get more. We haven’t yet bought any as we are still looking around for good deals, especially through our American friends who might be able to get cheaper ones for us.
Praying for members of our group…
Our Vineyard group currently numbers about 30-35. More than 40 have come through our doors. More than half are not yet Christians and are still ‘looking’ . Most are very enthusiastic and seem to appreciate the fact that we do things quite differently to what they expect Christians to do. They are a huge challenge to us as each one has a huge amount of personal problems. Pastorally this is very difficult seeing as both have full-time jobs during the week, particularly in Paul’s case. We would very much value your prayers for our group as a whole, for us as leaders, and also, if anyone is interested in praying regularly for a person in our group, please let us know. We would love it if individuals, couples or home groups/churches might consider adopting someone in our group to pray for on a regular basis. Please let us know if you are interested so we can send you more information.
Dreams and visions…
We have been very encouraged over the last month to see that God has been speaking to various people in our Vineyard group. Eli, our co-leader has started having dreams that coincide nicely with some events and some people. Other s within our group have started getting ‘pictures’ when praying for others, which reveal things going on their lives. Las week we held a workshop in our home to teach our people how to pray for others and how to listen to God (because we are such experts!!!!!!! Hmmm) and we were very encouraged to see people getting involved and hearing from God.
Rachel tearing her hair out with teenagers…
Her new classes are very challenging. She came to the end of a month cycle last Friday and started another cycle with the same classes on Monday. She hopes to be given different classes after this cycle has finished in August!!
July 4th fireworks…
We were invited to our share food and fireworks on this very special day (for our American friends) and we all died several times over as each of the 3 dozen Peruvian fireworks shot off very unpredictably one at a time from the roof where we all were. Each one was followed by ‘OOOPS’ as it hit the neighbours house, or everyone rushing to the edge to see if we had hit anyone in the street. The last firework, that looked like a bomb, was lit at one end of the roof whilst we pushed ourselves to the very opposite end and it took us rather by surprise…! See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-GG9wxzByw
Peruvian Picnics… NOT the way to do it!
Peruvians cannot contemplate a lunch that doesn’t consist of a soup as a starter, followed by a rice/pasta/potato (sometimes altogether) based second course. This is still the case even if you are not at home… and nowhere near a restaurant/café. The concept of a picnic here is cooking your two-course lunch early in the morning in big saucepans – we are talking BIG – the kind of size that would sit over two or more hobs on the cooker. They then drag this saucepan on their outing and then dish up this meal wherever they end up. A couple of weeks ago we went out for a walk in the nearby mountains with our Vineyard group and brought out our sandwiches… and out came their saucepan….
Today Paul and a group of American visitors went on a SERIOUS hike up a mountain, up to 5000 meters to a glacier, arriving pretty much dead on their feet… and lo and behold the Peruvians at the top had dragged their big saucepans for their picnic….!!!
