Campaign and more

From Monday, April 23, until Friday, April 27, there was a group from Texas in Collique for the spring campaign. This time there was a medical team and a construction team. Kees coordinated the construction part of the campaign and Elizabett served as an interpreter for one of the doctors in the moments she wasn’t teaching, because the children in our after school program had their normal schedule.

Blanca, OSA’s program director, asked a Peruvian to be available before and during the week to help me with the purchases of materials and the transportation of these to the construction sites. She specifically planned him to help me out with my Spanish. Finally, I did it all by myself, due to the documentation of former campaigns, which helped a lot. Last year, I asked the one who trained me if it was possible to make deals and order materials prior to the campaign, but his experience was that this doesn’t work in Peru. Well, I gave it a try and it worked for me. Tuesday before the campaign I ordered the wood, which I wanted ready to pick up on Friday morning at 10 am; it was because of the line at the bank, that I wasn’t on time, but they already called OSA that they were waiting for the tall Dutch guy. So when I arrived, we only had to load the truck.

During the campaign, I walked many times up and down the roads of the community to check on the teams. In this way, I have more interaction with the people and got to know new people. I always try to listen and examine the needs. I was able to guide several of them to one of the doctors and from others I got name and address so we can visit them.

The construction team finished two bedrooms, a small house, a water tank completely installed, roof repair, and replaced half of the roof of a house. In this second campaign for me, I learned again and we hope to improve the process with the next one.

Kees with the resident at one of the construction sites.

As I wrote, Elizabett taught her normal classes and hours during the week, but in the time she normally uses to prepare her classes and to visit families in the community she served as an interpreter.  She had lots of funny moments with the doctor, who was Indian, and a Russian nurse. It was her first real experience translating for a doctor and she just didn’t know most of the medical terms he used. So after a couple of patients they start talking something what I will call simple English. It made it easier for all, also the patients.

Elizabett with Maria instructing a patient.

For more photos and stories, visit OSA’s Facebook page.

Elizabett’s mother.

Elizabett’s mother is doing much better since the surgery, almost a month ago. Last weekend, we spent in Collique, after all the weekends of April with her. We thank you all for your prayers!

God is good!

“All the time!” is possibly what you think… We can tell you that we never doubted about God’s knowledge of our needs and His provision during difficult times. He provided the finances we needed to pay the hospital bills!

Prayer

Since our first weeks in Collique, we acknowledge that Satan is not too happy with our work here. He uses different arrows to stop us from doing what we are doing. Sometimes he has been successful, for a while, as we experienced sickness, but we are victorious and conquerors, because of Jesus. We have victory over all principalities, powers and dominion because of the work of the cross!

“But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Cor. 15:57 (NIV)

But we would really appreciate it if you pray for us regularly! And we want you to know that we pray for you as well.

What a week

That’s what counts for last week. The first days of that week were like every other week, but Wednesday was the day that completely changed our schedule. At the end of our weekly team meeting our phone rang. Elizabett went to our apartment to answer it and when I came in, she told me that we needed to leave as soon as possible, because her mother called that she needed an acute surgery. The doctor was almost hundred percent sure that her appendix needed to be removed.

We quickly ate our lunch and told the taxi driver to race to Miraflores. When we arrived there, Elizabett’s mother just had an ultrasound and blood test. Finally, the ultrasound didn’t show any bad signs, but the blood test had a different outcome. In the evening of that same day she had surgery. During the surgery the doctor also found a hernia, which he removed for the same prize.

Friday, she left the hospital and today she is doing much better. Praise the Lord! The doctor told Elizabett that if her mother had come a day or so later it could have been pretty bad.

We also thank God in the way He already miraculously provided part of the finances to pay these unforeseen bills. We trust our faithful God that He will continue to provide in our needs.

This week is another week, but also in the category of ‘what a week,’ because this week OSA is preparing for next week’s Medical Campaign. This time the group includes 10 persons for construction. That’s what is keeping me busy this week and the following. We have planned three projects that needed cement floors. For this I buy the materials and arrange the workers. Tomorrow, I go to pick up the wood which I reserved last Tuesday.

I am sure that next week is one in the category ‘what a week’ as well. During the campaign we come in contact with way more people than during a normal day, each person with his/her one history and situations. We pray that God brings people that really have needs and that we might be sensitive to these.

An open Bible

As supporters of Open Doors and prayer partners for our persecuted brothers and sisters, we can a kind of imagine what it means to live in a place where the Bible is prohibited. I say “a kind of imagine,” because I am sure that we never fully understand what it really means. At moments I find myself with God’s Word in my hand, but daydreaming and not into reading it. Then I think about the persecuted part of the body of Christ and say to myself “I should read the Bible if it was the last time!”

I thank God that I always lived in places where I could walk the streets with the Bible in my hand. I could sit in a park and read this book without problems.

Also in Lima we can do so without problems. So, that’s what we do, also with the children and their families. Elizabett is teaching them about Jesus and the Bible two times per week and once a month we have a Bible study with their mothers together. There is a list, on which the mothers indicate if they want us to come to their homes for Bible study. As I wrote in the last blog, several of them requested these studies more frequently. Praise God!

During the first weeks of this year, when the children had summer holidays, Elizabett asked the teenagers to do a devotional from Monday to Friday. Each day, they were asked to read a passage in the Gospel of John—the Bible book we study this year—and to write some thoughts of reflection in their notebook. Although it was homework, Elizabett never pushed them. Reading the Bible should be something they do out of a desire, isn’t it?

At the end of the holidays, there were six of them who faithfully did the devotionals every day. Elizabett wanted to award them with a gift. We decided to take them to Miraflores. Beside some sightseeing, we took some time to talk about the favorite passage of each one of them in the first fourteen chapters of John’s Gospel. We all had our Bible open, which caused some people to look at us differently, but nobody told us that we couldn’t do it.

As I wrote, also in the homes we open the Bible. Last week, we were reading God’s Word with a mother and her daughter, when the grandmother walked in. She was filled with joy to see her daughter and granddaughter study the Bible together. I imagined it could be the first time. How different would this be in countries that are on the World Watch List of Open Doors…

This Thursday, Dr. Campos and his wife Ruth take all OSA personal to Chaclacayo for a two day retreat. There we will open the Bible too. Together we want to seek God’s will and direction for our lives and for OSA. We pray the Holy Spirit to guide us during this retreat. Please, do you want to pray for us too?

Today, I received a eNewsletter of Open Doors with a story about ‘explosive’ growth of Christianity in Iran. I quote Open Doors USA president and CEO Carl Moeller, “Men and women, out of emptiness of their current situation spiritually, are turning to faith in Jesus Christ despite the literally lethal risks in doing so,” Moeller said. “That’s only attributable to the work of the Holy Spirit.”

In Peru there aren’t lethal risks, but it’s the same work of the Holy Spirit. We can open the Bible, but nothing happens without His work!

“But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.” John 16:13-15 (NIV)

 

Our first summer in Collique

The people here have been talking about it since we live here. And as the months went by it came closer and closer. Three weeks in The Netherlands didn’t help in preparation, because when we came back we had a twenty degree Celsius gap to overcome. And now, almost at the end of it, I can say that they didn’t say too much… summer in Collique.

What’s a summer in Collique like? Sun and dust! Well, almost every day sun. If you want to look for the sun at noon, turn your head ninety degrees backwards and you’ll look it in the face. Did I say dust? Well, let me first mention the breeze that blows between the mountain ridges in between which Collique lies. It takes a fairly nice breeze from the Pacific—which we can see out of our window this time of the year—all the way up to the fourth zone of Collique, where we live and work. BUT this breeze is not plain air, no it seems to collect dust from the first, second, and third zone before it blows through our mosquito screens. Every day a swipe of my finger on the dining table shows me the evidence. Anyway, we are here to serve God, the Creator of the sun and the dust. The other day I read 1 Thes. 5:18. That’s what I do, thanking God for the breeze and don’t bother too much about the sun and dust.

While we were missing air conditioning in the first weeks of the summer, these last weeks, our bodies seem to adjust to the circumstances.

Well, enough about the summer in Collique. What’s been going on under Collique’s sun?

Since January 9, OSA is running it’s after school program. This year, we have a group of second graders and a group of first and second grade middle school students. While the schools in Peru still had their summer break, the children were eager to come. The children are not all going to the same school; some have classes in the morning and others in the afternoon. For this reason, the group of middle school students is split in half. Since February 13, we have nine in the morning and eleven in the afternoon. This year, Elizabett is teaching Bible and Microsoft Office to the group of middle school students.

The first weeks it was hard to get all the laptops up and running. Since we have two sessions, I created user accounts for the students on the best eleven laptops we have and hope they will last the whole year.

This year, Elizabett and I are also in charge of the monthly Bible study for the mothers of the oldest group of students. Every Thursday, the social worker gives workshops about health, nutrition, lifestyle, etc. One the first Thursday of the month we do the Bible study. This year, the children and mothers all study the book of John. Every week, the mothers have the possibility to write their name on a list if they would like a study in their home. So far every week, we visited an OSA family and some weeks two. We are filled with joy now we realize the hunger there is for God’s Word. Several of the mothers requested these studies more frequently. At the moment, we are planning on a bi-weekly study at OSA. Please, pray with us that we may take the best decision.

At the end of January and the end of February we took the middle school students on a trip. The first trip took us to the Inca Kola company, and two museums in downtown Lima. The second trip took us to two museums in Callao. For photos of the first trip click here, and click here for photos of the second trip.

Another activity I want to mention is the VBS in the second week of February. It was all decided and prepared at the last moment, but God blessed it abundantly. Each day we had over forty children from the community. The theme was “Build your life.” The last day of the VBS we as team thanked God for even building our lives as we worked together, sharing the good news of Jesus with these children. It was such a joy to walk through the community the days after the VBS and hear children calling my name. Some came to me for a hug. Click here for photos of the VBS.

This is just a little bit of what happened during our first summer in Collique, where the Son shines his light in the darkest corners of hearts. Witnessing these moments make me forget the hot sun and dust; a cool breeze is what I feel…

A Glass of Water

During the first weeks in our apartment in Collique there was a painter in the house and there were two men working on the roof because of leaks. Here and there I put a helping hand and I kept an eye on them.

The first day, I offered the painter coffee or tea. He was in for a cup of tea, so I put hot water, cups, tea and sugar on the counter and with my beginners Spanish I told him that he could serve himself. At the end of the day, he hadn’t drunk. When I told Elizabett, she explained me that here in Peru I need to serve the people. Usually, they wouldn’t serve themselves, even if you give them permission.

When the following week the roofers started their work, every now and then I served them something to drink too. They always kept it by a glass of water. They really thanked me for each glass I gave them.

Some three weeks after the work on our apartment was finished, Elizabett and I walked down the street towards the bus stop. Halfway there is a small bar. When I looked through the open door I saw one of the roofers drinking anything but water. When he saw me he called me immediately, “Pastor!” Then he came out to thank me again for the water that I had served him. He told Elizabett that I was the first person who had given him something to drink on the job. He would never forget.

For me it was natural to give him something to drink, so I was accustomed to from home. However, here it is not a normal thing. Cultural difference, I would say.

I never thought to make an impact in someone’s life by being just myself. That something simple like a glass of water can do so.

Beside the glass of water I tried to make him know with the Living Water. My prayer is that he will yearn for it and when I encounter him again he will ask for that.

Jesus said, “but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:14)