I give thanks to God that He has continued to sustain us day by day since the start of the pandemic in our nation. This has not impeded us in evangelising people who don’t know the Lord Jesus Christ and I have started a group Zoom and WhatsApp get together with some families from the church at various times each week, including Sundays. The virtual meetings have been a source of much blessing because we have all been strengthened in the Lord and in His Word. I have also been in constant contact, by phone, with the different jungle communities that I have been sharing the Word of God with. We have prayed together for them and their families and for the various needs they have, especially for their health.
In October, God allowed me to travel with my wife and children to the jungle where three missionary families are working. We set out on the trip on 16 October, from Lima to Atalaya, but during the trip the vehicle broke down which meant that the trip took several days! However, we were happy to have the liberty to travel without needing to use masks. We held prayer meetings with all of the team during the week and we assisted with the Bible study meetings on Thursdays with the Asháninka people as well as the Sunday Bible Study. Both the adults and the children have their respective Bible studies with teachers.
My wife, Aura, together with the other missionary wives, held a regular Bible study during the week, where they commented that they are learning more from and about the Lord. The men, during the day, are involved in the work around the missionary base in Atalaya, but at night we are involved in praying together and in leading Bible studies with the community. In addition, God permitted me to travel from Atalaya, with Marcus Dumitru (Segadores missionary), by plane to Pucallpa, still within the jungle, from there we travelled by road to the Ashéninka community, where Marcus works with his wife and family. The purpose of the trip was to help with renovating the missionary house there and have discussions with the village chief and the villagers in order to coordinate other projects that are in progress. After pushing the work along a bit, we returned to Atalaya where my wife and children awaited me. The two months that we were in Atalaya were of much blessing. One of the problems that we had at the Atalaya missionary base was the electricity which was low amperage and because of that lighting wasn’t too good.
When I commenced the request for power with the power company at first they didn’t accept the request but due to a lot of demand they have now accepted the request with the condition that we need to buy the concrete posts and install them and also buy the low wall and meter box. Finally, we have the cables installed on the posts to the house which cost a lot of time and money but I was able to achieve more that I had proposed during my time in Atalaya.
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Arriving in Atalaya, I continued with the document procedures for the land required for the Segadores base here where three missionary families live. In order to do this, I have had to start the process of a topographical survey with the UTM coordinates for the elaboration of the official plan endorsed by the engineer, the architect of the state and a notary public. We are now able to continue with the procedure for getting the title of the property. To be honest, I am very grateful to God and all of the people who have been praying for us to the Lord, because thanks to this it was possible to get all of this done.
Despite having a lot of work, we made time to visit the Ashaninka missionary, Augusto Diaz and his family, taking food, medicines and some clothes for his family. On this trip I went with my wife and two other missionaries. When we arrived I asked him to take me to his house and we saw that he was living in a small building that previously was a place to store firewood. The ceiling was made of palm tree leaves but was very old and had a lot of holes in it such that when it rained during the night he and his family put plastic covers on the top. During the pandemic a strong wind blew down the house where they previously lived. This is one of my worries for this servant of the Lord who is planting Ashaninka churches in the area of Rio Tambo.
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Change of Perimeter Fence Blessed be the Lord in everything. In addition to all of this we have been able change the perimeter fence line and we now have more than 24,000 sq. meters. We have replaced the wooden poles with concrete poles because many times we have bought grafted fruit trees but the neighbouring farmers' animals have come in, eaten the fruit and trampled the ground. Now we are hoping that the new plants that we have planted will be able to give us a lot of fruit for our missionaries to eat.
By the Lord’s grace I lived for 10 years in Atalaya, planting churches in the native communities, so most of the Christians know me and when they see me they invite us into their homes. Often for various reasons they have distanced themselves from the church but are keen for me to visit them with my wife and children. Various people ask me for a bible to read so we give away bibles. My prayer for them is that they will return to the way of the Lord and produce a lot of fruit.
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We didn’t have water for the basic services of the house even though years ago we installed the pipes but we didn’t get water very often. Eventually only the pipes were there and no water and the only way of obtaining water was using unclean water. We would have to call the fire department to bring us clean water and the township to bring us water in cisterns. Because of this I had to ask for a new installation from the main water supply to the house. This has involved many days of work and cost because we had to dig 500 metres of an irrigation canal. The work was intense and in pouring rain but the comfort is that we now have permanent water to the house.
One day when I arrived at a Segadores missionary’s house in Atalaya, the leader of a native Atalaya organisation was there and they invited us to make a visit to a new community where we had never been before. The chief had coordinated our visit so we didn’t want to make him wait any longer. We agreed that we would make the visit and the chief assured us that the road was a good gravel road. On the arranged day we travelled with the chief, Jhony, but we were surprised to see that the road was just newly formed. Thanks to the help of the Lord we arrived safely and we disbursed the food and medical supplies we had taken for them. They received us with an incredible typical meal and they also asked us to continue to visit them so that we could teach the Word of God to them because nobody had ever gone to their community. In this way we have taken advantage of sharing the Word of God and we returned home hoping it didn't rain. The Lord gave us a beautiful day for the trip back home. Blessed be our Lord.
The Lord allowed us to make contact with a leader of the Awajun ethnic group and we have sent food, medications and clothes for them to distribute to the pastors who most need it and the people who have fallen ill with the virus. At the same time, we give thanks to God for being able to help the pastors and their families so that they could continue their annual meetings for pastors of the Awajun church.
Once we had finished all the work we had to do in the communities we returned to Lima on 15th of December with three families. I am very grateful to God and all of you for supporting us with your prayers and support. Bless the Lord for your faithfulness.
There are many more activities that the Lord has allowed me to do during these six months, one of them was to continue with the construction of the Ashaninka church building in Chontakiari. All thanks to the strength that the Lord gives us by His grace.
On 7th January 2021 we were advised that a man from the Asheninka community that we had been supporting for 15 years of suffering, died in the Hospital of 2 de Mayo (Lima) having deteriorated and being in a bad way during the pandemic.
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Rafael Ampichi had been in San Pedro rest home in Chosica all of the time where he had received Christian care. He had been baptised and had lived with patients who were gravely ill, sharing his faith with them. One day every month we talked by telephone and for many years we have been covering his costs for nappies for his paralysed body.
Given that his family lived far away, it was impossible to present to them the possibility of taking him to the Asheninka community. With the help of the Segadores family I was able to attend to all the necessary requirements to provide a grave worthy of him instead of him being discarded like nobody by the hospital. In coordination with Marcus and Adina Dumitru we agreed to write to friends to ask for financial help with the costs of the funeral home but it was necessary to take on all the paperwork of the hospital and funeral home. With all the paperwork and the hassles, I was on my own, but sustained by the prayers of my Christian family.
During these months of the pandemic, God has strengthened us more than we had hoped through the reading of His Word because we did this together as a family. During 2020 we have been able to complete reading through all the Bible together. Now we are reading the New Testament again, we are aiming to read all of this in one month and right now we are in Ephesians. At the same time, we have had times of spiritual refreshment as a family because we have got together to seek the Lord in prayer and fast together. At the beginning it was a little difficult for the children but later they made us remember that we had to fast and pray as a family.
As well as this, we have been taking help to many families that were affected by the virus, both in Lima and in the jungle, we have been sending economic help. We have had a lot of work with families because we have been visiting and supporting the missionaries since the pandemic started. God has united us with our children and we have spent more time together as a family, which wasn’t like this before the pandemic because we were doing a lot of travel to the native communities.
Missionary Prayer: My wife, Aura, runs the prayer meetings for the Segadores ministry every day. Every Friday night we have Zoom meetings but during the week she receives the prayer requests and shares them for prayer for our missionaries.
I am very grateful to God for giving me so many blessings. As a family we have travelled to the jungle which was very special. Our children enjoyed the time in the jungle a lot because they had great times with the children of the missionary families.
Motorcycle Project: We ask for your prayers for provision of a motorcycle for my transportation in Lima. The amount of people who are contagious is growing and for this reason it would be useful to have my own personal transport now that I have to travel from my house to the Segadores office.
1) For wisdom in the continued directing of Segadores in all of the missionary work in the communities
2) For the health of all of the missionary families, especially for Liviu and Amalia
3) For God’s protection over the missionary families in regards to COVID-19
4) For the economic provision for the different projects in the communities
5) For more workers for the mission field in the communities without a church
6) For Support for our indigenous missionaries in different ethnic groups that we work with
Thank you to Bright Hope World for faithfully looking after our needs through the love of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We here in Peru have seen the faithfulness of God through you because God has supplied every need we have had. It is my desire that in this new year of 2021 we continue to work as a team in favour of the least reached ethnic groups in Peru.