Todd's story from Peru

Check out this story from Todd:

Hello Prayer Team, I was able to visit our church plant in San Jacindro earlier today. In this tiny village live Aymara Indians that have migrated from the harsh climate of the high Andes town of Puno. The people here worship and celebrate the idol, San Jacindro. Monday was San Jacindro Day and the believers were noticably absent from the celebration.

Today, I joined Pastora Rosa as we visited the home of Rosela. Rosela was a sweet spirited young believer that knew the Pastora and the church at the top of the hill above her home. However, she did not attend because her husband oppossed the Gospel. As we visited with and invited Rosela to join us later today for discipleship, her husband, oddly enough named Christian, stormed out of the house began yelling at all of us. "F... You all. Why do you come here and waste our time." To which I responded, "God Bless You!" To which he responded, "F.. You!"

Ahh, it is good to be deemed worthy of persecution, no matter how minor it might be. It tells you that the enemy has noticed you and identified you as a threat. I wish I could say it happened to me more frequently than it does.

Anyway, Rosela was so embarrassed by the conduct of her husband that she broke down in tears. We were not able to comfort her, but Jesus told us to pray for those that oppose you, so we prayed for Christian, that the Lord would open his heart to receive the love of Jesus. We also prayed for Rosela, that she would be the light that would shine into the dark places of Christian´s heart.

Pray for the town of San Jacindro and the stringholds of idolatry that Satan has established there.

For His Glory,

Todd Szalkowski

Peru Day 3

The Home Stretch…

Today was our final full day of ministry. As the groups entered into the mission field for one last time, their focus was on leaving their pastors and nationals with all of the tools that would be needed to carry on the work when we are gone.

As we look back on our week we have to ask ourselves a question…are we leaving behind a legacy? We have two choices when it comes to the spiritual lives of others; we can either be a blessing or a curse. I believe that we can honestly asses our work here in Camana, Peru and say that we gave our all to serve the people of this land. We have invested our time, talents and treasures into things that will continue to pay eternal dividends. Today we passed the torch and at the end of the day, we can say that we fought the good fight, finished the race and claimed the crown that is in Christ Jesus. As we watch our nationals and pastors take the reigns we can humbly proclaim that we choose to be a blessing for life.

One great example of equipping the nationals happened this evening at the daily discipleship training meeting. Two 16 year old boys showed up for the first time. They joined a small circle of teenagers, who were sitting and listening to testimonies from the North American teenagers. They appeared to be skeptical of what they were hearing. They snickered and whispered to each other frequently. When the leader of the circle would ask them direct questions they would usually not answer, but laugh together instead.

Pushing ahead, the leader asked one the North Americans to go ahead and share the cube with the boys. The N. A. teen did so reluctantly due to the disruptiveness being shown by the Peruvian teens. Peer pressure knows no cultural boundaries I guess. After the cube was shared, these two did agree to pray a prayer of acceptance, though even that was done with some snickers. After the prayer, more testimony was being shared, when one of the boys reached out, took the cube, and began playing with it. When the leader asked for it back, the boy acted like he was going to keep it. He was then challenged by the leader. He was asked what he would do with a cube if he had one. He answered that he would share with his friends. He was then told, “If you can share that cube, correctly telling the story of Christ’s resurrection, with us, then you can keep it. Well you can imagine our surprise when he told the story and used the cube like a pro. He did keep it and we truly believe that he will share what he heard with his friends and family.

God continues to who us how He continues to draw people to Himself in unexpected ways. This was just one story from 6 different mission points, so as you can imagine, if we chose to tell them all it would take days to read. We hope these few stories we share, display to you God’s heart for the people here and that your prayers for the area of Camana are being answered.

Please continue to pray as we wrap up with church plants for the final day of ministry. We will be continuing with follow-up discipleship visits in new believer’s homes. This evening at the closing rally, we will completely pass the torch to the church leaders and nationals. Encouraging them to continue the work that has begun, we trust the Lord’s hand as they invest in building Christ into lives of the people.

In Him,

The Peru Team

Peru Day 2

Its Tuesday…

Second day into ministry has been amazing. We’ve seen the transition begin where the nationals are taking ownership of the evangelism here in Camana. It’s such a beautiful thing to see them excited as they share the gospel! So many stories of people hearing about Christ for the first time, divine appointments, and many commitments to Christ.

Speaking of divine appointments, one of our team members met one of those today. At her last house her national began to share the gospel at one of the houses. The lady in the house looked out at our team member and asked “Is she a Mormon???” She was assured that our American team member was not but that we in fact were all Christians. They were welcomed in with open arms at that point. The husband and wife of the house both requested that our American team member share the EvangeCube with them, not our national. They agreed and after the presentation was given, with tears in their eyes they accepted Jesus as Savior! Afterwards, they explained that many people had come to their house but nothing rang true to their hearts. But God had been stirring something in their hearts, and knew for a fact that God had sent our team there just in the right time. This couple shared that everything our e3 team shared rang true in their hearts. They thanked them for hearing God’s voice and coming from America to share this truth with them. Thank God for divine appointments and for hearing His voice to meet them!

Here is another story from another team members. They were sharing their testimony with a elderly lady and telling her how they found God in my life and how they were changed. She ended up telling our team member that she had not ever been approached like this before and started to cry. She said that she wanted Christ in her life. Our team member asked her, if something were to happen to her where do you think she would go? Her response was that she was going to hell. That just blew our team away. They continued to talk some more and by the end of their conversation she gave her life back to Christ.

Thank you so much for all your prayer. Please continue to pray in these areas:

· More divine appointments
· Protection for all those involved, nationals Americans and translators
· More strength to continue our work tomorrow.

God bless!

In Him,

The Peru Team

Peru Day 1

God is moving in Peru!

We arrived as a tired but anxious team this last Saturday, excited to see what God would do in and through us this week. There were a few close calls in getting everyone transported on time to Camana (our mission site) but God showed Himself strong as answered prayers marked the start of our trip.

On Sunday we had the chance to meet our great translators and the people of the churches we were to serve. After some training and time together we felt God uniting us for a great work.

Now today, our first day, we were able to witness God’s power in how He draws people to Himself. We watched Him demonstrate this through relationships built on the street; meeting people in their homes, sharing God’s love for their whole family, some time on the sports field, and through evening meetings of discipleship.

Here is one of the many stories from our first day here:

A team working San Isidro: “We were actually on our way back from our community where we were sharing the gospel and we had crammed into a taxi van to go back to the hotel. We realized that the taxi was the same one we had used the night before- our nationals had set it up so that this particular taxi with the same two men in it would pick us up each day. So one of our nationals who was with us decided to start talking to him. He asked his name and some of the basics of who he was and then asked to share with him about Jesus. He used the Evangecube to share the gospel with the one man who takes the money for the taxi and he was very attentive and wanted to accept Jesus into his heart. We gave him a Bible and showed him how to read it. We will be seeing him everyday, so it looks like we will be able to follow up with him and disciple him daily. “

Tomorrow we will include more stories from the field....

Please continue to pray from the prayer calendar and include these specific ones:

- That the Lord of the harvest will continue to raise up national workers at each site.

- For strength and endurance for the team and continued compassion for the people of Camana.

Your prayers are a major part of the mission here…please faithfully continue to pray!

In Him,

The Peru Team

Catching UP!

It has been awhile since we have posted the updates, so here is our effort to catch up. The next couple posts will all be new, please take a look at the updates from Peru, Varsity camp in Colorado Springs, and the Varsity camp in Minesota. Please be praying for the follow-up of the previous camps and for God's impact in the clinics to come. Thank you for your faithful prayers!

So long to Carbondale...

We had a great week in Carbondale and saw God move in amazing ways. Many kids gave their life to Christ and it is always amazing to be apart of God bringing people to himself. I wanted to share one final story from one of the volunteers:

I was a volunteer coach this year with SportReach. We invited one of my daughter’s friends to come to camp with us. She had started attending church with us over the last year. Her parents have been totally supportive of her attending with us, but haven’t seemed very interested in attending although we have had a couple of conversations about what our faith means to us personally. When we as a group got to the lesson and scripture for the day, it had an example of a prayer that anyone can pray to receive Jesus as their personal savior. A couple of the kids were very vocal that they wanted to say the prayer with us. We didn’t realize it at first, but she prayed to accept the free gift of Jesus quietly without a lot of fanfare. We were so excited to see her really understand that it was a personal decision she had to make and that she is now a sister in Christ! I personally was blessed by attending SportReach and to be apart of her profession of faith because she has meant so much to our family.

Great to see such relationships happening through something as simple as time on the sports field. What a privilege...