It is so exciting to hear how God is using the ministry there in Arequipa as I am in the states traveling. We have been working at Faith Baptist Church now since it was organized as a church. We have seen God do some incredible stuff. The church has now grown to close to 400 people. A couple of weeks ago, they finished their Faith Promise Missions Conference with a commitment to give $25,300 during the next year. This is an amazing feat seeing that we are working with a group of people that average making a little over $100 a month. I am not in the country so that does not even count what I normally give while I am down there. It is so exciting to be a part of a ministry in Peru that has decided to give so sacrificially to the cause of world missions. We have a church that has taken the Great Commission as a personal mandate. What a phenomenal God we serve and how exciting to see what he has allowed to happen at Faith Baptist Church. Thanks for staying up to date with all that God is doing in Peru.
Chris Gardner
P.S. The picture is a picture of a house on a trip that I took from Arequipa to Juliaca.
Well, the Lord gave me the privilege of going to Peru for Easter weekend, we saw God do some incredible things. We had a great time and the pastors of the church are the ones that preached the messages. The church encouraged all of the members to bring special friends and family for the revival and the people of the church definitely responded. We had many many visitors and during the week we saw over 50 people accept Christ. Pray for the church that the leadership will have wisdom in discipling the new believers. We are excited to be a part of a great church that loves the Lord and that expects to see great things from God. Everyone is so excited with what God did at the church. 52 professions of faith in a weekend is not too bad. God is so good to us even when we do not deserve it.
This has nothing to do with the fact that Jesus arose, it has to do with the fact that I am back and getting up to blogging again. After consistent harassing from my dad, Jeremy Hall and Derick Lawrence I have decided to try and do better with this. Thanks guys I needed it and hopefully will do everything in my power to keep it up.
We have a great friend that is headed to visit us here in Arequipa. We are looking forward to having Bruce Snead here with us. He is a man with a great mind and heart for missions. Because of the weather he couldn’t fly straight into Arequipa, he has to go to Juliaca. Juliaca is the city that has the highest navigable lake in the world. It is about a 4 to 5 hour drive from Arequipa, so I am about to leave and pick him up. Pray for us as we travel.
I am so glad to be back in Arequipa. We have been seeing God do some great things for the church here. On Sunday evening we had a great service. Over 40 young people from the church went to camp and had a great time, they came back telling of all that God had done in their lives. It was exciting to see what God had done with them. Jorge Montenegro, a missionary to Bolivia out of our church brought 15 young people as well all the way from Bolivia. He preached for us after the testimonies of the young people. He did a great job and the church enjoyed having him around.
Today, I went out to lunch with a close friend and got the typical Guinea Pig. Yep you got it right, the whole thing fried and pressed on the plate there looking at you. There are some things about missions work that are always fun. We are looking forward to the services at church tonight. Pray for us that God will continue to use our lives to see his name glorified.
I was finally able to get back to the house here in Arequipa. It is great to be back with the family and I am really looking forward to tomorrow and being able to be at Faith Baptist Church again. I truly believe that the Lord has great things in store for the ministry here in Arequipa. We celebrated Jacob’s birthday yesterday and today is Joy and Julio’s 8th anniversary. Continue to keep us in your prayers that God might continue to bless the ministry here in Peru.
Well, I am back in Lima right now. I got in at about midnight and my flight will be leaving to Arequipa at 4 am. I had a great time in Mexico City and I learned a lot. God has been so good to me. The airlines have been having a hard time landing in Arequipa because of the rain. I left Mexico City one day early and so I was able to spend a day with my parents, it was really nice. They say that it is raining pretty hard right now in Arequipa. The Bible College has actually had some flooding issues from what I understand, but I am sure I will get the lowdown on everything as soon as I get back. That is the way that it always seems to go. I thank God for the privileges he has given me and I look forward to all that he is going to do. Keep us in your prayers.
Well, it took forever to get to Mexico, but I finally arrived. In Arequipa they lost my bag, in Lima they didn’t want to let me leave because the expiration date on my paperwork was on the 30th of January. Who knew that it actually doesn’t mean that it expires then but I had to deal with that. I got Montezuma’s revenge on the airplane and sat next to a guy that had no idea what it meant for him to stay on his side of the seats. He also had a sleeping disorder where no matter how hard I pushed him to wake up he wouldn’t. I got to the last leg of the flight and it ended up leaving over an hour late, of course we had boarded though so we were at least able to sit in those great seats for an hour extra.
Once I arrived though has been great. What an incredible ministry that the Wynn family has going on here in Mexico City. On Thursday night, it was extremely cold but even with that problem, the church had over 2500 people in the services. It was incredible today as I was able to go out to a VBS style thing that they do here, there are over 130 teams of young people out doing these, and they have close to 30,000 in attendance each and every day. I am learning a lot and excited about all that I am seeing God do here in Mexico. Pray for me as I will be preaching on Sunday and teaching in the Bible College as well. God bless.
Please be in prayer for us, I am traveling to Mexico City and will be preaching for Bro. Kevin Wynne missionary there. Pray that the Lord will use me in a special way while there preaching and also teaching in his Bible College. I will be arriving in Mexico at 6 pm tomorrow and will be preaching at 7 pm. Needless to say this could be interesting. Pray for my family as they will be staying in Peru during these days. I am very excited to be going to preach there, this is one of the largest independent Baptist Spanish speaking churches in the world. I am excited to see and learn from the church there.
Well, we are now officially into 2008. In Peru, there are many different ideas about what to do to make sure you have a great new year.
Everywhere in the city yellow underwear has been on sale. Evidently the mormons aren’t the only ones with the idea of magic underwear. If you wear these, it will help your financial outcome in the next year.
If you take a stick and run around the block you will have a year full of travels.
If you kick empty cans around a block money will not be an issue during the next year.
There are many different ideas about luck no matter where you go. Just ask athletes in the states about that.
I thank God for all that he is doing down here, we had a great time in the watch night service, we had right at 200 people for the service. Continue to pray for all that is going on down here.
