Peruvian Way

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen. Matthew 28:19-20

River Trip 1:
The adventure begins, the first 3 weeks in June Albert and I heading out on the river inviting river Pastor’s to our conference that we were having in July.

Our first trip was 8 days, we started with an 1 1/2 taxi ride to a city called Nauta, which just an hour in a boat from this city is were the Amazon river begins. But we headed the opposite direction, on the Maranon river. Not knowing what to expect, or come across or even see, we just walked by faith and waited to see what doors the Lord would open for us. We didn’t have a boat to travel on the river or really didn’t know any of the villages that had churches, so the first night we stayed in town and went inviting Pastor’s and asking them if they knew of anyone that would let us borrow a boat to travel up the river on, and if they knew which villages had churches at.

All by the grace of God and His faithfulness, He provided a boat the next day for us. B/c traveling up river it took all day to get to the point were we wanted to start and then from there go down river inviting the Pastors, village by village. When arriving at our point with it already being dark with the stars so bright and beautiful, we decided to call it a night at a village that looked safe enough for us to stay the night in our boat. With our hammocks and mosquito nets set up we sleep the night away, not the best sleep or most comfortable but it was good.

Then our adventure started as we heading down river and inviting as many pastors as possible, By the end of the trip we had invited about 30 pastors maybe, even had a service at a town that didn’t even have a church but the whole town came out and listened to the word of God and then the following day we had a kids program for them before we headed out. It was such a blessing to see the hunger of the Word of God!!!

The whole time I keep thinking to myself, I can’t believe I am doing this, who would of ever thought I would be doing something like this, but only by God am I able to. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

Through rainy cold days (“cold”, Yes, who would of thought in the jungle, COLD, yeah it was pretty cold), mosquitoes eating you alive, right when 6pm came around, sleeping and traveling on a boat all day, missing normal food not like canned tuna every day, sleeping but not great, missing your bed, a nice shower, not speaking of jungle bath in the river that is already dirty. But that compared to what we all experienced was nothing; doing the every thing the Lord has called us to do, watching pastors light up as they see two Americans, well one at least the other American/Peruvian (Albert) but to see the excitement, joy, and the warmth they had in welcoming us as we invited them, and learning not not to walk by faith but drink by faith as well, we were offered drinks at some of the houses as we visited them and we didn’t want to offend them so…..yeah chug, chug. And with the beauty of God’s creation, the landscape, the stars, animals and etc… it was amazing. And to know there were things He did that we don’t even know about or even saw, but He was, is, and is still working!!!

After visiting around 20 villages and 4 different rivers we ended up in a city called Requena off the Ucayali river and stayed a couple of days inviting pastors and waiting for our boat to take us back to Iquitos (Our boat- a big passenger boat that can be up to six floors) Requina-Iquitos 14 hours.

At the end of the trip I felt like I had experienced, and learned so much from the Lord. It’s funny how you think you can be so far away from things and think you can escape the things of the world, trials temptations, worry, and etc… but what I learned is “NOPE”, they will always be there, but what will I do with those things as they come my way? I have got to stand on the Word of God and know that what I go through is all for that of growing closer to the Lord.

“But we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulations produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope….”