May 2005

Dear partners in ministry,

S H O R T    R E P O R T

During the month of April I spent 3 weeks in Perú, chiefly in the cities of Arequipa and Lima. I came back very impressed that not only are the fields white ready for harvest but the harvest is currently going full speed with us or without us. The Holy Spirit of God is working in Peru a mighty work and it is quite common to speak to someone and hear the words "I received the Lord 4 weeks ago" or "4 months ago" and immediately you find yourself discipling this dear new believer. A young artist – he can do beautiful watercolor work – Alejandro, told me "I received the Lord in a private session", but immediately added that he believed also in reincarnation because surely God would give the suffering people a chance to have a better life here. I began by reminding him that the Holy Scriptures does not mention reincarnation and that it says in the book of Hebrews "it is appointed to men to die once and after this comes judgment." I also gave him by the prompting of the Spirit the story on the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16). We talked about the things of God for more than an hour and he never more mentioned reincarnation. Indeed, we desperately need Spanish speaking disciplers in Peru while the harvest continues.

I met a Christian doctor who wants to establish a full time Missionary clinic – just as I do (see Long Report).

For my last Sunday in Arequipa the pastor had asked me to give my testimony as an emphasis in Missions. But late Saturday evening he came by my room and said "why don’t you just take the whole time and encourage the congregation." So I had to come up with a sermon built around my testimony. At the end of the service many stood up to say "we will serve the Lord with all our hearts in whatever He has for us in His Kingdom work." What a glorious event it became. A young man got up to give his life with the others. He is already a leader in the church. I put my hand on his shoulder and I was praying "Lord anoint this young man for a mighty work in your Kingdom."

I hope to go back soon. I will write more later. Meanwhile we are awaiting the printing of the Spanish Be Transformed. Many pastors are eager to have training by a Scope Ministries team in Perú so that church leaders are able to use and teach these materials.

Pedro and Glenda

PS. You may read the LONG REPORT below or write me to receive a copy. Blessings!

L O N G   R E P O R T

The first thing I’d like to do is to share my outlook of Peru as I have seen it with missionary eyes over the years.

Evangelicals have grown from 10% to 14% of the population. The real difference is that there are evangelicals in high positions, even judges and representatives in the national assembly. A well know evangelical pastor, Pastor Lai, was the head of a "Truth Commission" (I think) to look into the sins of former president Fujimori. Pastor

Lai became a candidate to the presidency of the Republic a couple of weeks ago.

There is an area in the warmer north called Cajamarca situated in the Andes of Piura. Agrarian reform was a disaster because of predictable inertia and lack of know-how. Except that a group of Christians in that region decided to get together and form a sort of cooperative and have become very successful and a model to others. My brother Lucho and I, and Lucho Cardenas (my nephew), and Armando Gambarini my old friend and even Leonardo (another nephew) want to go and talk to the leaders, the old ones there, and see if they could share enough to transplant the system to other areas of the country and use it with medical missions to foster evangelism. We'll see.

Every time I go I see more evidence of growth of the Gospel. We are always impressed about the abundance of seminaries and the churning

out of pastors and evangelists in India. Something very similar is going

on in Peru. In Arequipa alone there must be 10 seminaries. Just about every church I visited has its own seminary. One of the pastors sent me a list of books needed for their library which they are unable to buy. I will copy and attach the list to this letter. I don't know if you all have an interest in helping this project. (There is a larger project for those of you whose heart is on fire for Missions in Arequipa SEE BELOW). A couple of churches told me of missionaries being sent to other countries, imagine that.

There seems to be a thirst for honesty and "right" - which theoretically should help Pastor Lai - but Peruvians still continue in old cheating habits.   

For instance a young Christian practically preached a story how he defended a boy in a bus when the conductor was about to cheat the boy out of S/o.5.00 yet he sees no real wrong in wholesale stealing intellectual property by making an illegal copy of a whole book, or buying dirt cheap copied CD's.

The Economy. Over the last few decades I have noted an improvement in the appearance on the people, and the city. There seems to be more cleanliness, more grassroots effort for self-help. There are a few examples of organized civic-minded work in certain districts. Some of this has been the result of outside inspiration. Nevertheless, people are receptive and get organized to do good things. The best example I heard about is in a dirty shanty town South of Lima - I think it is called San Salvador - where the people themselves decided to start cleaning up, paving the streets, helping each other to build nice dwellings, painted them, planted gardens, and began to generate income by opening amusement parks, good restaurants, and I don't know what else. It looks beautiful in the news reels I saw. The saying now goes "instead of riots and uprisings we have organized grassroots progress", or something to that effect.

I truly think there is economic improvement in the country. There seems to be more hope, more plans, more ongoing projects, in spite of high unemployment. There is quite a bit of entrepreneurship going on but currently there is a lot more exports of raw materials. This seems to be a growing industry. Food exports to France are growing. The French are jump-starting the growth and export of "escargot" in Peru, among other things like asparagus.

The traditional migration was from the Andes to Lima or the large cities (Lima is now 22 million strong) but the current talk is to go to Lambayeque, a coastal area between Trujillo and Piura, which is growing in commerce and exports. Part of it may be climate and water availability, I don't know.

Medical Missions. I held medical clinics in the Peruvian Evangelical Church of my youth over two week-ends. My cousin nurse helped me as in the past and her taxi cab driver husband kept me going to pastor’s appointments and medical visits to some disabled folks who could not come to the week-end clinics. In every large church I visited there were Christian physicians. One of these, Ruth Salas, helped me the first week end. It was great to have someone who knew her way around Peruvian remedies and resources.

One of the patients tried to give me S/o.100.00 (about US$ 30.00 – or a month’s worth of groceries) "for your ministry" and I truly had a problem taking the offering but I finally accepted about half of it, and I blessed her 100 times and I know God will give her much riches, here and in heaven. And I wanted to cry just then perceiving her gratefulness for the little I did for her. A nice lady whose pain was better came back just to give me a box of bon-bons and hug me.

That day we did so many injections I gave out of most supplies. I really did not plan in this type of clinic. I planned to see more general medicine. But people are so needy to see a "specialist" and the pastor I think screened patients. And obviously did too good a job. My last patient on Sunday afternoon was an Itinerant Pastor that has been in the ministry for over 30 years but keeps going. He said, "My wife and I have been on foot all over these mountains over the years planting churches, reviving old abandoned ones, spending a few months to a few years in every little town."  But now his wife is bed ridden with arthritis and cannot do anything with him again and he is almost in tears telling me "she cannot come to see you, can you do anything for her" – Inez and I went to see her a day later. All I could do for her is re-prescribe the medicines correctly, not much. We prayed with them all and had a great visit with her daughter who is a Faith Missionary along with her husband.

Missionary Clinic Project. My wish is to call this permanent clinic “The Frances Laatz Missionary Clinic”, and the elements needed to do this are more or less in place. The First Baptist Church of Miraflores, a district of Arequipa, has a piece of land and already the plans to build a permanent free or low cost missionary clinic. Some of these premises will also be used as an expansion to the church run seminary. THE COST OF THE BUILDING PROJECT IS US $100,000.00

Spanish Be Transformed. There is great interest in churches to receive Scope Ministries’ teams to teach this material. The first printing should be out in less than a month. More on this later.

This will be the contents of my report next Sunday evening at Metropolitan Baptist Church. I am sorry to say I do not have good pictures to show.

Personal Support. Glenda and I lack 50% or so of the needed monthly support. We praise our Lord for all of you who pray for us and graciously send your gifts for us. Que Dios se lo pague! May God multiply your goods!