Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

     Greetings in the name of our precious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  We praise the Lord Jesus for having so wonderfully blessed us and for having sent his Holy Spirit to guide and teach us. We hope and pray that He has been blessing you wonderfully and that your life has been filled with His grace.  Thank you for your continued prayers for us and support of the ministry here in Peru.  We definitely see the results of you praying for us.  You are special people called by our Lord Jesus Christ to minister to His children.  Thank you for your faithfulness to His calling.  Thank you for your love for Him, for us, and for His children.

     August and September were months with great rewards and great challenges.  We have had to move into a season of re-evaluation and self-examination as the Lord appears to be moving us in a somewhat different direction with the work here in Peru.  We have and will be spending more time in prayer and fasting throughout the remainder of this year as we seek to know more fully the will of the Lord for His work here.  

     The first week of August, we had the great privilege of working with a medical team from Dalton First United Methodist Church in the jungle city of Tarapoto.  The hosting church in Tarapoto is an independent church called Esmirna, with a membership of approximately 700.  This church provided great support for the medical team.  They involved many groups from the town, such as the Civil Defense, that were not necessarily Christians, and through their involvement many came to know the Lord Jesus Christ.  The team treated approximately 500 persons a day for medical problems, dental problems or problems with their eyes.  Each patient also received spiritual counseling and was given an opportunity to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.  During the week over 1000 persons made professions of Faith in the Lord Jesus.  A very great blessing is knowing that the Esmirna Church is a cell based church with a very healthy cell structure spread throughout  the city that will follow up on these new believers and build them into the Body of Christ.

     The Dalton First United Methodist Church is special to us, because they started their short term missions outreach with us and have grown with us in the ministry over the years.  A very dear sister in Christ that was one of the primary moving forces for the missions ministry at Dalton First, Becky Kenny, went to be with our Lord Jesus Christ.  Her great energy and love for our Lord Jesus Christ was always an encouragement for us that helped us through many good and difficult times.  We will miss her, but her love for the Lord Jesus will continue to motivate us and encourage us to continue to seek the lost of Peru for the Kingdom of Christ. 

     We are learning more what it means to not be citizens of this world, but to be citizens of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.  We are understanding better how delicate and fragile the balance that we live and work in is, and the itinerant nature of our work.  After leaving Tarapoto, Arthur began the process of renewing our visas.  He was unable to renew them because of problems between the Methodist Church of Peru and the Peruvian government.  As a result, Arthur and Mary Alice had to leave the country before the end of August.  Arthur spent the next two weeks acquiring the paper work necessary to leave the country and to provide for the care of our children while we out of the country.  The children were able to stay, because their visas don't expire until February of 2004. 

     The Lord had a plan prepared for us for this time and we just had to trust in Him.  Approximately two years ago we started developing a relationship  with the leader of another ministry here.  That relationship has grown over this two year period and is now playing a greater role in our lives.  That ministry, Mision-AMEN, is Peruvian and Wesleyan, and offered to be our inviting organization.  Through Mision-AMEN, we will be able to re-establish our residence and acquire new visas.  When we returned from Ecuador as tourists, we were able to start a new visa process and hope to be able to have new visas by the end of October.  We don't know what God is doing, but it appears that in addition to working with the Methodist Church here, He is beginning to open more doors of opportunity for ministry for us and for The Mission Society here in Peru.

     We have also moved into a new phase with our youth leadership team.  We are currently "spying out the town".  We are going through the streets of Huancayo and noting on a map where all of the discothèques, bars, nightclubs, cults and churches are.  We believe that through this process God will reveal to us where strongholds exist among the youth of Huancayo.  We will be praying and fasting together during this time asking the Lord to free the youth in these areas and give us direction on how to evangelize and disciple them.  We have seen evidence that God is already responding as two new youth from the streets have already been drawn to our Thursday night cell meetings.                       

                               

    Please be in prayer for us during the month of October as we are working through our visa process, again, and for our new relationship with Mision-AMEN.  More importantly we would like to ask you to covenant with us and the youth leadership team to be in regular prayer and fasting throughout the remainder of this year for this new phase of ministry to the lost and dying youth of Huancayo.  Pray that we would be protected from attacks and that the enemies' power over these young people would be broken.

    Again we want to thank you for all your support and prayers.  Please continue to pray for the church here in Peru. Please pray for our discipleship groups and the attacks against them.  Please pray for the children and young people that are part of the ministries here, for the tension in the churches, and for the church leaders.  Pray for the Lord to enable us to train more church leaders, cell pastors, and church pastors. Please pray for the leaders of the church here:  Bishop Marco Ochoa, and District Superintendents Jose Bustamante and David Figueroa.  Please pray for our safety as we travel, our continued adjustment and ability to understand the Peruvian culture, and that we will boldly speak God's Word wherever we go.  We pray that God is drawing you closer and closer to Him every day. 

    God bless you.  We love you.

                                                                                                                           Yours in Christ,

                                                                                                                           Arthur, Mary Alice, Benjamin, Joshua, and Mary Beth Ivey

                                                                                                                                    Missionaries to Peru