Jr.
Urb. San
Carlos
Huancayo, Peru
011-51-64-21-21-52
E-mail: acivey@mindspring.com
Website: www.iveymission.org
June 30, 2006
"Jesus replied, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand." John 13:7 NIV
Dear Brothers and Sisters in
Christ,
Grace and
peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. We
praise the Lord God for all He is doing in our lives and in the ministry
here in Peru, for filling us with His Holy Spirit to guide and direct each
of our steps, and for pouring out His grace upon us through His precious
Son, Jesus Christ. We hope and pray that He has been blessing you
wonderfully during this past month and that your life has been filled with
His glorious riches and mercy. We want to give you a special
thanks for your continued prayers for us and support of the
ministry in
Many times we have to work on what we believe Christ wants us to do, not really knowing what the future holds. This type of work has to be done in faith, trusting that we will understand later. Since God calls us to live by faith, most of our work should be like this, trusting Christ and not our own abilities. In June, we had a medical team made up of folks from Morehead United Methodist Church and Roswell United Methodist Church that worked with us in Huamantanga to provide medical, dental, and eye care services to the people in this small town. Humantanga is in the Canta Valley were we work with our partner ministry Mision-AMEN. This medical mission was not like the ones we had experienced before. Our welcome to the town by the governmental authorities was cold at best, and the people of the town would not even give us a casual greeting as we passed on the streets, which is some what unusual. The first day, and really the whole week, was slow as far as the number of people that came for help, but as the week passed the people of the town began to change. We began to see more joy in their faces and they began to greet us warmly in the streets, the government officials even apologized for not having taken us seriously and not having publicized the event among the people as they should have.
Dr. Paul attending a patient.
During the week the team gave medical, dental and eye care to approximately 580 people. The Lord Jesus blessed us with a harvest of 130 new believers, which is approximately 15% of the towns normal population. During the week the team blessed the local mission and the AMEN missionary, Don Jo, and in faith claimed the new land that we would like to obtain to build a church on. The last nights evangelistic gathering was well attended even though it was in the middle of the celebration of Corpus Christi.
The last nights evangelistic celebration.
Our discipleship groups continue to grow. We now have close to 200 folks involved. We have 40 brothers and sisters who are part of the Quechua speaking community in Chilca that are in the discipleship ministry that have expressed a great interest in helping us to advance the kingdom of Jesus Christ to the south of Huancayo toward Huancavalica and Ayacucho among the traditional Quechua speaking peoples in these areas. We have added two additional groups to those that were meeting in our home, and now have five groups meeting in our home weekly. One of our couples, Ricardo and Lucy, has taken the responsibility of discipling a group of adults who attend our Kid's Club at Mariatigue. We don't really know what we re doing, but Jesus knows, and has allowed us the privilege of working with him in this ministry. We have received several comments back that this ministry is setting people free. We have a growing number of pastors that have wanted to participate and have commented that they have found new freedom and that they had never been taught these things before. All we are teaching is basic principles of the Christian faith, based on the Bible.
Adult group at Mariatigue Kid's Club
We celebrated Joshua's 16th birthday this month. He is still growing rapidly, both physically and spiritually. We now have a praise group that plays weekly at our Friday pray and praise fellowship, and Joshua plays the base and Benjamin the guitar. Benjamin took the SAT for the first time in June, also. He had scores of 650 in math, 550 in language, and 520 on the essay part. This was very encouraging to us as it was a measure of how well they are learning in the Peruvian environment.
We are currently in a period of political change in Peru. The recent elections went as we had could be expected, giving us a greater hope for the future of the ministry here. The change of power will occur on July 28, Peruvian Independence Day. The later half of this year will begin to show us what we might expect from the new government. Alan Garcia has asked Obed and two other Christian leaders to plan an prepare the inauguration service, which has traditionally been a type of Catholic Mass which will be held on July 30. This will be a bold statement in a country where the national religion is still Catholic. Alan Garcia has asked that church leaders pray regularly in the presidential palace. He wants to cleanse the palace since the second floor has been dedicated to the practice of witchcraft for the past five years. Please pray that God would continue to lead Peru out of the deep spiritual bondage that it has been in and into spiritual revival.
Please continue to be in prayer for
the continued growth in the ministries here in
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
The Mission Society
Missionaries to
******
The Mission
Society
P.O. Box
922637
Norcross, Georgia 30010-2637