Arthur & Mary Alice Ivey
San Jose 454
Urb. San Carlos
Huancayo
Peru
011-51-064-23-76-69
January 31, 2002
"Therefore, as it is written: "Let him
who boasts boast in the Lord."
1 Corinthians 1:31 NIV
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Greetings to you all 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.
January has been an interesting month.
The two Kid's Clubs have continued to grow. We had a drop in
attendance from the Christmas crowd, but our long term average has continued
to grow. The number of adults attending has grown, also, and more
men are attending. We are planning to start another Kid's Club in El Tambo
in March and will be splitting our teaching team to accomplish this.
Please pray for additional teachers to be trained and for Mary Alice as she
begins preparing training for these new teachers. Mary Alice is also
trying to develop prayer support for the children in the local churches
here, but also would like your help. If you wish to participate in
this ministry of prayer, please let us know and we will send you, via e-mail
a group photograph of one of the small groups and the names of the teacher
and children, so that you can pray for them by name. The number of young
people from the Methodist Church in El Tambo helping to lead these
ministries has grown, also. Both you and we have been praying that the
Lord will continue adding to the number of the team and specifically
for strong young Christian men to help because their influence among the
boys that come is much needed. He has been answering our prayers. He
has increased the number on the teaching team from six to twelve, and four
of these are young men. We still need more teachers. Please pray
for those that are helping us now: Pilar, Charo, Brita, Techi, Tanya,
Betsabe, Susan, Julima, Genaro, Josue, Jesus,and Iban.
Wesleyan Fellowship team members performing a drama in the town square at
Ahuac.
We had some short term help with our Kid's Club
from a mission team from Wesleyan Fellowship in Marietta, Georgia.
They helped with the Kid's Club both in San Carlos and Ahuac and put on a
four-day Bible School in Ahuac. The Lord worked miracles during
this week controlling the weather and other circumstances surrounding
these events. We are in the middle of the rainy season and all of
our activities are usually outdoors, because we do not have a building to
meet in. On Saturday during the Kid's Club at San Carlos it began to
rain. We have never been able to use the local high school
before, but that day they let us in and we were able to continue with the activities.
We started all of the Bible schools in Ahuac in the town square. It
was a miracle that the government officials allowed this, but the greater
miracle was that they opened the local public school building to us
to use, also. Rain threaten all week and occurred numerous times,
but never interfered with the Bible school time. We had numerous
children ask Jesus Christ into their hearts as Lord and Savior.
Our work with the children is important as this is the only way to bring
about positive lasting change. It is a long term proposal, but the
only way we see to really have a lasting impact.
Children watching the team's presentation of the Gospel message.
Arthur spent much of the month working on the
church building in Ahuac. The designs were finished and the work was
started to remove the failing roof, repair and raise the existing walls, and
purchase materials for the new roof. He also finished the preliminary
designs for a garage for the mobile medical unit so the District Assembly
could make a decision on what to do. The short term team from Wesleyan
Fellowship provided the funding for the Ahuac project and the labor to
construct and erect the roof structure. This is a major blessing for
us, because now there is a place to meet with the children when it is
raining. The space is still too small for all of the children, but is
a major improvement. We give thanks to God for the assistance from
Wesleyan Fellowship.
Erecting the roof structure in Ahuac
Arthur has also been teaching a youth discipleship group on
Wednesday nights that has been growing. In our last gathering we had
17 young people. The young people have been responding well to these
times of teaching and spiritual growth and have been bringing others with
them. We have been concentrating on the call to evangelize and
disciple others. We hope that this group will be a basis for expanding
the work with youth and the Kid's Clubs.
Thanks to one of our supporters, Jim Davis from
Dalton First United Methodist Church in Dalton, Georgia, we now have a
web site to help keep you up to date. It is not yet complete, because
he is still waiting for us to send him some of the information, but a lot is
available. Please take a few minutes to visit it at www.iveymission.org.
Again we want to thank you for all your support and
prayers. Please continue to pray for our adjustment to the new culture
and that we will boldly speak God's Word wherever we go. Pray that God
will raise up Godly leaders for the church here. 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
The Mission Society
P.O. Box 922637
Norcross, Georgia 30010-2637