What do we do?

When I wasn’t a missionary I often wondered what missionaries spent all their time doing. I had mental images of people dressed in Khaki in the middle of the jungle with tribes of people who had only scraps of fabric tied on with string and body paint as their clothing. I imagined those people using hand motions to share the gospel and then going home to their mud huts at the end of the day. Maybe that was just my imagination but I think I probably saw a movie or read books with those types of images to put the idea in my head. 

Now that I’m an actual missionary I know that there are probably missionaries whose lives look more like that but that’s not really much like my life. (except maybe using hand motions to share the gospel…but I do that no matter what I’m talking about or who I’m talking to.) Anyway, I wanted to share a look into what we do here as missionaries. 

The first aspect and most time intensive part of our work here is church planters and pastors. We have a 3 1/2 year old church that we planted in the main city of Piura and just last week we officially opened the doors of our second stand alone church plant in a smaller town about an hour away called Chulucanas. Over the last few years we worked with a couple from the first church plant so that they can direct the new church plant with supervision from us with the goal that one day once we have gotten the church well established they will be able to be the pastors of that church. Because both churches are relatively young our work just in the church entails pretty much every thing a church staff does. We have been able to grow our team little by little so that we have more laborers helping with things like worship team, the childrens ministry and even things like cleaning the church. But if something breaks Jose is still usually going to be the person going to the hardware store. ;) We also offer free family counseling to the community which is something that we spend a lot of time doing day to day.

One of our recent "Man Church" services 

The second part of what we do is actually something that was birthed once we came here. We really had no idea how pervasive sexual child abuse was here until we actually lived here for awhile. 1 in 3 kids in Peru is sexually abused and usually by a family member or close family friend.  Now that we know what a horrible problem it is we have made it our mission to go into every school that we can in the region to teach the kids about grooming for sexual abuse and how to avoid it and what to do if someone tries to touch them inappropriately. We were connected with an organization that writes materials for children age 3-10 that helps illustrate those things in an age appropriate way and also teaches about values and things like self-esteem. 

Jose with a group of kids from one of the schools we worked with last year.

Another thing we do is about once a month sometimes more often we go into the community to serve. We do lots of different things but some of my favorite have been feeding the homeless and people in hospitals or who had to work on Christmas eve, taking gift baskets filled with stuff for mom and baby to the maternity ward at the regional hospital, and handing out cold water or “bodoques" (a popsicle like treat that is very popular here) to people on the street as they passed.   

some of our team who sacrificed their Christmas Eve to hand out food 

Our fourth aspect is called our training center.  This is a relatively new concept here of combining physical exercise, healthy eating habits, spiritual teachings, focused thinking, and doing it with friends. We call it “Vida Saludable” or Well balanced lifestyle.  What we discovered is that we are reaching a certain group of people that has been left abandoned: the elderly.   This has been a huge undertaking to help bring a healthy lifestyle to a third of the population of our region.  

one of our first "Training center" workshops

The final aspect of our ministry is still in the beginning stages. We always planned to build an orphanage and we are currently in the process of getting that started. Having a son with special needs opened our eyes to the amount of kids here who are like him and need help. But because of the lack of resources most orphanages can’t take them. Most of this part is still in the dreaming stages but we need you to prayers and financial support as we enter into this stage of the ministry.  

March Update

I keep wanting to sit down and write a nice update on all the great things that are happening (because they are. Really) But I'm having trouble getting it all down. Life is kind of kicking my butt right now. (can missionaries say that?) And everything I try to start gets overwhelming about halfway in. I think Zoe realized this about me because she decided to be potty trained and just started telling me she had to go and that was pretty much it. That's the only explanation I can come up with because I honestly did not want to deal with it right now. Or maybe ever.

Anyway, the boys started school this month because the school year here runs March-December. Logan is doing great mostly because he's social and works better with other kids his age doing the same thing as him. The only part that is hard is homework. I thought homeschooling was tough (it was) trying to help a 4th grader do homework in Spanish is ridiculous. I could probably easily help with the homework in english but naming the tools used in a chemistry lab is a little out of my depth. Every day he asks for help and I end up telling him to ask dad when he gets home.

Timothy on the other hand has been struggling with every aspect of school but he's finally getting in the groove. Autism and sensory integration issues are not very well known here. So we are trying to teach his teacher about it while also trying to help Tim with Spanish, cursive, and anything the teacher sends home for him to work on. Thankfully we found a great tutor who doesn't speak any english but is extremely patient and seems to like working with Tim. Timothy can understand her because it's one on one with no distractions and she speaks very slowly. Every day is a new test of my creativity to help him get through different challenges. We have learned he works best with some kind of reward looming in the near future to help him push through the hard parts.  That and lots of squishing, pillow/tickle fights or wrestling are what get us through the days.  




Zoe had her second birthday. I threw my first big party in awhile for her. She adores princesses and it was all pink and princess themed just for her. She loved it even though she only kept her tutu and tiara on long enough to take one picture. I did my best to just be a part of the party so I didn't get very many pictures. But it was a lot of fun and many people who love her were there to celebrate my sassy & sweet little 2 year old. She is constantly surprising us with how much she catches. She loves to sing and dance and draw on things with magic markers. She speaks her own version of spanglish and she imitates people perfectly. She often likes to run through all the names she knows. Repeating "awella" (Manuela) her hands down favorite person in the world. Having a daughter has been an adventure and a challenge but I wouldn't trade her. She lives up to the "life" part of her name for sure.  

For the last couple weeks we have had a lot of rain. Peru isn't used to rain...at all. When I have said it rained I was referring to Peru's version which is basically a light sprinkle. The kind of thing where back home everyone would be asking "is it raining?" Because you could stand outside in it for 10 minutes and still be completely dry. But the last couple weeks it's been good, solid, flood the streets raining a little every day. Because of that we've had a few setbacks, the church and our house flooded. The roof at the church caved in and even the school Logan goes to closed for a day because they had some rain related issues. It's amazing how much damage can be done when you aren't prepared.

God has been doing some really exciting things in the midst of all of this.                                    In coming here we had a few goals.                     One of them was to plant churchES.                 We've been in Piura for 4 years now and have been steadily growing that whole time. This Sunday we will have our grand opening at Powerhouse Chulucanas.                                     The second official church plant of Powerhouse Peru.                                                                       We have a great couple that have been working with us and learning a lot about ministry.           They will run the location and we will go every so often to make sure things are running smoothly.                                                              

This has been a huge undertaking along with everything else going on.                                      But we are so excited to see what happens.  Chulucanas is about an hour East of us here in Piura. It's a beautiful little city that's kind of in the mountains. The famous black and white pottery from Peru originated there.                       The location we found is right in the center of town.                                                                    About one block from the "Plaza de Armas" it's actually about 3 times as big as our Piura location so we are hopeful it will be filled with people seeking a relationship with Jesus.                    Starting tomorrow night we will have our own version of "The glory and the fire" put on by our awesome Powerhouse Peru people!

  

Thank you all for praying for us and to those of you who send us notes of encouragement on Facebook or email or whatsapp or by carrier pigeon.

 However they come they mean a lot to us when the days are hard. 

Thank you also to everyone who supports us financially. 

Your sacrifices help us to continue the work and often come in right at the moment we need it the most. 

We thank God for you and we thank you for you! 

Love from Peru! 

The Lopez's 

What a difference a year makes

We started last year with about 10 people in the church (yes that is including us) 

By the grace of God we started 2013 with about 150 people and we have new visitors everyday.

We've been able to show the love of Christ to many different parts of Peru through our servolution campaigns. 

We hosted our first ever "Save the Family" conference in September

All of this because you sent us here to serve Piura Peru. 

Thank you for being a part of our ministry and vision. 

This is a short year in review video we made 

Enjoy!

Christmas Outreach 2012

This year we are really excited to partner with Salvemos A La Familia

in the fight against child sexual abuse.

In Peru 4 out of every 10 children are sexually abused.

In Latin America 224 cases of sexual abuse are reported per hour.  

This totals 2 million children abused sexually every year. 

Most sexual abuse is committed by someone the child knows. 

The impact of that abuse is life altering. 

We believe that education is key in helping to prevent child sexual abuse.

Our plan is to give the book "Cuentos Que No Son Cuentos" to children ages 2-9 years old.

This book will help them to prevent sexual abuse, understand how to react if they are in a situation of abuse, and build their self esteem.

The publishing house has made the books available to us at cost.

 Would you like to partner with us?

For every $1 that you give 2 children will benefit. 

Our goal is to reach 2000 children in Piura and the surrounding area. 

This video is in Spanish but it gives a lot of the information I posted above. 

To give to this outreach please donate through the paypal link on the right. 

Our deadline to order the books is December 15th. Every dollar we collect through paypal until then will go directly into this outreach.

Thank you in advance for your part in impacting the lives of the children of Peru. 

The plan

Several years ago, when Jose and I were still pretty much newlyweds one of us was usually working for our church (first me then him) and we were involved in several ministries. Back then I used to think we spent so much time at the church we practically lived there....fast forward to our 8th year of marriage and we do live in the church, literally in the church. If you have read this blog or known us for very long you probably know this already.

Originally our plan was to live in the house we live in and once the church outgrew it we would move the church and continue living here. That was until things changed. We found a way to grow in the house and extend the use for the church but we need to move out. So for the last 3 months or so we have been looking for a house with the goal to be moved out by August 1st...but we didn't find anything. A part of being missionaries is we are completely dependent on God, and the people who give into the mission being faithful to give every month. Sometimes for one reason or another that doesn't happen. So in an effort to use wisdom we had to set a pretty low price point for the amount we can pay in a country where houses rent for about the same as the US. Realtors thought we were crazy or lying about our financial position because after all I am obviously a gringa. In a lot of peoples minds here white skin=lots of money. Jose actually started looking at houses by himself and verifying the cost of the house because some people even raised the rent price once they saw me. So we kept praying and finally a member of the church noticed one of the houses on her street was empty. She did some checking for us and we were able to rent it! We are going to move hopefully this weekend or possibly next week depending on when the repairs are finished.

We are so excited that God brought this house to us. Honestly I was starting to get discouraged about the whole thing. I knew that we needed to move and that God would take care of us. But sometimes...ok most of the time. I want to control the situation. I want to tell God "OK, I need this thing in my hands by 8 am Monday ok?" As if I could actually be in charge and give God a deadline. But he always comes through. Always.

It isn't without stretching though. A part of our August deadline was because we knew the month of September would be crazy and we need to be out before our conference which is September 18-20.
Jose has been having meetings all throughout the day every day for the past month and since this is our first conference he is only getting busier. So we are going to be moving in the middle of the busiest time of our lives. S--t--r--e--t--c--h. While I'm in the first trimester of this pregnancy. S--t--r--e--t--c--h. Oh, and we are hosting a group from our home church during the conference. yeah that too. Thankfully we have several church members who have stepped up and offered to let some of our visitors stay with them. Plus we don't have that much stuff so hopefully moving will be smooth, quick and easy.


Please pray for us
~that God would continue to work out all of the details of our upcoming Save the Family conference. He has already done some amazing things and we are so excited about it!

~Our move to be seamless and easy

~ the first trimester blahs would go away so that I can be a better helper for Jose and mom for the kids.

~extra funds/support as we continue to grow and expand the ministry here in Piura and as our family expands

If you are interested in supporting us monthly and have questions or even would like to make a one time donation. Please send me a message at jkmission2peru @ Gmail.com
We also have 2 different links to donate on the right hand side of the blog. One is through paypal and the other is a tax deductible donation through our home church

life and times

Life has had many twists and turns the last few months.

Last Month we were able to have an important part of getting our visas done.

Hopefully at the end of June we will be able to go back to Lima and have them finalized.

Please pray that everything goes smoothly and we can get that out of the way!

Once that is done we will be able to get all the church paperwork taken care of 

which will help us in many ways. 

One of them being that we will be able to receive the land for the orphanage!

This is kind of what life feels like right now. 

A lot of pieces have come together but we are still waiting on the missing ones. 

 Our church is growing really quickly and is mostly full of new believers. We have outgrown our home already which is about 6 months sooner than we expected. Right now we are praying for a larger place to host our church and the provision for it

About half of the members of Powerhouse Peru

The next few months we have a lot of exciting things going on.

In June we have a vision campaign. We will be going into a neighborhood near us and providing free eye exams and glasses to 100 people that need them. 

In August we have a team from La Casa Del Padre in Lima and they will be helping us build houses.

The daughter of one of our members lost everything including one of her children in a fire a few months ago. We are trying to collect some items for her family and help them build a new home and fill it with some of the things they need. We will also be building a few other houses that weekend.

Every servolution outreach so far has been amazing! 

We always look forward to the next one with anticipation

In September we will be having our first ever Saving the Family conference. 

This is a huge undertaking and to be honest a little overwhelming. 

A team from Powerhouse Church in Katy will be coming to help us and we are so looking forward to the "family reunion" that will be, along with seeing what God does that week. 

We are really excited about some of the doors God has opened and people that will be speaking. 

Once we have everything finalized I will give some more details.  

If you are interested in coming with the team from Katy please let us know. 

We would love to have you!

In other news I turned 30 last month. It was a wonderful day. 

We started it in Lima and I was surprised with a breakfast party 

then we ended it by coming home to Piura and my ladies group surprised me with another party!

I can honestly say that is the first time I've had 2 parties in my honor in one day 

I want to offer my thanks to all of you that have supported us in this venture. 

We know God brought us here and the harvest was ready for us. 

It is hard work but we love it, and we couldn't do this without you. 

Every prayer and every dollar sent is hugely important to us. 

We love you guys!

Servolution.

A couple years ago Jose and I had the opportunity to hear Dino Rizzo speak at "The Remnant" conference in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He is the author of "Servolution" a book which sprang from something his church actually does. They go out and serve their community. Serving is very important to us and actually a part of how we met. So when Mr Rizzo was finished speaking Jose went up and told him "You wrote my book." Mr Rizzo responded "That's awesome, you should write one that's better than mine." Now our church here has become a part of Servolution. Every month (and sometimes twice a month) we go out into the community and do something nobody else here really does. These are the things we've been doing this month.

Refrescate! - Refresh yourself

Peru is south of the equator so Summer just ended for us and we have now entered into Autumn. The beginning of the year is the hottest time here. So we collected 1000 bottles of water, went to one of the busiest intersections in town and handed them out to everybody that wanted one. We gave ourselves 2 hours to run out. It only took us 30 minutes. Obviously this was a hit with the people of Piura. We saved 100 to give to the car washers and attendants at a local shopping center parking lot. The car washers pay 40 soles a day to work. Then they get to keep whatever they make. They make about 5 soles per car they wash and there are about 40 car washers all fighting to wash every car that comes into the lot. Even so not every person coming into the lot wants a car wash. You can imagine these people having to work so hard to make money don't really get to take breaks to go buy water. So they were really excited to get this water.

Operacion Utiles Escolar - Operation School Supplies

             Y                                      &

Operacion Mochila    -    Operation Backpack

This school is run by some local pastors. They felt the need for this school because these kids would have to cross a very busy street to get to the school the city provides. The year before the school began 21 kids died just trying to cross the street to go to school. It's a free private school so they work entirely off of outside donations. We were able to get a good portion of the school supplies donated from people in our church and local businesses. We also had 75 backpacks donated by 1 friend in Lima. In total we were able to bless 97 kids with their very own backpacks & bottle of water plus the school supplies I mentioned.

 

We have more things planned in the months to come. 

Please pray for us that God would continue to provide for these outreaches. 

Also the need for a van and possibly a truck has become increasingly apparent. (we rented the truck in the first photo set) Most of our church members don't have cars so we are just stuffing people wherever they fit and taking a few taxis. But some of the areas we are going to are really difficult to find taxis to come back. It would just be a huge burden lifted if we had a van big enough to fit about 18-20 people. So as you pray for us please put that on the top of your list. We need a van! 

Thank you so much for continuing to support us and lift us up in prayer!

You are a part of what we are doing here. We couldn't do it without you

I want to remember

It has been a crazy 5 months since we moved to Piura. In some ways I feel like we have been here forever. A lot has happened in our lives and with our church. Last Sunday we had 17 people in church! That is huge for us. Especially considering we didn't know any of those people 5 months ago.
We are really excited about several things we are working on right now and I wanted to share them so you can pray for us as we move forward.

As of last week week I started a women's group. I had 3 people (not counting me) on our first night and 9 on the second. I believe there are a lot of women that will want to be involved. We are going over the book "Captivating" by John and Stasi Eldridge. If you've never heard of it or read it I highly recommend it. (It is one of my all time favorite Christian books) The main thing I need prayer for here is that we can find a girl to interpret at these meetings. Jose has been doing it and while I like having him around I think there will be more openness with just women present.

In February we are having our second outreach as a church. "Operación Mochila" or Operation Backpack. We will go back into the same area we went to for Christmas and hand out *hopefully* 100 backpacks with school supplies inside. As far as we know this is totally original here. And just in case you think our timing is strange the school year begins in March.
Our goal after this is to have a monthly kids club so that we can build relationships with the kids/families in the same area. We will go in on a Saturday every month and have a Jesus centered fun time with the kids. As our team grows we hope to either go more often or spread out and bring the same idea to different areas of town
We are planning more outreaches either monthly or bi-monthly and I will share about those as we get closer to them.


*****

I'm 2 weeks away from my due date with this pregnancy. I have been pregnant for 38 weeks or 9 1/2 months (the way pregnancy is measured each month is 4 weeks so you end up saying you took 10 months total...yes, it's very confusing) This honestly has seemed like a very fast pregnancy and I 'm probably one of the only pregnant women ever who kind of wishes it would last longer. I would just ask that I not have to have contractions or heart burn. Those are the absolute worst part of being pregnant at this point. That and I miss Sushi. But we don't have that here in Piura anyway so it's not much of an issue right now.

The first picture lost it's caption in the process of putting these together but I'm 6 weeks pregnant in it. 

This pregnancy has been a huge trial of my faith. I know I talked about it a little here I'm just going to expand on it a little so I don't forget. Every time we have seen the Dr he has found another problem or concern. Lately there is some dilation in what he thinks is her kidneys and her head is measuring right on target but her abdomen and femur are several weeks smaller than they should be. I was put on bed rest the week before Christmas because my body was trying to go into labor and and I was only 33 weeks. I have so little amniotic fluid that even if my water did break I probably wouldn't notice. All of these things are cause for concern and make my Dr frown quite a bit. The papers they send home with me start with the statement "unique pregnancy." I know that God is taking care of me and the baby and even the fact that we've made it this far is a miracle. But that doesn't mean I haven't freaked out quite a bit. I'm actually embarrassed how many times I've started crying while listening to my Dr talk. He must think I'm the worlds most emotional woman. I want to remember this feeling though. When she is 9 months old if I'm struggling to get her to sleep through the night I want to remember that it's a miracle she's here. That I couldn't sleep through the night a year before because the Dr thought she wouldn't make it. When she's 3 years old if I can't get her to listen or be still I want to remember that 4 years before I wasn't listening to God or being still. I was all over the place emotionally. When she's a teenager and doesn't trust me or believe I know what I'm doing I don't want to be mad at her. I want to remember that when I was 29 I had a hard time trusting the one who made me and her. I need to remember these things for so many reasons but mostly because I want to always treasure the gift that God has given me in this baby and in the things he has taught me while I've carried her.

*****

The other day we did show and tell as a part of school. Both of the boys got very excited. I told them that I wanted them to bring something that is special to them and tell me why they like it.
Logan's was his playmobil Nativity set. In telling me about it he said "I like this because it's a very special birthday. It was Jesus birthday. Something very important to know is Jesus is the son of GOD! That is why this is special to me. Thank you." (I was pretty impressed with his presentation considering it was his first show and tell ever)
Timothy brought his bag full of jenga's (He has like 3 sets of the game that he uses as blocks. This is by far his favorite toy in the world) He held the bag up as high as he could and said "I have jenga's! all together they make credits, and castles, and special features. I play with JENGA'S! OK!" While Timothy didn't really have the poise Logan did he did understand and completed the assignment which is a win in my book. I never want to forget their first show and tell.

Timothy playing with Jenga's

*****

Recently Timothy watched a movie that had a couple of kids running a lemonade stand. Ever since then he has been wanting to do one. We talked about setting one up in our yard and letting him sell us lemonade but had not had a chance to do it yet. So the other day Jose told me that while some of his guys were over they were talking out in the yard and Timothy set up a chocolate milk stand. We had a pitcher of chocolate milk already made so Timothy took a table and chair to our yard. Set out cups, the chocolate milk and his piggy bank. He sat there waiting for someone to buy a glass of chocolate milk for a while. I'm pretty sure he didn't make any sales but we did run out of chocolate milk. He's not one to let good chocolate anything sit untouched for long. I wish I had seen it, but just hearing the story makes me smile. He's a funny kid.