Coming Home

December 15, 2009

Hello Everyone,

I hope this update finds everyone well and enjoying this blessed holiday season. I had written an update after I returned from San Lorenzo but was ill with fever, bronchitis and stomach problems and accidently erased it so I will quickly recap.

The trip there was great. We were on the boat 4 days and there were severalbrothers and sisters from the Aguruna tribe that Lucy worked with when she was a missionary in that region. We held services on the boat and it was so beautiful to listen to them sing in their native tongue.

We arrived in San Lorenzo where they killed 2 guinea pigs in my honor. They are delicious by the way but don’t worry about your hamsters...they are safe with me. We held 3 services in Lucy’s parents’ home as many in her family are non Christian and it was a way to reach more of them.

We also gave the meditation 2 nights in a nearby church. We kept very busy with just the day to day things of having to go get wood for the stove—an hour and a half hike into the jungle and fixing things around the house. I had a wonderful time but it was very difficult to have to say goodbye to Lucy and her family there and have to travel the 3 days by boat back to Iquitos alone with her niece and nephew.

We arrived in Nauta which is 2 hours by car from Iquitos Thursday night and decided to get off there instead of taking the boat back to Iquitos as the boat would take 12 hours from there. There were 6 adults and 6 children plus suitcases packed in a car. I now know what a can of tuna feels like.

I arrived in Iquitos ill which was kind of a bummer for my last few days. I finally ended up going to the hospital yesterday and feel better now.

I can’t believe I am leaving for Lima in 2 hours. I will stay with some friends there and leave for the states Thursday night. It all feels like a dream right now. I feel a bit numb. It is difficult to leave friends here and I am looking forward to seeing my friends and familyso my feelings are somewhat jumbled.

I want to thank all of you for all of your support in finances, in prayer and through your emails ect. None of this would have been possible without you all. A lot of growth has been taking place in the churches of this region in their maturity and we also have 2 new places where we are starting churches. It is always 2 steps forward, one step back but we are advancing in the work of the Lord here. Thank you all so very much and I hope you have a very blessed Christmas and Happy New Year.

In Christ,

Kayleen

The Past 2 Weeks

ovember 18, 2009

Hi All,

I wanted to write a quick update about the last couple of weeks. In my last update, we had just returned from Yanashi that Saturday morning. We were in Iquitos Saturday and Sunday then Monday left for Amazonas as I am having to say my goodbyes to the churches. I am learning to be ready in season and out of season as one half hour before the service, Pastor Leiter asked me to preach and in Yanashi, as the church service was starting, Lucy asked me to preach. It is probably better that way because then I don’t think too much and have to rely on the Lord and not myself.

Tuesday on our return to Iquitos, there was a strike and the roads were closed by protesters so we stopped at a stream and swam until the roads were passable again. Wednesday we left for San Juan de Sinchicui, held a service and returned to Iquitos Thursday as we had to get ready for the children’s outreach we were having in Iquitos on Sunday.

Sunday morning Lucy, Pastor, Gian Franco and Gil who were also helping with the children’s program had to go out and look at some land while Gladis and I stayed at the church practicing with the kids. The program was at 4 p.m. and Lucy and the rest didn’t show up until about 4:30so Gladis and I were getting nervous as there were over 100 kids waiting for the program to start. After it did start, it was awesome. The kids themselves put on the program and

did a great job. We had to cut it short because our church service started at 7 but all in all it was a success.

Monday we headed to Tamshiyacu with Pastor Leiter. It was his first time in Tamshiyacu so we presented him to the church there. This church is without a pastor right now so it is struggling and the land behind the church was overgrown with grass so Tuesday morning at 6 a.m. we went out

there with our machetes to cut the grass. Three hours and several blisters later we were done. Pastor Leiter had killed a rat when he was cutting the grass so they put it on the fire for breakfast. One of the women of the church also killed a chicken so that we could have a soup for breakfast. While we were eating, the little boy that was cooking the rat said “look, it had babies” and showed me the little rat babies that were inside...my soup didn’t taste so good after that.

From Tamshiyacu we went to Santa Ana to say good bye and had a service in the new church. They have almost completed it—they redid part of the floor in the church and just have to do some of the windows, the bathroom and paint and it will be ready for their anniversary in December.

Wednesday we returned to Iquitos. I will be going with Lucy to visit her parents which is a 4 day boat ride there and 3 days coming back so I will only be able to stay a couple days since I leave for Lima on the 15^th. We are planning on taking 2 of her brothers children with us but that will depend on them coming to town to notarize papers saying we are allowed to travel with them. They have just begun to enforced this law due to the increase in child trafficking here. I am hoping they can go otherwise I will have to travel back to Iquitos alone.

I cannot believe how quickly time passes. I will be home for Christmas the first time in 3 years and am excited about that but of course sad to leave my friends here. They want me to return in April to help with some teams that are coming so I am praying about that. I have had many ups and downs here in Peru but through it all, God is always faithful and does much more than I can ever imagine. He is my rock and my fortress. Thank you all for your continued support and may you have a very blessed Thanksgiving.

In Christ,

Kayleen

Yanashi

ovember 7, 2009

Hi All,

We just returned from Yanashi this a.m. I am a bit tired from the 24 hour boat ride but also having a difficult time getting to sleep so I thought I would write a bit about the trip.

We left Sunday morning and thankfully the water has risen enough to enter into Yanashi itself instead of having to change boats so we arrived Sunday evening about 10 p.m. so we just set up our mosquito nets and went to sleep. It is a 12 hour boat ride there as it is with the current and the return trip is 24 hours as it is against the current.

At 6 a.m. the next day we began the construction of a new church. We (Lucy and I) thought we were just going to enlarge the building we already had but when we got there, it was completely disassembled and just had the new support beams put into the ground. (shown here).

A group of men who are not part of the church came to help put up the beams and get the structure ready for the roof. As they started doing it, we realized we would be short wood so we had to contact the woodcutter so he could go with the pastor the next day into the jungle to cut more wood.

On Tuesday, Lucy and I walked down to visit a little 10 year old girl that we met on the boat trip there. She had been extremely ill for 2 months and they were sending her home from the hospital to die. They said there was nothing more they could do for her, all the medicine they tried made her sicker and she was not able to eat anything, just drink. Her father (who also lost his wife and son in childbirth this year) was at his wits end and had brought her to Yanashi to see the witchdoctor.

Many people here in the jungle have a strong belief in curses and witchdoctors and if western medicine does not work, they believe the person has been cursed by someone and need to see a witchdoctor to cure them. Lucy and I asked if we could pray for her for which they consented. We later sang to her and then Lucy asked her if she wanted to accept Christ which she said she did and she weakly prayed in her own words to receive Christ.

That night we had a church service in the upstairs of the house with a good turnout of people.

The little girl’s cousin was there and said that she had started eating a bit and that her fever was down which was encouraging but when Lucy and I went to see her the next day, she had developed a deep cough and her father took her to the witchdoctor...please be in prayer for Salvith.

We finally had all of the wood Thursday which we had to bring upthe hill from the boat. Thankfully a group of children helped us.

The same group of men plus 2 more came to help put on the roof. We had a minga which is where the men work for food. This was a real blessing since all of the money that we had with us had gone into getting the extra wood. These men that helped were not Christians and wanted us to buy alcohol but we didn’t think that would be too great since they were going to be working on top of the roof. They did an awesome job and here is what we have so far of the church. We have all the wood to finish it up but we had to leave due to a commitment here in Iquitos.

Thursday, Lucy and I and the kids were upstairs in the house when Lucy jumped. I thought there was a bug or something but when she jumped again, I saw it was a snake. Lucy was telling me to take a picture, while the pastor’s wife was telling her husband to kill it. The snake was too fast for me to get a good picture until it was dead (shown here). Lucy had thought it was a grass snake but it ended up being a loro machaco

which is a very deadly snake—it is a green tree viper and usually falls from trees on its victims. We found out later that the neighbor had recently died from a bite from one of these snakes.

I have only seen 2 live poisonous snakes in the jungle and they have both been in Yanashi. The other snake I saw was the

jergón or fer de lance which I saw about 2 feet from me in the river. This snake in the house had bitten Lucy’s pants twice. Thankfully she was wearing pants instead of shorts. They also said an anacondahad eaten a dog not far from where we bathe in the river. I always try to be extra careful in Yanashi as there is still a lot of dangerous wildlife here. A huge iguana also tried to eat one of the chickens but we killed it and had it for lunch.

Thursday night we had another service and Friday morning the people came to the house to pray and see us off which was a special blessing. Today I will be practicing dramas and puppets with some kids as we prepare for our children’s outreach here in Iquitos on the 15^th. Please pray for that event and that many children’s lives are touched by Christ.

Well, looks like daylight is here and I will not be getting any sleep. Lucy will probably come to my room any minute to get me to go running with her. As I said before, every time she decides she wants to get into shape, she makes me part of the deal. Oh well, it is good for me but I don’t have to like it. Thank you so much for all of your emails, support and prayers. They really mean so much to me. I hope that you all are doing well and are richly blessed. Here is a picture of the pastor’s 2 year old son helping us cut the grass. I am getting much better with a machete but this little boy probably does a better job than I do.

In Christ,

Kayleen

Tamshiyacu

October 30, 2009

Hi All,

Sunday we returned from a 5 day visit to Tamshiyacu where we have one of our churches. It was kind of a difficult trip as a few months ago the pastor of that church left without telling us or the people there anything so it is like starting all over again. There is a group of people there that will meet when we have services and Harol (one of our seminary students) will be coming in December so I know all will be well but sometimes it can be so frustrating as you feel like it is all coming together and then these things happen. One thing I know above all other things is that Our God is faithful and the work is His and not my own so I try not to get too stressed. It is just I feel the disappointment of the church members there and want to help them.

We had services every night while there and the people are more encouraged to continue on in their Christian walk. We also formed a praise team with some of the kids...they will be leading worship until we get back there. They are really excited about it as they were walking with me back where we were staying they were saying “when I grow up, I want to be a ‘sister’ too so that’s why I am studying” then a little boy said “I want to be a sister too” and then a little 3 year old was like “Sister, sister...guess what? Tomorrow I am going to be big.” The kids here are just precious. We sat up talking until the wee hours of the night—really only about 11 but it felt later—about all of their fears about life, teaching them how to pray and put their trust in the Lord...it really was a special time for me.

As I said, we returned to Iquitos on Sunday and I finished my Wesleyan Doctrine and History course with an A—yay! It was a bit difficult as I needed to use my computer to complete all of the exams and the only time I have my computer is in Iquitos since there is no electricity in most of the villages. I am traveling most of the time so I was afraid I was not going to be able to complete it but Praise the Lord, it is finished.

We are going to be headed to Yanashi again this next week where we are going to rebuild the church building. This is the church building as it is but we are going to make it larger and change the thatched roof.

We are going to buy rice and chickens ect. and have a minga which is where you make a big meal and all of the people of the village come and work for food. I am sure it will be a great time of fellowship and am looking forward to it. It is a long boat ride to get there but well worth it.

I can’t believe how quickly time is passing. When we return from Yanashi, we have a children’s outreach planned here in Iquitos for the 15^th of November. I then need to go out to each of the villages to tell them good bye as I will be going to the states for Christmas. Truly the saying “life is like a roll of toilet paper...the closer you get to the end, the faster it goes.” is a wise statement as these 6 months have flown by.

I am wanting to take a quick trip to San Lorenzo to see Lucy’s family before I go as her father is 86 and not doing too well. Her family has been very good to me and always made me feel a part of their family so I would like to see them before I leave the country. The only problem is time...it is a 4 day boat ride there so I could only be there for 3 or 4 days and then make the 4 day ride back so that is 2 weeks spent mostly in transportation so I’ll have to see.

I forgot to tell you all the exciting news about Amazonas in my last update. There are 15 couples that are going to get married in a massive wedding ceremony on December 20th including little Kayleen’s parents and Oswaldo’s(one of the seminary students) parents. His father was an alcoholic who accepted Christ when the team came last May and was baptized during the event that took place in early October. A lot of very exciting things are happening in that village. I am just sad that I am not going to be here for the celebration. Most of these people have been living together for years and they decided after being in the church,that they wanted to make it legal. Here in Peru, the legal marriage is the civil marriage so the representative from Nauta will be coming to Amazonas to perform the services. They are going hunting so there is going to be a big feast and I will miss it. I am just excited at the work that God is doing here.

Thank you all for all your thoughts and prayers. They really mean a lot to me. I hope you all are doing well and are blessed.

In Christ

Kayleen

Amazing Amazonas

October 13, 2009

Hi All,

Hope this finds you safe and well. I returned Sunday from the convention in Amazonas and have to tell you, it was absolutely amazing. This was the first time we have had our churches from the rivers all get together. Previously we had a Women’s convention but unfortunately due to economic difficulties, there was not a high amount of participation.

There were over 100 participants in this convention with representatives from Amazonas, Santa Ana, San Juan de Sinchicuy, Iquitos and another church from Nuevo Triunfo that has now joined the Wesleyan denomination. They are a village a little further up the river Tahuayo where Santa Ana resides. Pastor Hildebrando had been visiting with them for years and they decided they wanted to join the Wesleyan denomination as they have been abandoned by their church covering for 3 years. It was a blessing that the Superintendent of the district—Pastor Daniel Bocanegra (corazon blanco) was here to welcome them into the denomination. There were also representatives from Puerto Prado and San Carlos. Unfortunately there was not a representative from Yanashi or from Tamshiyacu.

For some of these people, this was a 16 hour boat ride so it took sacrifice for all of us to be together but it was well worth it.

Another awesome point of this trip was that it was put on by the churches in the coastal region of Peru. It is my dream and desire that the more mature churches in Peru itself come alongside these baby churches in the Amazon region to provide spiritual support and teaching. Hna. Marleni de Casteñeda, her husband, Hno. Ricardo and Pastor Daniel Bocanegra all came from Lima to provide teaching and preaching for the convention. My part of the teaching actually went pretty well. I thought I had about 10 minutes of material but it turned out to be more than an hour.

We had such a good time all together in fellowship, playing volleyball—my team won despite having me on their team and bathing together in the river. All the people of the church in Amazonas had gone fishing, so we had plenty of fish plus the people coming from Santa Ana met up with some people on their way to Amazonas that gave them tons of watermelon plus we brought rice and 12 chickens so everyone was well fed.

Perhaps the best part of the trip for me was that 4 people accepted Christ and 21 people were baptized. We also had a communion service which was the first time many of the people had ever taken communion. Many people kept asking me “hermana how do we take communion” so the whole process was explained and we had communion together. It was such an awesome trip, I can’t begin to express my gratitude to the Lord for allowing me to be a part of this. It is such an honor for me to be able to see how much the church is maturing in the Amazon area. I want to thank all of you for your support and prayers for making this possible for me to be a part of all of this and I especially want to thank the Lord for without Him, I am nothing.

I am sending a few photos of the event although the photos cannot begin to describe the incredible experience. 1. The kids receiving t-shirts which Marleni sent and Gian Franco and Pastor Leiter painted. 2. One of the church services. 3. Eating together. 4. Baptism Candidates. 5. Baptism—this is Dayer—Lucy’s nephew who many of you prayed for his cancerous tumor last year.

By the way, there was an announcement at the end of the convention by the people who traveled from Lima that they are going to make this a yearly event so next October we will be in Santa Ana!

May you be richly blessed and please email me and pray for the work here in the Amazon.

In Christ’s Precious blood,

Kayleen

San Juan de Sinchi Cuy

October 2, 2009

Hi All

We just arrived back from San Juan de Sinchi Cuy. It was a quick 3 day trip just to check on how they were doing and to encourage them to come to the convention next week in Amazonas. It is about a 2 hour boat trip then an hour walk back into the jungle when the water is low. When the water is high, you can go all the way back to the village in a small boat. That hour walk makes you think about what you really want to take with you since you have to carry it all that way. Since you can’t really buy anything there, we did have to carry in several pounds of rice, canned milk, sugar, ect so that we would have something to eat when we got there.

We arrived in San Juan about 4 p.m. and walked around informing people that we would be having services that night. It gets dark early here and so we had to go get bathed before it got too late as there is not electricity so little Lucy, Lucy’s 6 year old niece, wanted to walk ahead of me in case there were snakes. I was kind of thinking—and if there are snakes, what is this little 6 year old going to do about it? We had the service in one of the people’s houses where you have to cross this dilapidated bridge. Lucy always tells me to cross in the middle as there is reinforcement but it is still scary in the dark.

We had an awesome service with about 25 adults and tons of children. San Juan is a very small village with no Christian church. We are just starting out with evangelism there and the people are very responsive. After the service, one of the men said, “I don’t like this going house to house. We need to have a church building so we know where we are going to have services.” The next day we went and looked at some land—shown here

and the man said he would sell it to us for $15 to build the church, so I put a $6 dollar down payment and Lucy’s brother put in $3. Three other people said they would donate the main support beams so now all we need is to have money for the chainsaw guy to cut the wood for the boards and money to make a big meal so we can all go trek deep into the jungle to find the trees that produce the leaves for the roof. The people are all very excited that they will have in their words “their own house to worship God”. It is very exciting to see how much this village is responding to the Gospel.

Lucy’s brother and sister-in-law were in the process of making charcoal to sell. It is so much work. First you have to find good wood, cut it and bring it all to one place. Then you make a volcano type thing with dirt covering the wood and start slowly burning it. Someone has to be there all the time or you could lose everything. It has to be kind of a smoking fire. They had made a little hut so they could sleep there and the next morning, while they had just come home for breakfast, one of the neighbors came running to say the hut was on fire—shown here.

We got the fire out and saved most of the charcoal and had to carry it back through the jungle—shown here. It was sad as they lost some of their clothes and other things but they could have lost it all.

In the afternoon we had a children’s service with about 30 children and afterwards played soccer. I am not in as good as shape as I used to be and paid for it the next day. That night we held another service and told them we were returning to Iquitos the next day as we have to get ready for the conference this Thursday and tonight, Saturday, we have a cell group with some children in Iquitos. We are

going to be doing a large children’s outreach the 15^th of November and are helping some of the children learn some drama’s and puppets. I better get going for now. I hope all is well with you and yours.

In Christ,

Kayleen

Yanashi

September 23, 2009

Hi All,

I just returned from Yanashi at 2 a.m. this morning and thought I would write a quick update to let you all know about the trip. We arrived last Wednesday at the mouth of the Yanashi River after a 12 hour boat ride. We then had to transfer to a smaller boat since the water is way down and the bigger boats cannot enter. We ended up having to get out of the boat and push at times as we kept getting stuck in the sand. This can be dangerous at night as the stingrays burrow in the sand and have a sting that can kill a person that is weak. Apparently it is very painful and causes days of fever.

It was a night for the animals as first we passed an alligator, then there was a highly venomous snake swimming right beside the boat (they said this indicated bad luck) and finally the fish were jumping and we had 16 fish jump into our boat so we had breakfast delivered to us. Here are pictures of the fish and us eating in the kitchen.

Pastor Juan of Yanashi had to return to Iquitoslast year due to health problems. Since then, his nephew, Emerson, has been in charge of the church and it has been maintaining pretty well. Last year, Lucy and I donated money to build a church in Yanashi since they had no place to congregate but now it is needing to have the thatched roof changed—they put an inferior leaf on it and it really needs to be enlarged to hold the people. We are wanting to enlarge it 3 more meters and actually change a lot of the wood on it to a different, harder wood. We talked with the man who will cut the wood and the man who will bring the leaves for the roof and it will cost about $200 total. We are praying for funds and hoping to be able to do this within the next month as the rainy season is coming up and the roof leaks too bad to have services when it is raining. One reason a lot of the wood needs to be changed is there was severe flooding last year and the water came up as high as the church floor (seen here).

We held services every night and twice on Sunday with a good turnout each time. Last year I made a book of coloring pages in Spanish for each of our churches. The churches that are near towns with electricity take their book in each week and make copies but since Yanashi only has electricity 3 hours a night—from 6pm to 9pmthey have no copy machines so we bought carbon paper and typing paper and drew the pages so that we could color (seen here).

Thanks to all of you that donated crayons. The kids really enjoy being able to color their story lesson—of course the adults did too. I have learned to be ready in season and out of season with Lucy. She usually gives me at least a half an hour to get ready if I am going to have to give the lesson but this time she asked me from the pulpit. But God is faithful and gives us the words to speak if we are but an open vessel.

Several days while there, we went out to work in the fields. There are a lot of poisonous snakes in Yanashi so you have to be careful when you are in the fields as it is a 24 hour boat ride back to Iquitos for medical attention. It was watermelon season and I ate so much watermelon, I probably could have floated back to Iquitos. It was delicious though.

I am often amazed at how difficult life is in the villages. I am sore from sleeping on the floor for a week but they sleep on the floor every night. I was hungry from not having much food for a week but they never have much food. We bathe and wash our clothes in the river—pictured here and the night before we left, the 9 month old baby next door died from diarrhea which could be easily treated in the city. Life is very difficult there. They are mostly farmers but if they take there produce into the city to sell it, they barely make anything after paying people to help harvest it, their boat ticket plus a fee on the boat for transporting it, then they have to pay for people to take it up the hill and then they have to sell it very cheap. My heart hurts for them.

As I said, it was a very good trip and we plan to return after the conference in Amazonas to hopefully be repairing and enlarging the church. It is a difficult trip as the 24 hour boat ride coming back is tiring but I enjoy it at the same time. I will leave you with 2 more pictures: One of the sunset

and the other of Lucy saying I love America. I hope you are all well and blessed. Please write me an email if you get a chance.

In His Precious Love,

Kayleen