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