Louisiana Team

June 29, 2011

Hi All,

Hope this email finds you doing well. I wanted to write you all and tell you about the past week and a half with the team from Louisiana.

The team arrived Saturday in the morning after a threat of being delayed in Panama City. They had all been traveling 24 hours so were exhausted and got to the church ate breakfast and took naps—that is all took naps except for Scott. He reminded me of the energizer bunny and as soon as he got here, he built us a nice table and benches for the back yard so now all of the teams will have a cool place to eat and we are also starting to serve breakfast to the Sunday School children so this is perfect. He took a job that I thought would take all week and finished it in the afternoon.

That evening we had a beautiful service in Iquitos that evening in which we also celebrated Father’s Day. I had to speak a lot and by the next morning I was losing my voice which was not a good thing since no one spoke Spanish on the team. We got ready and left for San Juan de Sinchi Cuy in a small boat and arrived around 11 a.m. The team played soccer with the children, then we had a puppet show and children’s service. In the evening we had a regular service and then showed a movie. We had a great turnout of people for the movie and they really enjoyed it. Several people afterwards spoke about how it had renewed their faith.

The next day we set sail for Iquitos again and held a short service in the park near the church. This was a good way to invite people to the church around the corner. It went really well except that a moto taxi drove off with five of the churches chairs which was sad but the team replaced them so all ended well.

Tuesday we left for Tamshiyacu. I was drinking all types of remedies for my voice and by the service that evening, I was able to talk. Last year a team from Texas had built a small parsonage with a lean to in back. The team bought wood and cement and we had the lean to enclosed and a cement floor put in. Later we are going to make another lean to for their kitchen. Harol will be coming in January or February with his wife and new baby so he needed a bit more space. This will be such a blessing for them.

We held a service in the evening then went to Santa Ana the next day where we swam in their beautiful pond and had a service with a large attendance. This church has suffered a split and during the service, several people made amends to each other. We headed back to Tamshiyacu that same evening then back to Iquitos the next day where we went to the zoo and sight seeing.

I flew with the team Friday to Lima and was able to see Oswaldo, our seminary student and Gianfranco, Gladys’ son. We toured Lima and then went to a hotel where we spent half the night as we had to leave by 3 a.m. to get to the airport for our various flights. All in all it was a great trip with new friends.

When I got back to Iquitos, we received an emergency call from San Juan de Sinchi Cuy. A man who had been at the service was hit by a tree and died. They wanted us to come asap to be at the wake. This is amazing in itself as these people were very reticent to have our presence in their community before. They really did not want the gospel message there so for them to call us now was something very special. Pastor Leiter, Lucy, Dayer and I went out and were at the wake. I ended up getting very sick with fever, vomiting ect. but fortunately arrived back in Iquitos where I am recovering now. As you can probably tell from this update, I am still not up to par but at least my fever is gone.

We have another team arriving next Saturday so we have to start making all the purchases and transportation arrangements again. Please keep this team in your prayers. Thank you to the Louisiana team for all your help here. You were a blessing. I will write more when I feel a bit better.\

In Christ

Kayleen