In 2004, Enid First Assembly decided to make the southern half of the country of Peru the focus of our mission's endeavors. Since then, we have teamed up with missionaries, Ronnie and Joyce Mask. Each year, we have traveled to Peru multiple times and hosted pastor's conferences and youth camps. We not only fund various churches and missionaries there, but in 2005, we also bought oceanfront property and built a pastor's retreat center and a youth camp. The church employs up to ten Peruvians daily to work on these types of projects. Literally thousands of Peruvians are coming to know the Lord because of the efforts of this local church. In the future, we will continue to build more youth camps and a children's home.
We’re moving on to the Amazon. God has opened an unreal door to us in the far Northern regions of Peru. All along the Amazon there are villages where the gospel is yet to be preached. We have been given the opportunity to team up with Terry Wiles and his church in Connecticut to help reach these people. Terry has been training pastors up and down the Amazon yet they don’t have a building to meet in or any facilities to come together for the training sessions. Each pastor is put through our equivalent of the Berean bible school.
We have obtained two hundred and twenty five acres of land on a river that comes off the Amazon. Together we will train pastors, build churches and build a facility on the Amazon to host the training of the pastors. These training facilities will also be used to host youth camps. Eventually, in addition to the training and camp facilities, we will build a teen challenge, a clinic, a school and a permanent church building.
The people of the Amazon are very similar to the people of the South, yet at the same time they are very different. They are both very poor, yet very hard working. They are very happy with their lot in life. It's odd that people with so little can be so happy. Living on the Amazon provides plenty of opportunity to get the necessities of life, yet that's about it. The people are very poor. As in the South, the people of the North are very receptive to the gospel.
As you get away from the cities and the cool places to take missions trips, the Amazon is a very hard place-a place where time has forgotten. Once again, we are going to a place not many have gone before. Our hope is to build as many churches along the Amazon and its tributaries as are needed, as well as to help construct the training facility. The really neat thing is that you're preaching to people who are really excited to hear about a better life. They are very open to not only the gospel but also the power of it. The message of a Savior, Jesus Christ, who died for them.
We'll begin taking groups to the Amazon as well as to the southern parts of Peru sometime in 2009.
Click here to view Pastor's thoughts on Peru
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