February Update

     We appreciate and are very thankful to your faithful support. We have actually been in Peru for over a year now. We had a wonderful visit back to the States over Christmas and the New Year. It was very good to visit family and friends and even get to share a report at three different churches while we were in town. We are sad we were not able to visit more of you and share personally what God has been doing here in Peru but look forward to the next opportunity down the road.
     The day we arrived back in Trujillo we celebrated Meg’s birthday and not long after that we also celebrated Satomi’s 3rd birthday! We hit the ground running as soon as we got back in Peru with many things going on with the mission as well as having to find someone new to help Meg keep up the house. The day we arrived in Trujillo the lady who used to work for us, Karim, came to tell us that she had exciting news that she was pregnant but had serious complications that required her to be on bed rest. Please join us in praying for her and her baby.
What is Parish doing now?
     Since we moved out of the old shop and helped our employees start out on their own business, many people ask, “so what do you do now?” I continue pursuing the same goals of this project. I continue teaching Bible Studies every morning before work at Javier and Norvil’s shop. They are the two most promising leaders who are more or less continuing with the vision of the ministry. We are lending them the use of our equipment and they are investing all of their savings into setting up a new shop. They asked me to set up an office with them and teach bible studies and disciple them. They also want our interns to keep working with them and are excited about the opportunities of their new location creating new contacts for starting another cell group for the church. One of the most promising things about these two men is that they are interested in bringing in helpers so they can both teach them woodworking skills and teach them the gospel as they learn more from the Bible. I also visit Alfonso in his shop once a week to continue working with him in his business and discipleship. I have started visiting Gerver another carpenter who is a member of the church and also started coming to our daily morning bible studies. I meet with him to do an in depth bible study as well as help him improve his business. I have started also meeting with Lenin who was the original leader of this woodshop ministry. Lenin is a deacon in the church and does many different projects with his architectural background for the mission.
     As well as getting more involved in discipleship with these carpenters and others, I also am still working with them to help develop their business. As Parish’s goals are to train leaders in three areas; administration, technical skills, and spiritual disciplines. I am working towards helping them facilitate their business through marketing with our website. This will entail not only selling smaller items through the website but continuing to pursue the market for exporting their fine furniture. I also will be working on pursuing a location in the industrial park where land is fairly cheap right now with the hopes of setting up a future training center where we can move all of our equipment and hire the carpenters we work with to be teachers to train more people in need of a skill to work their way out of poverty. One of our major prayer requests is for the development of this training center in the future and for a good kiln to properly dry wood for exporting fine furniture.