Short update and prayer requests

One particular prayer request would be for growth in our church in Arevalo in commitment from the members. We have one deacon that is carrying most of the load and we need more leaders. My biggest goal is to disciple and seek the leaders that God is preparing. I have been given responsibility for the young adult ministry and the adult sunday school class. Pray for the Lord's guidance and blessing on my efforts to do this well and also balance my time with the woodshop ministry. Things are very busy with the church and other ministries here. I had the privilege of preaching last Sunday and administering the sacraments for the first time. I also will be preaching this Sunday morning in a sister church plant in Parque Industrial, as well as preaching this Sunday evening in Arevalo. We also had a visiting pastor teaching a course on church history last week, Dr. Ian Wright from Chicago.  We had a great visit from Twin Lakes the first week in January that put on a camp ministry here in connection with our local churches. We also have a retreat planned February 7-9 with our youth to visit the youth of a sister church in Lima, Los Olivos. We are very thankful to finally be in a house and gradually getting settled and set up to be able to minister to the church in Peru.

Thank you for praying for us and supporting us!!!  We couldn't be here serving God's Kingdom in Peru without you.

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and are having a happy New Year!
We have been extremely busy and also limited at access to internet. Our apologies for not posting any new updates recently.

We are actually still not settled yet. We finally found a house a couple of weeks ago but there were a few unforeseen repairs that surfaced before we moved in. So hopefully we will be moving in this weekend. This week we are very busy with a team from Twin Lakes in Jackson, MS and Point Pleasant from Savannah, GA here putting on a camp ministry. 

I have preached a couple of times so far. I will be preaching once a month and I have also been put in charge of the young adults (youth) ministry and the adult Sunday School class that we will be starting up later this month. We have been busy getting to know all the members of the church and getting involved with the young adult group. I have also been catching up with the carpenters and next month after we get settled into our new home and balance out a schedule with the church we plan to schedule out my time between the ministry in the church and the ministry with the carpenters. 

Meg is hanging on keeping up with the kids and anticipating moving into our home where she can get settled as well. Please pray for us for endurance and patience to wait on the Lord's timing for his providence. Please also pray for our ability to balance our time with all the demands of ministry in the church with the carpenters and maintaining a healthy family. It seems like there are always needs that come up every day that disrupt our planned out schedule. Pray for grace, flexibility and good boundaries. We pray that we will be able to work on developing leaders in the church for growth both numerically and spiritually instead of the pastors burning out on meeting everyone's needs. We pray that we can grow so that all the leaders in the church will be able to meet the needs of the members and reach out to visitors. 

I hope to have time to write more next week after the camp is over and we get moved into our house and unpacked.

Here are some good words to start off the new year:
“And when Moses had finished speaking all these words to all Israel, he said to them, “Take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today, that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of this law. For it is no empty word for you, but your very life, and by this word you shall live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess.””
(Deuteronomy 32:45–47 ESV)

¡¡¡Back in Peru!!!

Thank you for praying for us!  We are now back in Peru and enjoying getting settled.  We are busy looking for a house and reconnecting with everyone here in Peru.  My installation service at Christ the Restorer in Arevalo is planned for November 24 at 5pm.

We celebrated Sam's birthday the day we arrived.  We were also welcomed at the airport with a great reception of a crowd of friends.  We also made it in town just in time for a reformation day service at Christ the Restorer in Arevalo. I didn't get any pictures but it was good to be back and worship with the church in Arevalo.

One week later we celebrated Ezra's birthday. We visited Christ the King Church where we used to serve and also joined the small group and they helped us celebrate Ezra's birthday.

We have been very busy running around looking for a place to live.

  Daniel is plugging into work at the Woodshop. 

Here we got to enjoy some grilled pork from the jungle.
Norvil had to have another surgery for a hernia and wanted to eat pork one last time before his surgery. 

Ezra couldn't wait to get started on work in the shop!

God's Timing!

Here is a link to our latest email update: http://e2.ma/message/q559n/ug5zpp

Feeling the prayers!

I am feeling your prayers!  In the last two days, I have received 5 different notices from friends who I haven't even asked yet and now we are only lacking $500/month to meet our budget.

When it comes to trying to raise support, I am feeling like the little kid that brought the meager lunch and Jesus multiplied it to feed thousands. By my own efforts, I have produced very little. But God keeps showering us with blessings and showing us that it is His time for us to get back to Peru.

I am amazed at how applicable Paul's words are to the church in Philippi.
 "I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me." Philippians 4:10-13
Just as we are called to support the gospel work in our home and tithe to our church, we are also called to give above and beyond to support the gospel work in other parts of the world. I rejoice that He is providing and pray that he will also "supply your every need according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus." Phil. 4:19

Fruit and a Mission

A few weeks ago, when my uncle (who has also been a missionary and is a farmer) saw my pitiful garden after I had basically given up on it. He said, "The mission field is a lot like a garden. If you tend it, it will bear fruit. If you don't tend it, everything will go to pot. You need to get back to the mission field, don't you."  I said yes, yes I do.

Well, actually we are very close to making it back to the field. Our goal is to be fully funded in time to go on our flights October 26.  We now only lack commitments to add up to $672/month.  This means we only need 6 more people to give 100/month and one to give 72/month or the equivalent yearly!  Would you pray with us and ask God to lead us to those whom he has blessed with extra to be able to partner with us in his work in Peru? Is he blessing you and leading you to join with us and support us. Philippians 4:10-20 is a great biblical example of giving to support the work of God's kingdom all over the world. Paul actually indicates that giving support also leads to fruit that increases to your credit. Not only is giving a means to seeing fruit but just as important, walking with the Spirit is a crucial means to seeing fruit in our lives.

There is something very true to what my uncle said, but it is not just for the mission field it is for the church everywhere and also for our own souls. As far as the mission field that I am called to get back to, I get to work with a team and so I am not the only gardner or shepherd tending the field. However, God has called me there and I am ready to get back and tend to his garden of souls. Plus, the other gardeners have more work than they can handle and so I need to get back and pull my load.

Not long after this conversation with my uncle, I was reading Spurgeon's Morning and Evenings with my family and we came across a very similar message. I remember coming away from that devotion thinking and sharing with my family that our soul is like a garden. If we water it and weed it and tend to it with the means of grace (which are meeting with God through the Bible, prayer and the sacraments which includes church fellowship), then our soul will produce the fruit of the spirit. But if we don't tend to it and neglect the tools God has given us to tend our gardens then it will produce weeds. Our heart will grow bitter and sour and weeds will overrun it. Our actions will begin to demonstrate the condition of our souls. The tools God has given us are effective to produce fruit in our lives, but he has given us the responsibility to use them. If we don't use them, then we don't get to experience the fruit.

It is very interesting that Paul uses this picture in Galatians when he says, "... the fruit of the Spirit is, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law." Just before telling us the fruit of the Spirit he compares the difference of walking by the Spirit with gratifying the desires of the flesh. He doesn't call the result of the flesh fruit, he calls it works of the flesh, "sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these." So these things are works that we do but the fruit of the Spirit are results of what the Spirit does in us. If we are left to ourselves and listen to our natural desires, these works will consume us.
     This is the natural result of living for ourselves. No wonder, our country is facing so much violence and turmoil. If our culture continues to tell everyone that we are our own gods and that we should live for ourselves, then the wicked actions that we see more and more will be the natural result of living according to our own desires.
     But, If we walk by the Spirit He will change us and produce his fruit in us. We can not make our selves more patient but we can confess and repent of our impatience and walk with the Spirit and He will make us more patient. The same for love, joy, peace and all the others in the list.
     How do we walk with the Spirit? This is one of the beauties of this illustration of a garden. No one has ever pulled on a tomato plant to make it grow, at least successfully. The means of growing tomatoes is preparing the soil, planting, watering, pruning and weeding.  The means of walking with the Spirit are listening to Him by reading the Bible and hearing it read and preached. We walk with the Spirit by praying to Him in responding to the Bible and with the Bible. We walk with the Spirit by partaking of His presence in the sacraments and meeting with him in His dwelling place, His body, the congregation of saints.
     The fruit will most likely not grow overnight, just as with a garden. But as we tend our soul, the fruit will begin to grow and there will be a change in our hearts and we will begin to experience the true joy of walking in the Spirit. We can't make our selves grow by trying harder moralistically but we can seek God's face through His tools and faith and repentance and He will make us grow through walking with Him.
     This is what will change our world. If we apply these tools to our lives and share them with our neighbor, I am convinced that we will see a drastic change in our world. God has promised and is establishing his kingdom on this earth. Do you want to be a part of that mission? His mission is to reunite heaven and earth through producing the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. That is after all God's mission on Earth, whether it is in your home town or Peru or Japan or anywhere else on this earth. Where is your bible?

Funeral at Cristo Restaurador in Arevalo

Last Saturday a funeral for a dear lady in the Arevalo church was held and attended by the entire community. Please pray for her grieving family and for fruit to come from the seeds planted through Pastor Ricardo sharing the gospel and the hope of eternity in Christ. 

Thank you for Praying

WOW! Thank you all for praying! I should not be amazed. Our God is BIG. Our flights were changed to October 26! We really don't understand but received a notice of the change and called and it was confirmed.

Thank you to so many of you who have committed to supporting us financially and also to all of you who have committed to praying for us. Now please continue praying for us to be ready by then. The church is anxiously awaiting our return!  We look forward to plugging into the work demonstrated in the video below.

Church Planting with Peru Mission

Keep Praying!

Please pray with us. I just found out this morning that if we postpone our trip, it will mean having to buy new plane tickets. We have only a couple of weeks to raise another $3,000/month in order to save the amount of plane tickets. (yes it is down to only $3,000 now!) I recognize that this is an unreasonable goal but, why would we need faith if it was reasonable?  Romans 8:24,25

I don't want to ask anyone that doesn't have to give.
I am also not asking anyone to stop giving to their local church.
But for those of you who do have extra after giving to your church, please consider partnering with the ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ in Peru.  If only 60 people have an extra $50/month to partner with us, then we would be able to depart.

We thank all of you for praying and thank many of you for your generous support.  This is not just to help my family, this is to enable us to serve the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ in His church in Peru.

If the Lord is leading you to partner with us, you can find out more at www.perumission.org/mills

Calling all prayers!

"Incline your ear, O LORD, and answer me;

     for I am afflicted and needy." Psalm 86:1

We have tickets to return to Peru August 28 by faith.

However, if our long-term support is not high enough by August we will have to postpone our return to Peru until we reach our goal.

My needs are nowhere near those of David when he wrote the Psalm quoted above. I am not in the midst of a direct life threat for trying to receive what God has given me.  I am also not as afflicted and needy as many of my friends and family who are going through very difficult trials right now. But I do relate to this prayer as we are at a time of need. I trust that the Lord is the one to pray to and I am praying to him for our need. I will be honest, I don't like hate fund-raising. I do love traveling around and telling about what God is doing through His church. That is for the most part what I have been doing this year. I am conflicted about this. I have some dear brothers who tell me that many say they have heard many powerful testimonies of how God is using people in ministry but they didn't ask for money so they didn't give. Then I have heard others tell me that God has promised to give and so we are being unfaithful if we go and ask other people. We should just pray in our closet and trust the Lord to be the Lord. I definitely believe that the Lord is able and does often provide through private prayers. But I also recognize that He has chosen to use His people to pray and has chosen to answer the prayers of His church. He often uses people through communication to do His will. Therefore I appeal to you to pray with us.

Our long-term support is only at 51%. The Lord has blessed us tremendously in one-time support and we are already at 86% of 2013. Thank you for so much generous support and partnership with us in this work.

If you have given one-time support and are willing to commit to give that every year or if the Lord has laid it on your heart to support us, please let us know by sending in a note to CMS of your commitment by the end of July.  This will help us greatly in our planning.

If it proves to be the Lord's will to postpone our return to Peru, we will re-schedule our tickets for later in the year and keep raising support until we are ready. Even if we do have to change our tickets we will still save money on not having to buy new tickets. However we are still pleading with the Lord that we will be able to get back to Peru sooner than later.

Please pray with us that the Lord who provides will provide in His timing. Our team is pleading with us to come soon and has expressed their deep anticipation of our return. They tell me that I am greatly needed for a pivotal role in the ministry of the church in Arevalo but, we cannot return to Peru without increasing our long-term support. 

The work of discipleship with the carpenters with Parish will continue but on a wider scale of directly working in discipleship with the church community. The church, Christ the Restorer in the neighborhood of Arevalo, is at a pivotal point. The Peru Mission team is telling me that the gifts God has provided me with and demonstrated in the growth of the carpenters are crucially needed to help produce local leadership and growth in the church.

Our focus with Parish is narrowing more and more to disciple the men that we are working with and help them grow in the local market in Peru. We are still praying toward future growth in export to the U.S., but have decided to focus more on local growth in Peru until God shows us his timing. This means that we are focusing on the three areas of ministry; spiritual discipleship, technical training and administrative training. Parish has been helping one new business get started, Las Ponas, and we are seeking to help several other carpenters become more sustainable in their work. I am convinced that the best way to serve Christ's church is to seek to apply the means of grace to our whole life throughout the week. This not only means studying the Bible during the week but also means applying scriptural principles to our work to be able to support our church, our family and our community.  Please pray with us that the Lord will bless this ministry to cause growth in the lives of the men and their families both in their spiritual and vocational lives. 

in the joy of resting in Christ,

Stuart Mills

(for Megumi, Satomi, Samuel and Ezra.)

below are some pictures of a display created by Las Ponas to showcase their work. Many new customers have come in and purchased their products as a result!