Preach it brother

Well, how a few days can change your life. Many of the people who came to the preaching conference were asking, "When is the next one?" Something must have turned out alright. When I think about Monday before the conference and the lack of enrollments, my mind wonders how I even coped. By the grace of God, and the prayers of many. Thank you!

We ended up have 58 people enrolled, and I was glad that a number of people decided to go home at night, as the place where we stayed only had space for 50 people to sleep. 

It was a real blessing to have Morgan and Anna up here from Language school in Arequipa to help out and get to meet people they will hopefully be ministering to in the near future. I think as a networking tool, the conference worked a treat and has opened many doors for future ministry. One of the doors it opened was for me (John) is to go to a small town this weekend to give evangelistic talks to a youth group. Another door that has been talked about is to start a preaching group within Loja. As we think and pray for direction for where we go from here, we are sure that more doors will open. 

I have included some pics from the conference, some regular shots, plus the extra one of Morgan and I trying to work out the best location for the group photo. 

Evie's first day at pre-school

What do you think of Evie's uniform? She started pre-school this week, for 2 mornings and seemed to enjoy it. I still haven't bought all the items on the very long list of resources needed for a 3 year old...

100 Kilometers of 4WD

As the preaching conference gets closer there is more need to round up people to come. One of the goals for the conference was to reach people who are in remote areas and invite them along to the conference in order to encourage them, and give them the necessary tools for preaching and teaching the bible.

So in order to do this we travelled 339kms in one day and visited 6 Pastors in 4 towns and spent roughly 9-10 hours driving. 

We started the day by driving to Zamora where we met a Pastor we had arranged (the only thing we did arrange). We told him and he was excited and said he knew some pastors in Yantzaza. So off we went for a 1 hour drive. Once there we met two pastors and gave them enough information about the conference to give to other pastors in the same town. 

From Zantzaza we went to Yacaumbi (28 Mayo on map), another 1 hours in the car where we had a deep fried fish lunch with rice and Yuka. It was at this town I met the husband of a family who had moved to this remote place in order to be Christians there. At the time we arrived his wife was in a new town where they had decided to move to in order to spread the good news. This meant another 1 hour in the car to Tutupali. I thought the road was bad up until now, however this next part was not for the faint hearted and was specifically built for 4WD's, the 50km trip each way was very demanding and had a high smile factor. On the way to this remote place we crossed a river, around 50m wide, saw a spectacular waterfall and at the end of the road we had to cross the foot bridge in order to get into town. Once there the lady we met was so excited about the conference and said she would be joining us for the three days. 

All in all,  it was a good day. There was fun to be had, but also it was an encouraging day for both us and for those we met.