It’s hilarious, the joy you can feel as your 70 year-old friend (Manuela) connects to Zoom for the first time to worship and pray with you. As many of you have, our faith community has transitioned to sharing and worshiping together virtually and it’s been a big blessing.
There have been a couple of things we’ve been able to work into our lives outside of our daily routine. One of those has been these Sunday virtual gatherings. This past Sunday was extra special because we invited former Team Arequipa members to be a part of it. Those have been special moments and technology has not proven too big an obstacle even for some of the members for whom sending a text message is a reach :).
During Holy Week (the week leading up to Easter) Katie and I sent a short video with a scripture and reflection every day to our neighbors, friends, and members of the church. Holy Week here is a huge deal, a big part of the Catholic religious calendar, and we used it as an opportunity to guide our friend group spiritually during total lockdown. We also just started a Friday night Bible reading group at 8pm focusing on finding joy in difficult circumstances, reading Philippians with members of the church and friends who wanted to be a part of it.
Please pray for the church in Arequipa. These Peruvians’ faith is incredible. The situation has given us more opportunities for faith conversations and inviting people to be a part of a Bible study than we normally would. Our prayer is that those conversations would lead to new life and deeper faith.
