October 2021

October 2021 Issue Header

October 2021 Issue Header

It’s springtime here, but Peruvians call it “Arequipa summer” because our true summertime (i.e. January) is the coldest it gets because...rain. This month we celebrated 7 years in Peru! There is so much to be thankful for. We love the house churches. We love our neighborhood and friends throughout the city with whom we get to share life and faith. We love partnering in sustainable community development with CUDA in schools and with microloans. We love guiding Harding students through a process of intercultural learning through the history and culture of Peru.

Paty and CUDA’s Microfinance Program

Paty and CUDA’s Microfinance Program

Getting to be in relationship with Paty as a Christian follower, leader, and servant has been one of the great joys of our 7 years in Arequipa. The last year and a half, in particular, has been a formative time of shared faith, discipleship, and formation for Jesus’s mission and partnership in the gospel. It’s as if God’s work in Paty’s life—which has included so many spiritual mentors, and in which Katie and I personally got to share for years of reading the Bible and breaking bread with Paty and Lola in their home—had all been leading up to the moment where God would call Paty to minister to a very marginalized part of Peru’s population, a group beautifully made in the image of God yet abused by society, including women involved in sex work, and men and women abandoned by their families early in life either because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Living Libraries - October 2021

Living Libraries - October 2021

As a reminder, we are Living Libraries, a branch of the Christian Urban Development Association’s work in Arequipa, Peru aiming to break cycles of urban poverty and make way for justice, wellbeing, and joy because of Jesus. We put a library in a public school where there were previously no children’s books, and train the teachers with reading comprehension strategies over the course of two years to get that school ready to function on its own with a reading program. We do this because we believe that when the kingdom of Jesus comes into a community, things get better.