After over 6 years of investment in Arequipa, Peru, I can attest to this truth. I see beauty all around us. The family of faith, young though it may be, is beautiful. Their love is real, their desire to know and follow Jesus better is true, and we are better for having their unique qualities and experiences in our midst. Things have not occurred easily over the years, which is precisely why each success is so valuable, and even the struggles provide a chance for deep learning.
On the 14th of January, we officially celebrated our first year in Arequipa. What a journey we have been on and it’s only the beginning! While we do have mixed emotions about this past year—saying all those good byes along with the challenges before us for this next year—we are confident in God’s provision.
Another one of the changes and a part of our transition into life lived here in Arequipa is forming new traditions. This is somewhat difficult to do especially when it’s the holiday season and you are missing family and special time spent with them each year around this time. Sarah, my wife grew up in Italy and I grew up in the United States and now we live in Peru. There are a lot of traditions, especially holiday traditions, to mix into the pot. We genuinely want to learn and make Peruvian traditions important and meaningful to us, but also not forgetting some of our own important ones from Italy and the US.
As I scroll through my twitter feed I am keenly aware that the spiritual discipline of prayer is trending. With Tim Keller’s new book on prayer and the requests for prayers that include the Ebola outbreak, the Ferguson trial, or efforts to build wells in Africa, I am once again reminded that Christians are called to be people of prayer. I am grateful for the people of prayer that I have witnessed and ministered alongside of. They have taught me what it means to pray while challenging my own fledgling prayer life. Which begs the question, why is prayer so difficult?
On October 7th, we arrived in Arequipa. Over the last several months Jake and I have been asked if we’re ready numerous times. At times I’ve struggled to answer this. Though we have thoroughly prepared through prayer, reading, team meetings and missions conferences I struggled with doubts and feelings of inadequacy. If I read all of the theology, missions, and culture books that people have recommended I might be ready by the time I’m 83.
One Sunday each month, all of the family gathers to worship together. I can remember, six years ago, rotating between our house and the Smith house each Sunday, and it was just our two families. We prayed to experience family with Peruvians. Slowly but surely, Peruvian brothers and sisters came into the story. People come from all walks of life interested in the story of Jesus. They have different social and religious backgrounds, but all who come to the table are thirsty and hungry for the word. Sometimes it is hard to put a group of misfits together and call it “family.” But that is certainly what God calls us to do as his church.
A missionary’s dream is for the disciples to feel like family to each other and be united in Christ. But this can take time. Peruvians are very slow to trust others, so if you put a group of them together that have nothing outside of knowing the missionaries in common, it can feel a bit awkward. And believe me, in our small, informal, house-church setting, we have all experienced the awkwardness. One way you can tell that people don’t trust one another is that they don’t share with one another. Prayer time can be super awkward if no one wants to share about their lives.
This Sunday morning was beautiful. Our house churches all met together for our monthly celebration meeting, and it was a beautiful testimony to see what God is doing through our Arequipa family. The kids had been sent out of the main meeting to work on some coloring sheets to be used later in the lesson. The adults had some quiet, uninterrupted time to talk about church life and share about our journeys. We rejoiced and we cried, and it felt like family. I wanted to share a few of those moments with you.
One of our members was absolutely distraught a couple of months ago. Her family had a financial crisis (having to do with one of the many of the injustices that play out here). She had no one to turn to, but she came and shared the burden with her church family. The church decided to fund an adobada. (An “adobada” is a popular type of fundraiser here in Arequipa, where a group of people get together to sell tickets for selling bowls of Adobo—a famous Arequipa dish served on Sunday mornings. Once tickets are bought, the group buys all the ingredients, and makes the dish on a chosen day for pick-up.) This morning, she was one of the first ones to share. She wanted everyone to know that her family had finally repaid their debt. Our church was so involved in the process of helping her, we were overjoyed. We applauded. We thanked God for helping her family, but we knew that we had played a role as her spiritual family.
Another member decided to express her thankfulness to everyone that her grandson would be starting at the university. You all know how much work I put into the Living Libraries project here. If you follow why we have that program, you know that good education is a luxury for so many in this nation, much less higher education. This member came from parents that didn’t receive a university education; she never attended the university; her children didn’t have the opportunity to attend the university. It is a huge deal for this young man to be the first to study something other than how to drive a taxi. As a church, we rejoiced with her. This grandmother is the first to become a Christian, and we are praying for her to affect the generations in more ways than just education (because I know she has actively supported her grandson to attain that goal). We continue to pray for her family members to know Christ, and she recognizes that we will support her in any way that we can as family.
Then someone shared out of the blue— my husband. Greg expressed our desire for prayers during the upcoming months for our transition out of Peru. I have been keeping the emotions in for quite a while around my Peruvian family. I mean, if I avoid talking about it, I won’t feel anything, right? I won’t turn into a blubbering mess. But his words were something that we needed to share with our family here, and in that moment, my heart broke. I have a feeling it will break a couple hundred more times in these final months for us. I was sitting next to a dear sister, Manuela, and all I could do was lay my head on her shoulder and cry. She is family to me.
Family in Christ is real with each other. Family rejoices and weeps together. Family holds each other up. Family loves and trusts. This group of misfits— it feels like family now. And when we get on that plane to come “home” in a few months, I am going to bawl my eyes out. Because leaving family is hard.
““Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
If you have been receiving our newsletter these past months you know that Team Arequipa is in the middle of transition. By the end of the year four new families will have arrived in Arequipa to join the work. By next summer two families will have left to return to the US and a short time later a third family will return to Australia. So, you see, change is in the air all around us.
We all know that change isn’t easy. We have a mix of families at the beginning, the middle, and the end of their time in Arequipa. People are going through the rigors of language and culture acquisition while others are selling off furniture and preparing for a move back to a (foreign) homeland. It is an interesting time for me, getting to watch new missionaries go through some of the same things that we did six years ago, helping them out where I can and letting them struggle through language deficiencies and cultural aggravations. At the same time I’m getting ready to watch the McKinzies leave the field in early January. We’ve been on a journey together for at least 10 years now, and we are about to part ways. Through it all I see God’s faithfulness to us, to all of us as a team, through long years of preparation and service.
I had a conversation the other day with a friend here, one of those hard-but-good conversations. As we talked over coffee about the work we’ve done together the last few years we lamented the mistakes (and man, have there been a lot of those), we celebrated the (often small) victories and we talked about the future. I listened while feelings were shared, sadness at the McKinzies’ upcoming departure and of ours to come not long after, sadness at the thought of missing us and our families, concern for the future of the church and NGO, and other things. I listened as stories were told of past missionaries coming and going and how the distance changes things. How promises of continued connection mean very little if not fulfilled through purposeful action. I left that conversation uplifted by a great friendship, saddened at the long road to good-bye still ahead of me, and in the end grateful for all God has done these six years in Arequipa.
One of the questions that can easily stop us in our tracks as evangelists is: “If God is good, why does everything around me seem wrong?” We don’t know how to answer, so we flee from the conversation or mumble something that sounds churchy, but in all honesty, that question is intimidating because we don’t exactly know how to answer it, right?
How about this?
Imagine that the world is a valley, and granted, it’s a mess. Everyone is scrambling to define their place and achieve something, all too often at the expense of others. Sprinkled throughout are the Christians, supposedly understanding the way they are to act, leaving behind the urge to prove something and instead, building life rafts. Everyone else laughs at them, not unlike those who laughed at Noah, not seeing the need for their work, not seeing the value of their preparation.
What they haven’t seen, but the Christians have, is the dam at the top of the cliff. It is big and strong, and Christians know that means it holds back a great deal of powerful water. One shift and the valley will be forever changed. Not erased, but filled with a new way of existence. The earth-bound constructions and defined boundaries will cease to rule. The water will take every nook and cranny for itself, as is its nature. It will clean away the dirt and debris in its rush by, leaving only fresh water glittering in clear light.
Christians know the better focus is to prepare for the coming flood and inform as many people as possible. They do so by showing them the power of water in small ways, trying to raise awareness of its importance and power so that others realize the need to be ready and the value of being part of this new way.
Why is the valley still messed up? Because the water waits, letting those in the valley have a chance to choose its way.
In the same way, God is good, God is love, and he is showing us this every day by not flooding in and filling the whole world with himself…not yet. The results would be great for those who are ready, and disastrous for everyone else, so he waits because he loves them too. As long as people have freedom of choice in how they live, their choices will inevitably have consequences. Often those consequences affect those around them, so that the circumstances experienced in the world are not God’s doing, because he holds himself back and lets us choose. The very fact that we see the brokenness and pain of the world is why we see clearly the need for his love and power, and since we can recognize his love in the waiting, we allow him to first flood us, producing in us the changes that happen when his power comes. Not force, not demands, not rules, but real transformation. This is the message of the good news - the power of love to change the world by its presence. This is what we carry to a world still in need of it, the example of what can be.
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.”
We recently had our annual retreat with missionaries from Lima and Cuzco. It is astounding to think that, for some of us, this was our final gathering as missionaries in Peru. We call it the Peruvian Missions Summit (the acronym for which will tell you something about our sense of humor). Five years ago, two green teams got together with a packed schedule of activities facilitated by visiting experts. We played a bit, but it wasn’t about relaxing. We were eager and fresh. We had not yet come through culture shock. We hadn’t formed any enduring relationships with Peruvians. We had no good stories.
Four years later, disciples are baptized, churches are meeting, teams are reconfigured, unimagined ministries are underway, imagined ministries are dead and gone, and we have a story or two to tell. We also have a boatload of kids and no hope of concentrating on anything scheduled at a retreat. So we took the time just to be together, to snatch conversations when we could and swap war stories. Or fishing stories. Sometimes it’s hard to tell. We sang a bit and ate a lot. And when the kids were in bed we stayed up late to tell jokes and commiserate about expat life in Peru.
In those scattered moments, something happened for the first time since we started meeting each year—something that could only happen with time, highlighted by the nearing departure of fellow workers. We discovered a bond that had slowly formed, and just sharing that bond was as encouraging as anything could be. It is the bond of having lived in solidarity with Peruvians as God’s mission unfolded among them. Not of having achieved something or been something, but of having struggled alongside Peruvians. It reminds me of trekking up the Rockies with the church youth group. That shared hike, even for just a few days, created a strange, intense mutual understanding. Much more so these shared years in cross-cultural Peruvian ministry.
On the final night of the retreat, the conversation took a serious turn. We reflected on the poverty, corruption, and evil that plague the country and the seemingly minuscule difference our combined efforts are making. I could see we were indeed standing on a summit, surveying the peaks and valleys surrounding us. Then someone asked: so what do we do? Of course, we haven’t found the answer in a few years’ time; if anything, we have learned that we don’t have the answer. It is humbling to see so many mountains yet to climb. Yet, it is a question asked in hope, because it looks toward the continued unfolding of God’s purpose in Peru. Amidst our faltering attempts to say something about the way forward, there was a clear resolution: that the struggle will go on, that Peruvians and foreigners alike will keep walking together through the next valley, up to the next peak. I’m thankful for those who have come before. I bless those who stay and those who will come. I pray that the Spirit and the church will keep sending them to journey in solidarity with Peruvian kingdom-seekers.
Being in a new place and being away from home and what you are use to can be hard. We have been sick most of the time we have been here, have had troubles with the language and had times of not understanding the culture. I have had a couple of memorably bad days already where I have just ended up in tears and frustration. I have realised through these times that it is good to take time to celebrate and praise the Lord for the things that bring joy and happiness no matter how small or big. So there are a couple of things I want to share with you and hope you can celebrate with me.
We have now been in Arequipa for 6 months! It seems like such an achievement as this is the longest I have been away from home. I could not have dreamed of all the things we have done, seen and been a part of already in these 6 months. Our new church family have welcomed us with open hearts and it has been such a privilege to walk with them in faith.
We have finished our Spanish lessons and can hold a relatively good conversation, which in turn is helping us to make some new friends.
I am also surrounded by teammates who don't know me so well but have opened their homes and hearts to us. It fills me with so much joy to be able to share this experience with them.
And lastly God’s amazing grace…what a beautiful gift. He has given me strength. He has soften my heart when it has been so hard. He has provided so generously in ways I didn’t even know I needed.
So I praise God for these things and ask that you will with me as well.
