SAM in Lima Grows

A few years ago there were no SAM missionaries living in the capital city of Peru. Lima is home to 1/3 of the population of Peru and yet there were no active SAM ministries here. In the past 2 years 5 SAM families have moved here and now call it home. Last weekend we hosted all the families over to our place as our executive director Kirk Ogden and our field director Dave Simmons was in town. We had a great visit and what a joy it is to see how the Lima field is growing!

We took a group shot too, but before 2 national team members arrived (Alex and Elke Chiang). You can see them above  at the table on the left.

Iglesia de la Ciudad (City Church)

One aspect of the Lima Initiative is church planting, and the church plant we are currently involved in is called Iglesia de la Cuidad. Right now we are meeting in a home every Sunday evening, and we hope early in 2017 to begin a second home church, still a part of the same church movement, but a different cell group.

There's an average of 30-40 people each Sunday night as we worship together, hear from the word, and share a meal.

Here are a few pictures from our Sundays together.

This was a worship service at the end of August when we met in a hotel conference room.

This is the home we typically meet in on Sunday nights.

The TOM (Taller de Orientacion del Ministerio......Ministry Evaluation Workshop)

Last week we packed some bags to leave for a conference/retreat/workshop thing that we didn't know much about going into it. Leading up to these days away from home, we toiled over what to do with the kids. In the end we decided to leave them here with a sweet friend of ours, Maria, who also works at the SAM Guest House on the other side of Lima. The kids love her, she loves them, and though it was hard to be away from them, now in retrospect and seeing what those days were like, it was the best choice. 

This was a workshop/evaluation put on by City-to-City out of Tim Keller's church Redeemer Presbyterian in NYC. There have been several of these in Mexico, but this was the first one in Latin America outside of Mexico. There were 10 couples in all being evaluated, 7 from the Lima area, 2 from Pucallpa, and 1 from Ayacucho. The group of evaluators consisted of several MTW missionaries, and other Latino pastors and missionaries associated with City-to-City. 

We all arrived without a clue as to what those days would bring. There had been an extensive application including 2 psychological tests (in Spanish) and there was an anxious curiosity amongst all of us of whether we would be told we were apt or not for church planting ministry. 

Those days were comprised of less of lectures and mostly of group activities and interviews while being observed by the evaluators. 

We enjoyed getting to know the people who attended as well as some of the other SAM missionaries that were attending. In the end the observations shared with us we were already aware of (strengths and weaknesses) but we were encouraged by the affirmation that we were given. 

Here are some pictures from the week:

Group shot of evaluators and attendees

Farewell (A M A Z I N G) lunch

SAM Missionaries with SAM executive director Kirk Ogden and City-to-City representatives Andres and Ruth from Mexico.

PS.....the kids did very well without us...this mama probably missed them more than they missed me! :-)

Lima Initiative

Many of you have heard about the Lima Initiative from our travels stateside and in our prayer letters. It is an urban city movement for planting churches, discipling its believers, but not only that, a larger vision for the city including being socially and culturally relevant and how to have a greater impact in society and in the city.

Here is a website that shares more information:Lima Initiative

And here's a video put together by the ministry Silent Images, that gives some insight and vision to it: Lima Initiative Video

Car Shopping

Looking for a car in Peru can be a lot more tricky than looking for a place to live. There aren't any carfax reports for you to know the history of the vehicle. We know many people who have gotten "lemons" with purchasing used cars here.

Because looking for a home was so stressful and hard, we knew that looking for a car could potentially be worse. One day on their way back to the SAM guest house in Lima after looking for a house, Becca prayed that the search for a vehicle would be the opposite as it was looking for a place to live.

God answered that prayer! The very first vehicle we looked at had everything we wanted! The size, the price, the color, the milage (or here kilometrige.....36,000km/22370 miles!!!) and get this-----only one prior owner who is a single lady (took good care of the car), a lawyer, who had all the papers in order, and had only taken the vehicle into the Hyundai shop for maintenance.

 Marshall saw it and liked it right before we went to Pucallpa to pack up our belongings, but we were going to be gone for several days, so he didn't expect it to still be around. She called him when we got back to see if he was still interested, and he said "YES!" So she took the ad off the internet, and he went to see it again, but this time along with a Christian mechanic, who went for the test drive, looked under the hood, and gave Marshall the green light. Becca went the next day, and also liked it.

We both can get overwhelmed with paperwork sometime, especially here in Peru. SAM's Peruvian lawyer had to come to Lima for a few business items, and was able to help us with all the paperwork needed for the ownership exchange. It was quite a blessing that it was an easy experience!

And here it is! Our 2012 Hyundai Tucson!

Lima House Hunting

I do believe house hunting is a challenge no matter where you are, but trying to find the right place here in Lima was more daunting than we had expected. Our team and other members of South America Mission are all in one specific area of the La Molina section of Lima, and that is where the majority of our ministry will be based out of, so we wanted to be somewhere reasonably close. We initially thought we'd be able to afford a house rather than an apartment, but after looking at a house we were really interested, we sat down to write out an estimate budget, only to realize we might not be able to get into a house after all.

So then we began looking at apartments. We're so grateful for our teammates who were able to watch our kids while we were in this process, because the times we had to take them with us, it was quite a bit more of a challenge!

To spare you the more detailed story of the week and a half headache it was to pick out a place, but the Lord provided something that we need for now. We were looking primarily for something that would be in a safer location, accessible to those we want to host (so many places had no where for parking or tricky to get to), and the Lord through mutual friends, gave us an apartment in a safe neighborhood, in front of a beautiful park, with great natural lighting, and so much more.....and the owner is a believer!

So here it is, there are 4 apartments in all in this building, and ours is on the right, and is 3 floors: The basement you can't see, the first floor (behind the glass panes on top of the outer wall) is where the living/dining room, kitchen, and patio are; and the second floor is where all of our bedrooms are.

I hope to add more pictures from the inside of our house soon, but we're still setting up the place! :-)  Stay tuned!!!

Our Apartment Building

The park in front of our house.

Forgive Our Blog Silence

To those who read this, we'd like to apologize for our *years* of silence on here. I (Becca) am the primary blogger, and confess that the combo of mothering little ones, housework, and ministry got the best of me, and communicating further details about our lives to you fell by the wayside. I hope to do better!


We're now in a new season of ministry in Lima, and hopefully will have a renewed interest in communicating better with you all!

Thanks for understanding! :-)