Greetings friends! We hope this message finds you well. Thank you for your patience with us over the past few months of having limited communication with you all. I have sat down many times to write this update and then gotten interrupted by one thing or another. Please accept my sincerest apologies. Ok, now that you have forgiven me, let me share with you a quick thought on what God has been teaching us lately.
Pruning…..maybe right about now you guys are starting to prune back your vegetation in preparation for winter. What I find interesting here in Peru is that they prune their trees here in spring. And they prune all the way down to nothing where it seems impossible that the tree would grow back its leaves (see pictures for reference). But it does. And it grows in a better form as you can see in the last picture in the series.
We just finished a devotional on pruning with our leaders. The study states that without active pruning, we will expend ourselves in every direction. In that state, we may produce a lot of grapes, but they will be small and bitter. Wow…. How does that hit for you? For us, it was a reminder that it is not always good to fill up each day to the fullest if its not directing the energy in the most important things. If we do, ultimately we end up with less than optimal fruit. Pruning requires us to stop and take note of the most important things, and even find places where we can cut back. Sometimes we are the ones who chose to prune and other times it is God who may (thankfully) cut them from our grasp. Like the tree, pruning can appear drastic. It might look like simple things like cutting back on screen time, or even reducing coffee or sweet treats, but it can also look like moving, a loss of a job, a change in your physical abilities, loss of a family member, or losing a friend.
In the beginning of this year, God led us into a season of pruning and redefining who our core team is. It has been a challenge because it doesn’t look like what it did at the beginning of our journey, or what we hoped it would be at this point. But we saw how we were growing, and didn’t like the shape it was taking because some parts have become overgrown and out of control per say. Honestly, It is encouraging to learn about pruning; why it is necessary, and its benefits. It has encouraged us because while the part of pruning was difficult , we are now able to begin to see that the changes are producing desirable fruit. We thank God for his infinite wisdom in helping us in this way.
So, what things are happening in your life that you need to prune, or God has pruned for you? We pray that despite how harsh pruning may look for a time, that whatever has been pruned in your life, God will grow the sweetest fruit in the future.
Service update:
We are 3/4 of the way done with this year already! We really can not belive how fast this year has flown by. Here are a few updates.
We have hosted another parent/caregiver support meeting for adoptive/foster families as well as one for parents with kids with special needs. These events are so rich in content but also in quality time and support for families to be able to connect with others living the same journey. We are so thankful for the team who continues to make each of these events possible.
We participated in the churches biggest evangelistic event of the year where we invite families to celebrate KIDS DAY. The church convirts into children’s church for all the services and is ended with free time on inflatables for the kids. The message is simple but profound about how God loves each one of us. Since the event is free, many people invite friends! We were able to serve our families ( and new ones) with special needs by helping them feel received well and help them navigate the event with the help each one needed.
Our small sign language team has been bust this month as well. A mission team came from the US and one of our interpreters was able to travel with her to help her trhoughout her work here. The deaf comunity is a very underseved comunity which allows for a rich mission field for the missionary and her interpreter. They were able to have many interactions with the deaf comunicty to share about God’s love for them and invite them to church. We also now have 2 kids who are deaf and attend our children’s ministry with the help of a sign language interpreter. The families are grateful for the chance to allow their children to participate in sunday school without them having to be the interpreter. The team also had the opportunity to translate ON SCREEN for the very first time during the KIDS DAY event in August. In the past the translation was only right in front of the person who was deaf, but now we are moving towards a more accessible aproach to having the interpretation be done live on the big screen! The team is now preparing for our Disability awareness Sunday where they will be interpreting the sermon in this form!!
We host our monthly leaders’ meetings where we read the devotional and share about our wins and struggles.
We have been busy helping to faciliate mission teams all throughout the summer (and still coming) to help them give the gift of mobility via Free Wheelchair mission wheelchairs.
Clever just got back from Atlanta where he presented on disability and the church at the CAFO (chrisitan alliance for orphans) Conference.
Lisa just began an 8 week class online about disability and church. We are excited about learning how we can continue to make the bride of Christ (the church) more beautiful by adding more people with disabilities in the church body.
We are preparing for our 3rd annual disability awareness Sunday that will be on Oct 11th. We are exciting that this year’s theme is about how God made all of us with gifts and talents to be able to serve others. We will highlight a few teens with disabilities who have begun serving at church since the beginning of this year.
We are also prepraring to receive a very speical mission team that will be coming next week. This team is always dear to my heart because it is Free Wheelchair Mission. Many of you know, I (Lisa) came down to Peru for my very first time on a mission trip with FWM. Obliviously, it was life changing for me! Clever and I get to host this team every year and we are expectant of this years group and how God will move in this group.
We are also preparing for the END OF THE YEAR celebrations! I know can you believe it? But before you know it, we will be ringing in the new year!
Personal update-Praises and Prayers!!!
*Kaleb is just 2 months shy of finishing up his 4th grade academic year!
*Clever just got back from a 4 day retreat in the Appalachian mountains! It was his first personal retreat that he has taken. We are so thankful to our agency, TAP, for having an incredible member care team who led the retreat for Clever. We praise God that he was given this time of rest, refreshment, comunion and revelation with God.
*Lisa just returned from a trip to Southern CA where she participated in a special event and training hosted by Free Wheelchair mission. She was able to connect with dear friends while she was there, including the couples who came with her on her very first trip to Peru 16 years ago.
*We are coming back to Ohio for a few weeks starting on Thanksgiving Day and returning to Peru on Dec 14th. We have plans to visit both NE Ohio and Central Ohio! Please reach out to us if you would like to meet with us personally! We would love to connect with you!
**We are in search of borrowing a car while we are in Ohio. If you might know of anyone who has a car that we could borrow for any part of our time in Ohio, please reach out to us. We would be so grateful. Thank you so much.**
Prayer request and need:
We have a very big and specific need. WE NEED A NEW CAR….
First of all, we want to express our sincere gratitude for all those who were so generous to help us purchase our first car 10 years ago. It has been such a blessing to us through the years. I get teary eyed looking at all these pictures because even though we have moved apartments, our car has been a constant over the years and we have spent A LOT of time in our car….Lima traffic is a beast!
This past year our car has required repairs that are getting to be more expensive than the value of the car. Being a daughter of a mechanic, I am not used to having to admit that a car’s life span can be such a short amount of time. However, without a mechanic nearby the costs of repairs, replacements and labor have begun to outweigh the benefit of keeping the car. I guess in a way, this is pruning too…
Our plan is to sell the car and take the amount we will get from that as a down payment for a new car. We have been pricing out small SUV’s that make more sense for the roads we have here in Lima (mountains, high speed bumps, dirt access roads outside of Lima) The average cost is about $25,000-$30,000 . With the sale of our car, (estimated to be $5000 we will need to raise an additional $25,000.
We will be defining the actual make/model in the next few weeks once we have a chance to test drive them and will be able to communicate more specifically. However until then we ask for you to prayerfully consider making a one time donation towards the purchase of a new car for our family. We use our car 70% of the time for ministry purposes, and 30% personal.
If you would like to make a special one time donation for this need please let us know so that we can put the funds aside specifically for the car. We would be so very grateful for your generosity and kindness.
We thank you for your support, your prayers, your interest in what we get to do here in Peru serving vulnerable people within and outside of the church. Thank you for making it possible for us to continue to be YOUR hands and feet here in Peru.
With gratitude,
Clever, Lisa & Kaleb