Reaching Out to Other Tribes
After much prayer and soul searching for these last several months the Lord has opened doors for me to reach out to other Indian tribes here in Peru. While the need to continue with the Shawi communities we have been working with is desperate the same is true for those tribes who have never heard the Gospel message yet. Therefore, I am asserting my efforts to reach the less-reached villages as well.
Since May I have been able to visit and work with three different Indian groups in bringing the Gospel message to them or help train them for evangelism. In May I joined with another American missionary to help him and his team do a 5-day oral training for the Condozi Indians, in August I went to minister the Word of God to the Cocamillrio Indians (not sure of the spelling), five hours north of where I live. Last week I met an Ashéninka village and in the New Year I will try and make contact with the Maijuna Indians. I also had the chance to meet another Shawi village, which I visited on several occasions with Peruvian teams to minister the Word of God.
Ashéninka Village of Santa Rosa, a two-day travel from my house to this village by plane and car. |
Health post of the village where the nurse lives and where I stayed while in the Ashéninka village of Santa Rosa. |
This December I will be traveling back to the Ashéninka village that I just visited for the first time last week to help the only Christian man in this community put a roof on a church he wants to build for them (I will do this financially not physically). I was encouraged to hear that both he and the village leader said that the community wants to hear about the Word of God and wants to have a church to be able to meet in. With that in mind I took the opportunity to ask the school director if I could share at the grade school about the life of Christ. I was granted permission and after the talk I ask how many would like to pray and ask Jesus to come into their lives and all of the children prayed with me. I realize that the Lord will have to solidify this commitment with clarity and understanding but I know that He has planted some very fruitful seeds in their hearts through this encounter.
Later that night we invited the community to see a movie called “The God Story” which goes from Creation to the White Throne judgment. While not everyone in the community came out there were about 35 who did and most of them stayed for the whole movie. When it was finished I shared what Jesus had done for them and how much He loved them then asked how many wanted to receive Him as their Lord and Savior. Gloriously everyone who was there did, which was about 20 people. It was clear to me that the Lord was truly moving on their hearts and so I said that I would come back in December to bring some Bibles for each family and also fund the roof for the church that Janeco, the only Christian there, wants to build.
I tell you all this so that you can see that together we are really breaking ground in other tribes and in so doing helping to close the gap of the unreached or less reached people groups in Peru. According to the Joshua Project, a data collecting organization on unreached people groups in the world, the Ashéninkas have a population of 58,000 and only 2% are reached with the Gospel. The other tribe I that mentioned, the Maijuna Indians, have not been reached at all yet. As we join together in prayer, physical resources and human resources we can effectively reach those who still have not heard the Gospel message. With that in mind would you stand with me in prayer for the following trips so that the power of the Gospel will be shown and people will be brought into the Kingdom?
Nov 2-6: Cocamillrio Indians to make 11 water filters for some of the families in their community and to present the Gospel. Their village is called “October 8” (probably named after the date they were officially a legal entity). Please pray that their hard hearts will be soften by the love of Christ and they will be moved to the point of surrender and acceptance of His incredible love and forgiveness.
Nov 10-14: Shawi Indians on the Shishinahua River to coordinate our next 5-day training and do some discipleship classes with the three villages that we have been working with, Santa Clara, Santa Rosa and Yarina.
Nov 18-22: 5-day training on how to disciple new believers. This would be a follow-up session on the last 5-day training we did on how to evangelize.
Dec 1-4: Ashéninka Indians to bring Bibles, fund a roof for the church, minister the Word of God and visit a new Ashéninka village with a Shapibo Indian pastor.
Dec 6-Jan 22: Travel to the States visit supporting churches in Florida, Colorado, Virginia and Pennsylvania as well as visit family for the holidays.
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