SALI's Casa de Café Part 2

Well, our SALI staff did it again. We had a fantastic coffee house event Thursday night that featured talented musicians from our SALI staff, students, and university ministry. When my wife and I arrived (fashionably late), there were tons of people--well over 100.

Here is a video of some of our friends. This is the only video captured--too bad because we had some great talent.


Enjoy these pics of our students, staff, & friends.




















Special thanks to Joe Bateman for taking most of the photos (except, of course, the ones in which he appears with the ladies!).

SALI's Casa de Café

Peru Mission has created a service for the community in our language institute, called the San Agustin Language Institute, or SALI. It also serves as a big fishing pool by which we can create contacts and relationships with people in the community. SALI now averages about 225 students every month. Every once in a while, we have extra events. This Thursday we will have another Casa de Café which reminded me that I still needed to post photos of our last one (about a month or so ago).

We interacted with lots of our students from both SALI and our RUF who came out to experience a little bit of the ambiance of an American coffee shop. Some of our friends had a assembled a great little band and gave us an authentic taste of Peruvian culture and music. Enjoy the video.


At this event, we also said goodbye to many our SALI staff who have been with us over this past year. The students really loved these teachers, and we already miss them. It is not the same without them. They have left big shoes to fill!

Thanks Brian & Janelle!

A shot of all of us together on their last day here. We ate at Big Ben at the beach called Huanchaco.
Well, by now our good friends Brian & Janelle are back in the good ol' US of A. Here is a shout out to them expressing our deep joy for their willingness to spend the last 5 weeks with us in Peru. They were students in our RUF chapter at Texas A&M, and are now some of our best cheerleaders in the work down here in Peru. In addition to that, they were representatives of our home church in Bryan, TX, Westminster Presbyterian. Here is a shout out to our home church as well. Thanks for sending them to us and for the encouragement that you were through their ministry to and among us. Grace & peace!

Guest Blogger: John Calvin

“There is within the human mind, and indeed by natural instinct, an awareness of divinity....To prevent anyone from taking refuge in the pretense of ignorance, God himself has implanted in all men a certain understanding of his divine majesty. Every renewing its memory, he repeatedly sheds fresh drops...of a sense of deity inscribed in the hearts of all.” (1.3.1)

“...this conviction, namely, that there is some God, is naturally born in all, and is fixed within, as it were in the very marrow....[This] is not a doctrine that must first be learned in school, but one of which each of us is a master from his mother’s womb and which nature itself permits no one to forget, although many strive with every nerve to this end” (1.3.3).

"For how can the thought of God penetrate your mind without your realizing immediately that, since you are his handiwork, you have been made over and bound to his command by right of creation, that you owe your life to him?--that whatever you undertake, whatever you do, ought to be ascribed to him?" (1.2.2)

~The Institutes of the Christian Religion,

If you ever get the hankerin' to read through Calvin's Institutes (and every Christian should before s/he dies), you might find Tony Reinke's site helpful. He is blogging his way through the institutes, has some cool graphics and nice summaries of Calvin's thoughts.

Another Baby!!!

No, not us! (We know that is what you were thinking :)

Geraldo & Isabel have had their new baby, Lesley Melanie. She will be called simply "Melanie." Geraldo is one of our seminary students and I work directly with him in our university ministry here. He is a great guy with great gifts. He is a good teacher/preacher and really connects with the university students. I am excited to have him (and his adorable wife) with our team.


Here is a picture of Elisabeth (one of our student leaders) with Isabel & Geraldo a few weeks from the date that Isabel "dio la luz a su bebé" [literally, "gave light to her baby." This is the way we say it in Spanish].


This is a picture of Heather holding teeny-tiny Melanie, together with Isabel.


And this is a picture of Heather with Melanie's big--and I might say, "mighty proud"--sister, Melina.

CBU & Relationships

As I mentioned in an ealier request for prayer, I had the opportunity to meet with some students of Comunidad Bíblica Universitaria (CBU) at Cesar Vallejo University (a school of some 5-6K students). CBU is a student-led Bible study and the only other evangelical witness to the university campus besides RUF. They have been meeting each week this semester to study the Bible. Usually, each student takes a turn researching what the Bible has to say about something, and then they meet together and talk about the results.

They wanted to learn more about what the Bible said about "being unequally yoked" and they graciously agreed to invite me to speak on this topic. I had joked about this being great way to win friends and influence people because this topic is essentially about whether or not it is permissible for Christians to marry non-Christians (and by default, to date them). For those interested (and can read Spanish), here are my notes/handouts:

At any rate, they all listened intently, probably no doubt straining to understand this gringo's Spanish, but they all seemed very interested about what the Bible has to say about this, and they asked very good questions at the end. Like in the States, fears pervade about being single, the lack of candidates, and whether God is good and can be trusted.

Please pray for these students, for the Gospel to flourish here in the campuses of Trujillo, and the fruit of the Gospel to produce godly young men and women.

The 4th of July...Peruvian Style

Well, our day started off when my friend, Brian, and I went to UNT for our Holiness of God study only to find that the faculty had barred the gates of the university closed with banners and a planned protest march. (I'm told that the best university profs get paid $500 per month--I think I'd protest too.)


Pretty exciting. The national police were out and everything. Then one of the protesters started speaking over the loud speakers about how all the North Americans are cheating Peru because their businesses are not paying taxes or their fair share of taxes, and if they would, then the government could pay the professors more. My eyes started darting back and forth as I realized I was the only obvious North American around (Bryan doesn't count since he could pass himself off for any number of nationalities!). We then headed over to SALI for our study, and Pablo invited a friend of his off the street who wasn't a Christian. Interesting discussion. We also had a new young lady join us so that made 8 or 9 students in our study!

Janelle accompanied Heather to the local orphanage, Hogar de Esperanza, for their weekly Bible study on the Fruit of the Spirit.


In the afternoon, Justin finished his first Spanish cycle/ book with our teacher, Noemi. He's been working on this for about eight months and scored a perfect 100 on his final exam (thus shaming his parents!!!).


In the evening, we had some of the other missionary families over for some homemade chili and fun. Here's some of the kids playing around.


Janelle also gave her presentation for her Master's thesis in Architecture on Peru Mission.

Afterwards folks enjoyed some trivial pursuit, a movie (Eight Below), cookies, laughter and and lots of fun jumping on the trampoline [Did you know the spanish word for trampoline literaly means "elastic bed"?].

Oh yeah...we did have some fireworks.


Well, sort of. They were on the TV from one of those CDs that plays various types of scenes on a loop. But hey, they were fireworks, kinda-sorta, nevertheless.


And that's our July 4th celebration...peruvian-gringo style.

Prayer Requests

We could use your prayers for the following:

* Every Wednesday, Heather leads a study on the Fruit of the Spirit with the house mothers at a local orphanage called Hogar de Esperanza. This is a constant source of encouragement for these ladies.

* Every Wednesday I have our RUF study on La Santidad de Dios [The Holiness of God]. We have a great group of 7-8 young people. Please pray for their growth in the knowledge and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

* I have an opportunity to speak Thursday afternoon to the young people at CBU, a student-led evangelical Bible study. The topic I have been asked to address is "Relationships & Being Unequally Yoked." What a great topic to win friends and influence people!

* This weekend, I'll be teaching on the 9th Commandment at our local church during Sunday School. I regularly butcher the mother tongue of these folks!

* I'm having a lot more one-to-one meetings with students. The other day, I had an hour & 45 minute conversation with one student about wine, Jesus, & the Gospel. Depending with whom I am speaking, I can understand about 60-75% of what is being said.

And did I mention that this is in SPANISH?!!

Happy 4th of July. I think we are going to celebrate this evening with some friends and some home-cooked chili!

The Recent Busy-ness of Summer

Summer with Peru Mission is often filled with visiting teams. The Bradfords just returned from our work in Cajamarca with three short-term mission teams. You can read about their activities with First Pres Jackson, MS, Trinity Pres Statesboro, GA, & Woodruffroad Pres Greenville SC, , here, here, and here.

Here in Trujillo, we have recently been busy with teams from Trinity Presbyterian in Jackson, MS, and Old Peach Tree Presbyterian from Duluth, GA.

Also, some new friends, Chris and Bonnie from Redeemer Pres in Athens, GA, came along with Old Peach Tree. Chris and Bonnie skipped out on a tour to Chan Chan to accompany me to our RUF small group study on the Holiness of God at the National University of Trujillo.

Here is a pic of Chris and me with some of our students, Juan, Santiago, & Edward.