Report from the Jungle

What a journey!! On the Friday morning we got onto a bus headed for Puerto Maldanado. We were promised a journey of 18 hours...which was a bit of an "under-exaggeration!!" Due to strikes, 2 breakdowns and alternative routes we arrived in Puerto Maldanado 28 hours later! It wasn´t quite up to the Ulsterbus Goldliner standard...but it was all worth it!

We made the most of the local cuisine, eating fruits that we had never seen before. We were also given monkey to try, which tastes nothing like chicken but is still very nice all the same! On the whole the food was awesome and the fruits were full of flavour.

We went to Puerto Maldanado with 3 other members of the church who had worked there for a period of 3 months. The purpose in being there was to have a baptismal service and to encourage the new believers in the area. There is no local pastor or missionary so the believers need a lot of prayer and encouragement. Fortunately there is a missions team who will be working there to establish a church and to discilple the young believers.

During the week we were also able to have an event for the children in the area. We had games, choruses, Bible lesson and quiz which the children really enjoyed. About 30 children came altogether which was brilliant. We also held a football tournament for the guys from the town in order to build up contacts with them. It was a good opportunity to get to know them better.
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A lot of the week was spent building up relationships and sharing with others from the town. A number of people have drug related problems and it was encouraging to find that two boys from the town came back to Arequipa with us because they wanted to enter the rehabilitation programme run by the church there.
Please continue to pray for the Christians there that they would grow and mature. Please pray that God would look after them and protect them and that the Missions Team who are to begin in January would be used by God to build up a church there in Puerto Maldanado.