Wednesday, June 29, 2011

weekly timetable

At last we have an organised weekly timetable. Please join us in praying for our various regular activities, for opportunities to share God's amazing love with those whom we meet.


Sunday church service

Monday Anjanette at La Fuente clinic
Scott pm bible study

Tuesday am ladies discipleship group , then team meeting
pm ladies bible study

Wednesday Anjanette at La Fuente clinic , Scott at Cusco pastors' meeting

Thursday pm mens' bible study

Friday am Anjanette at La Fuente clinic,
Scott teaching in Huambutio school
pm kids club

Saturday am monthly kids games event in local park
pm weekly youth cafe

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Near and Far (a poem by Jessica Ruby Williamson age 8)


Little children near and far,
Across the ocean wide,
though they do not look like us ,
they are the same inside.

Other children everywhere,
I would like to meet,
ones who live across the sea ,
others down the street.


By J.R.W

Friday, June 24, 2011

Dia de Cusco

mad dogs english men and peruvians go out in the midday sun!!


fabulous backdrop at Sacsayhuaman


The Inca warrior


Soldiers march around the plaza de armas


many houses are flying their Cusco flags this month


We are enjoying having a 4 day weekend, yesterday was Corpus Cristi when the statues of the Catholic saints are taken out of the churches and cathedrals and paraded around the plaza de armas. Today is Inti Raymi the day of Cusco, there are Cusco flags everywhere and a reenactment of the Inca Harvest festival takes place in Cusco town centre and then continues at Sacayhuaman. Since Jess and Sam proved what good walking legs they have when we were on our recent hike we decided that this year we would join the crowd and walk up to Sacsayhuaman, the backdrop with the Inca ruins and the mountains behind the actors and dancers was stunning. It was fun to be part of the crowd and to witness the celebrations, our friends in Cusco take their cultural heritage very seriously and love to celebrate it!

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Good news at El Puente Iglesia

We often say that our experience as church planters is like a roller coaster ride. It is therefore a real miracle and testament to God's faithfulness that our church in Cusco is soon to celebrate its 2nd anniversary (anniversaries are a BIG deal here in Peru.)

When we started the church 2 years ago we felt as if we were doing absolutely everything ourselves , setting up , cleaning, preaching, leading worship, running the kids group. Our language was limited, we had little cultural wisdom or experience, we had never even been part of a UK church plant before! The only thing we had in those early days was a lot of energy, enthusiasm and through the power of your prayers God's help .

In time God has built up a small group of believers , when we went back to the UK for a few months recently we gave different people in the church responsibilities and it has been a joy to see church members using their time and skills to serve God in different ways. We were really sad to lose one of our key families during the time that we were back in the UK and we do sometimes have our moments when church planting in a different language and culture is so hard and frustrating that the fleeting thoughts of returning to pastoral ministry in the UK seem very tempting, ( at least we can speak the language fluently there!)

Yet when the encouragements come they are absolutely tremendous. It is great to have the Roper family serving with us and helping us with our Childrens and Youthwork, yet their goal as most missionaries is really to do themselves out of a job, meaning that in the few years that they are here they need to train up Peruvians to take responsibility for leading and running these activities. Our boss told us that every activity/club/visit they do should be done with a Peruvian. Well that sounded great in theory but I don't think any of us believed that with the few folk available at our church that we would see this theory put to practice.

Here comes the really exciting part... in recent weeks some new people have started attending our church, one is keen to serve with the childrens' ministry, another is a gifted musician who is already helping with the music in the services and others are expressing a desire to become more involved so not only do we have missionary co-workers, God is sending us national co-workers who understand the language and the culture and who also have a passion to make Jesus known in our community. Gracias a Dios para su fidelidad!

Monday, June 13, 2011

What's happening in the Williamson household this week?


some photos of Jess and Sam with Olivia

Jess and Anjanette have unfortunately had tummy bugs and have been resting, watching disney movies, reading Enid Blyton books and drinking dioralite together , they are now feeling better thankfully.

Samuel is absolutely delighted that Olivia is here for a few days . Olivia is a friend from Carshalton Beeches where Scott used to be the youth pastor. She is volunteering in Bolivia and needed to leave Bolivia to renew her visa, the bus journey to Cusco would have been short and straight forward were in not for the fact that the Bolivian/Peru border is shut, so she wins the prize for the longest journey that anyone has ever taken to visit us, 2.5 days by bus. Today we organised her flight back to Bolivia which will be much quicker! Sam and Jess love spending time with her , she is great at playing games and reading with them and a joy to host.Jess and Sam particularly like watching one of their favourite Peruvian TV programmes with her, it is called Olivia the pig!

Scott attended the Cusco Culto de Gracias service when the Cusco evangelical churches pray for the Cusco dignitaries and the police. Scott loved being back preaching at El Puente after a few weeks off and was delighted that new folk attended this week too! Scott has also joined the Cusco tennis club and is enjoying doing some physical exercise .Tomorrow he will fly to Arequipa, firstly via Lima to see if he can track down our missing suitcase, then to collect James and Julia and take them to Arequipa. In Arequipa he will help James and Julia settle into language school and their new home ,he will also attend some meetings about Anjanette's paperwork, please keep praying, it seems we are making good progress......

Friday, June 10, 2011

Tears of joy


I have often had patients in my consulting room crying because they are sad or frustrated or depressed but today was the first time a patient cried tears of joy and thanks for the help we gave her. Today I met Justina, I have been seeing her great grandson in the clinic and so the family decided to bring their grandmother for some help too. Justina is 83 she is paralysed down her left side after a stroke 2 years ago, she also has very severe osteoarthritis for which she takes no medication. She walks very unsteadily with a crutch, today I thought a walking frame would be much better for her weak left side and also the arthritis. Amazingly when we checked our store room we had a few folding walking frames and were able to give her one as well as some painkillers, when she tried it out she wouldn't stop crying, then later on she wouldn't stop talking to all the other patients really enjoying the chance to be out of the house and to socialise, what a joy to work in La Fuente and to be able to explain to her that we are a christian clinic and that the frame is a gift from God to her!

Monday, June 6, 2011

New President

Left wing Ollanta Humala was elected the new Peruvian president yesterday by a very narrow margin , he made promises of democracy and tackling poverty during his campaign but there is great concern about his past political record . Please join us in praying that Peru will indeed be democratic and that he will rule fairly and wisely.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

BMS Latin America retreat


After almost 4 years of being with BMS World Mission it was wonderful for us to have the opportunity to finally meet those who live in Brazil. BMS has a long history of working in Brazil for 5o years , we enjoyed getting to know some of the missionaries who have served there for many many years. In contrast Peru is a new country to our organisation ( BMS has been there 5 years so far) and so it was interesting to exchange stories, ideas ,dreams and aspirations with folk who have much more experience than we do.

Jess and Sam loved playing with the other children and young people and it was a joy to finally see James and Julia Henley in Latin America. James and Julia are both baptist ministers and they flew out to join us at the retreat before flying to Peru.

It was great that the whole Peru team flew back to Lima together ; Gill, Harland and their daughters (who work in Iquitos) Margaret (Lima) the Ropers (Cusco), Williamsons (Cusco) and the Henleys (soon to go to Arequipa to learn spanish) .

How exciting to see the Peru team is growing, please do pray for God's blessing,protection,strength and guidance for the whole Latin America team.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Beautiful Brazil













Here are a few photos of some of the plants and flowers we saw in Brazil, it was really breathtaking! The theme of the childrens' work during the retreat was creation care. Everywhere we looked we were reminded of what an amazing creator God we serve!