Jungle report

(great photos courtesy of action teamer Lizzie Hughes)

Scott is back from his jungle adventure . It is amazing to think it was only a 40 minute flight away from Cusco since it felt like a world away from Cusco. Scott flew rather than taking the 8 hour road trip because there are presently lots of road blocks and protests on the main roads in Peru hence they decided not to risk getting stuck in the jungle when the action team had less than a week left of their Peru experience.

The purpose of the trip was twofold, to give the action team the exposure to a very different Peruvian church plant and also for Scott to spend some time with Rocio and Joel.

Joel and Rocio are Peruvian missionaries who have been sent by the Peruvian convention to nurture the new church plant . A few years ago when we received our team of radicales (Peruvian action team) in Cusco a different radicales team went to work with children and young people in Puerto Maldonado slowly that work has blossomed into a church and one year ago newly weds Joel and Rocio left the large developed Peruvian cities where they were from to answer God's call to work in the jungle.

The church is literally a wooden shack, they have very few resources and it is exhausting trying to work in the sweltering heat. They run childrens' and youth work and Sunday services and are slowly getting to know the families of the children that attend their meetings. The tropical rainstorms were impressive and since the church has a metal roof when it rained the youth meeting was cancelled since it would be impossible to hear anything over the sound of the rain!

Joel and Rocio are well loved in the area please pray that God would uphold and strengthen them . Like us they are missionaries in a new place far away from their families , pray that their hard work would bear fruit and that God would protect and help them. They are one of the closest baptist convention churches to us and we hope in the future to send some more people from El Puente to visit and encourage them.

It is also likely that some of the young people from the church in Puerto Maldonado will study in Cusco in the future, if so they will already have a link with us !

Scott and the Action team visit Puerto Maldonado

Please pray for Scott and the action team who are visiting a small new baptist church plant in the jungle (Puerto Maldonado) this week.They are working with Pastor Joel and his wife Rocio, they have a new church that consists of young people and children. They will be helping with the church's youth work and children's ministry.Here are a few photos, we will write more about his visit when he is back.

Creating more space

After months of storing other peoples' stuff in our shed and spare room, last week most of it was claimed. However it still contained loads of our belongings that needed a good sort through.

Scott and friends put up some shelves and we have been busy sorting through it all and trying to put some order in our lives, I have even managed to put away the Christmas decorations now that we can get in the shed.

As well as building shelves and sorting out storage we had our bathroom renovated this week and as if that wasn't enough chaos and confusion we also started knocking down the window and lower wall from the main church sanctuary leading to the conservatory area. We need more space in church so have decided to put the musicians in the conservatory area to allow space for more chairs.

So for now we have a temporary solution to our church building problem, thankfully the landlady was very obliging and let us knock down the window and wall. It is a temporary solution because as the church continues to grow there are no more walls we can knock down.....

The work in Huambutio continues...

The clinic walls have been plastered and now the floor is being tiled. A group of volunteers from Youth With A Mission have been helping us to clear the garden area this week and it is great to see it taking shape.

Exciting news is that BMS World Mission is providing a supported partner worker grant which allows the Peruvian nurses from La Fuente clinic in Cusco to also work with Anjanette in the clinic in Huambutio. They are wonderful Christian nurses and bring a wealth of experience with them.

Today we started visiting Huambutio with the nurses, we will be carrying out surveys initially , to find out more information about the community's needs and inviting people to attend the clinic when it opens.

Celebrating Jess's 9th birthday

What a big grown up girl she is now, seems like only yesterday Jess was born. We worked out that in her short life she has lived in 4 different homes in the UK and 4 homes in Peru ! Praise the Lord she is a stable, wonderful happy healthy helpful little girl. The present opening started at 0600. After school we had a birthday lunch with some of our good friends, Scott cooked up a storm as always and the Columbian clown also paid us a visit !

Miss Columbia is back!

(photos of Jess and Sam helping Claudia paint the storeroom at La Fuente which is now the psychologists office)

Sometimes God gives our family special friends who have a really important relationship with each member of the family. Claudia is one such friend. You will can find her drinking Chai and talking about medicine, art or music with Anjanette, planning youth work or sliding on her knees on the floor and playing the air guitar with Scott, entertaining Jess and Sam and enjoying spanish jokes with them that are too complicated for the adult Williamsons to understand!

Claudia is an active and much loved member of El Puente Iglesia and we were very sad when her visa ran out and she returned to Columbia last November.

Well we are delighted that she is back in Cusco! She is working part time at La Fuente clinic as our Christian psychologist, also part time at a local school and as if that wasn't enough work for her she will be taking responsibility for the youth and childrens' work at our church.
She has already planned the topics from now to the end of the year for our weekly kids club, youth group and Sunday school meetings.

Join us in rejoicing that nuestra amiga Columbiana has returned and also in praying for her and the many important responsibilities that she has.

Home Assignment Schedule

It is hard to believe that next month we will be back in the UK!
Sixteen months ago we returned to the UK for 4 months, that was an incredibly long time for us to be away from Peru and we have decided that in future we will plan more frequent but shorter trips home. This time round we will all visit for 1 month then Anjanette and the children will return to Peru while Scott will remain and carry out lots of speaking engagements for another month.

Our trip home is for two main reasons, to enjoy some holiday time seeing family and friends, also to visit some of our supporting churches .

Below is the rough outline of where we will be during our "working" time.
Please pray for us as we travel and please put the dates in your diary and come and meet us, we would love to see you.

April 26th Mount Pleasant Baptist Church (Northampton)

May 2nd Carshalton Beeches Baptist Church (Surrey)

May 4-6 Baptist Assembly in Central London

May 24th Queens St Baptist church,Godalming (Surrey)

May 25th Rayleigh Baptist church (Essex)

May 27th am New Malden Baptist church pm Godalming (Surrey)

May 28th New Malden Baptist church (Surrey) lunch club and evening meeting

May 30th Trafalgar Rd Baptist church (Horsham)

June 3rd Union Baptist Church (High Wycombe)

June 7th Cupar Baptist Church, (Fife,Scotland)

June 10th am Carshalton Beeches, pm Godstone Baptist church (Surrey)

June 13th Newport Baptist church (Shropshire)

June 17th am Kirby Muxloe, pm Desford (Leicestershire)

June 20th Vale Community Church (Bedfordshire)

Culto Especial

We held a special church service tonight to celebrate the end of the month long holiday club, it has been a lot of hard work but it was worth all the effort, we are so happy that new people are now attending our church plant.

The children acted out the story of Noah's ark and the young people shared about what they had been learning in their club. For a few of the children, today was the first time they attended a Sunday service at El Puente, thankfully they came and joined in and we had a terrific service together.

Pastor Scott preached his socks off and many folk came forward for prayer during the ministry time we had at the end of the service.

During the sermon Scott preached from Ephesians 3 v 14-21. Verse 20 says that God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.
Well he certainly is doing more than we could ever have imagined at El Puente and we are incredibly excited and thankful .