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 !