Dear Friends and Family,

Greetings in the precious and mighty name of Jesus!

We wanted to check in with you to bring you up to date on how the Lord is working and leading us during this time of home assignment in the US. We also want to keep you posted on goings on in Lima and request your continued prayers for us and for the ministry.

Thanks again for praying for us. It is a precious gift.

Here's what's going on:

1. Home assignment: As you all know, the past 4 years have held many severe trials for us. This time at home has been used by the Lord to help bring needed healing and rest, and we thank you for praying for us during it. In the last few weeks we have also learned from our mission that we must raise additional funds before we can return to the field. So, as Lori and I have been praying and talking with our supervisor Bill Yarbrough, it seems that the Lord is leading us to stay in the US for 6 more months to both raise the additional $1400/month in support that we need and to continue to heal up as a family from our first term. Along with support raising and recharging, I will also use the time for recruitment, as well as partnership and project development. So while we are sad to not be returning to Peru and our life and ministry there, we believe the additional time stateside is the Lord's will for us and is best for the long term health of our family and ministry.

• Please pray for this time, that the Lord would call many more individuals and churches to invest financially and through prayer support in the Kingdom's movement in Lima through our ministry. We need $1400/month in additional funding before we can return to Lima.
• Pray also that he would continue to strengthen and renew us spiritually and emotionally in preparation for our return to Lima, Lord willing in January 2006.
• By the first week of July we are going to have to move out of the house we've been in since December, so please also pray for God to provide another place for us to stay for the next 6 months.

2. God's salvation breaking forth: Another woman in the Salamanca neighborhood came to faith last month in Martha's Bible study. This is the neighborhood where we have lived and where we are praying towards a church plant in 2006.

3. Physical and spiritual healing: A wonderful story from Frank and Suzanne Matthews. You might remember me talking about Ronald in some of my talks. Here's how Frank and Suzanne relate the story: "Ronald is one of the children in the Cristo Salvador Diaconal Ministry in Huaycan. He is 6 and budding artist. He was born with physical and mental handicaps. From what we know the majority of these problems arose from having meningitis when he was a baby and not getting the treatment he needed at the time. He currently cannot walk but we believe in time that this will improve and we are currently working on getting him a walker as he has never had any type of therapy. The family lives in Huaycan which is an extremely poor area. His mom works in the local market all day.

When we first met him, we all really thought that he was a lot worse of than he was. The reality being that he had not been worked with much. Over the past months we have continued to see him grow and develop. He loves to draw and play with the other children. He is currently attending a special school which is helping as well. His mother has been caring primarily for him and his father has not wanted much to do with him due to his mental and physical problems. Through the program at the church, Reyna, the pastor's wife, has been able to work with his mom and is starting to have more of a relationship with his father. Recently through EE, which is also going on through the church in Huaycan, both the mom and dad accepted Christ!!

Please pray for this whole family as they have a lot to learn but God has brought them so far. Pray for growth in Christ and to walk with the church. Pray for Ronald as he is currently in process to get a new shunt to drain the fluid from his brain. He has one that he received as a baby but after the recent MRI, the doctor thinks that he has never had the correct one in. Makes you want to scream but gratefully through a medical team from Memphis that came in Jan, there is enough money to purchase the correct one and hopefully he should be able to have it put in. Please pray for the mom and dad as well to have this done as it is their decision and we are not sure where they are currently with having this done. There are many fears of the unknown and distrust that are found here that might prevent this."

4. Leadership challenges: Please pray for Mark to have wisdom in his leadership responsibilities in general within our team and mission. New developments in the field are always happening, presenting many leadership challenges. He is constantly aware of his need for the Spirit to lead him as he leads our team.

5. Home school: We're home schooling Emmett and Anna. Pray that Mom and Dad would do their job well so that they are on pace with their classmates when they return to Peru.

6. Marriage and family: Our marriage and family always needs your prayers. This is a constant area of spiritual attack from the enemy, and I believe in a heightened way against missionaries.

7. Transformation of a city through the gospel: For a Reformed and covenantal church planting movement to transform Lima and eventually all of Peru. Please pray for God to raise up over the next 6 months 10 men with a call to gospel ministry who will make up the first class of our new training center, which I hope to begin in early 2006. These men will be receiving their theological and pastoral education while being mentored in the work of church planting, serving in a network of churches and church plants that will be, Lord willing, the first wave of the movement.

8. Planting schools: An additional component to this movement which I am growing in my passion for is to have a Christian classical school with every church we plant. Pray for this please. I believe it's a crucial component in the societal transformation we're praying for in Lima.

9. God-sized dream: I will end by being so bold as to ask you to pray with me for the realization of what I hope is a God sized and God honoring vision for the year 2021 (Peru's 200th anniversary). This is my daily prayer:

By the year 2021, that God would give us:

• 200 pastors trained through our training center and established in pastorates
• 200 churches planted and/or revitalized
• 200 diaconal ministries connected to the churches and self sustaining or on the road to becoming self sustaining
• 200 English based classical Christian schools connected to the churches and self sustaining
• 200 prayer warriors committed to praying for the ministry on a daily basis

Yours with deep affection in Christ,

Mark and Lori

Mission to the World (Lima, Peru)
615-904-7720 (H)
615-957-3645 (M)

mberry@mtwla.org
http://www.limanewcity.org/
http://www.mtwla.org/people/mberry.htm

P.S. If you would like invest in what God is doing in Lima through our ministry, simply mail your check to MTW 1600 North Brown Rd. Lawrenceville, GA 30043 with our name and account number, #10541, on the memo line and with a note indicating your pledge amount. We'd also appreciate it if you'd shoot us an email to let us know, so we can thank you quicker:-).