Mark and Lori Berry |
JUNTOS "Together" |
Update March 15, 2006 |
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Dear Friends,
Here are a few stories to illustrate, some praises and requests for prayer:
2. Richard MacKee our friend from Salamanca, as well as Charlie Davidson, Peter Beck and Queovadis Estrada, all co workers with MTW, were there at the airport to help us with the kids and luggage. Peter was in Lima on business from Cuzco where he works with his family, and when he heard we were getting in he came to help us and welcome us back to Peru. What a gift of love for him, with an early flight out to Cuzco the next morning, to come to help us and stay up till 3am in the morning to do so. We praise the Lord for his love for us through these brothers. 3. We got to Lima without any idea where we were going to live, but just thankful for the mission house in Salamanca being available for us to land temporarily. Our first day the Lord prompted us to go up to our kids' school to find out the exact date that classes were to begin (school starts in March in Lima, and ends in December). When we went by, we discovered that school was starting EARLIER this year, on March 6, just 9 days away! That was a Friday, and so finding that out enabled us to get school supply lists and begin the long and arduous process of getting uniforms, school supplies for each of our three kids starting school this year, pay for school, etc. In Lima, all of the above takes at least twice as long, maybe in some cases three times as long, than in the US, just to give you an idea. There was also a mandatory open house at the school the following Monday before classes started that we were able to find out about and then attend. The Lord was so good to lead us in answer to our prayers and we thank him for prompting us to go to school that day. 4. We have a house! We drove around for the first week looking for a place to live. As many of you know, we were trying to find a place a bit closer to our kids' school to reduce their time in the car each day, which had been close to two hours a day previously. Now with three kids in school and two different schedules of leaving school, along with our desire to be more closely involved with them as parents, we decided that we wanted to be able to take them and pick them up ourselves, rather than have them taken in a taxi car pool each day. Living closer would also reduce our costs of paying for their transportation each month. After a week of coming up dry, one of our friends who is a real estate agent came across a house available for rent just 5 minutes from school. It is larger than our former house but the same price, plus it has a back yard and several extra rooms out back which we can use to house visitors and teams. It is in La Molina, which is at a higher elevation than other parts of the city so there is also more sun throughout the year. Since our ministry is spread out all over the city, we have some freedom in where we live, and so we are thankful that the Lord has provided a place within our budget that will help us as a family as well as in the ministry. 5. We bought a car! As most of you know, our first vehicle was stolen in 2004 in a carjacking. We weren't sure if we wanted to drive again after that, but as we have been trying to get around as a family it has become increasingly difficult to do so without a vehicle. We bought a Suzuki 8 passenger van that gets good gas mileage and has room for all of us. It comes on the boat from Japan in mid-April. We will use it to take kids to and from school and for us to get around as a family, as well as for airport runs to pick up visitors and small groups. Mark hopes to get a smaller, used vehicle at a later point for his ministry running around the city. Thank the Lord with us for these resources he has provided.
6. We moved in last Thursday and Friday. All our worldly possessions had been in storage in an empty apartment for 14 months, so there was a nice layer of dust and dirt and not a few dead spiders and cob webs that came out with them, but as I write we are getting everything out of boxes and in their place. It's been great to be reunited with our things. Even though they are just things, they're our things, and when you've lived out of suitcases and with borrowed things for 14 months, it's just nice to be "together" again 7. Please be praying for Anna. She is having a hard time in school. She lost much of her Spanish and so she is not able to stay up with her second grade class in that subject. Lori met with her teacher yesterday and she is going to put Anna in a special class for Spanish each day to get her caught up, and Lord willing in 3-4 months she will be able to reenter the class with her classmates and be at the same level again. In all her other subjects she is doing fine, but not doing well at something is very hard for Anna, and we have had to take her to school crying, or put her in the taxi crying, for the last two days, and that has been hard. Pray for her. 8. Becca Bennett is a two year missionary nurse who arrived to Lima a few days ahead of us. Kiera Hill is an intern who arrived this past Tuesday to serve for 4 months. Please pray for them as they get settled and for me as I get myself settled and help effectively integrate them into the ministry. Becca will be developing a lay health ministry in coordination with the Huaycán and Santa Anita churches, and Kiera will be serving in the Cristo Salvador children's diaconal ministry, teaching art. Two more two year missionaries, Laura Hoyt and Susan Crenshaw will arrive to Lima over the next few months, and so we'd like you to be in prayer for them as well along the same lines. 9. I have had some good time with Pastor Adrian and the elders in Huaycán. We have a lot to catch up on and talk and pray about as we look to the future of our co labor together both in Huaycán and in Santa Anita. It is wonderful to again be in fellowship with these brothers and servants of the gospel. It is also both exciting and overwhelming to once again be face to face with the tremendous opportunities and needs in ministry. I need you to pray for me for wisdom as I wade back in. Psalm 127:1 says "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain." We want the Lord to build this ministry, and we know that what we are doing in these initial years is lay a foundation. We want it to be a good one that will uphold a solid, Christ-centered, city-impacting, nationally led, long term, healthy ministry that will bring Christ much glory and honor for generations to come. 10. Pray for physical stamina for Lori and me. Days are long and nights are short right now. We are trying to pace ourselves, but life in Peru is simply more exhausting than life in the US. So we are getting "in shape" again you might say. Plus we come into our second term with a renewed commitment to setting better boundaries for our family and marriage, so that we don't get burned out as we did on our first term. But this is a real challenge, and we need your prayers to be able to do this well and graciously, but firmly. 11. The Lord has led me to form an advisory board for our ministry. Please pray with us that the Lord would raise up the people he wants to make up that advisory board. We are praying over several names and hope to make invitations in the next couple of weeks. 12. Please pray for the spiritual growth and leadership development in both Huaycán and Santa Anita. As we look to the Lord to give us a church planting movement, we are sensing that our focus needs to be upon the development of a solid and growing group of leaders within these churches who will be those who the Lord will mobilize for this movement. Pray for Pastor Adrian and I as we work on plans for a school of discipleship and training based out of Huaycán that will feed and nurture the members and leaders in that church, as well as in Santa Anita. 13. Many of you have been praying for Salamanca, our old neighborhood, and for us as we have sensed that we are to plant a church there. Well, just days after we returned, I got a call from a woman named Graciela who told me she has been praying with a group of brothers and sisters for two years for the Lord to plant a church in Salamanca that they could be a part of. She has recently joined a sister Presbyterian church in another part of the city, but has asked them to help her have a home group in her house in Salamanca, with the hope that one day the Lord would provide someone to pastor it into a church. I attended the group this past Saturday with our friends and children in the Lord, Enrique and Martha Matamoros, who are from Salamanca. There were close to 40 people in attendance! Enrique and Martha have also been praying for a church in Salamanca, and we left praising the Lord at what he is doing in answer to our prayers. Pray as I follow up on this opportunity and work with other Presbyterian leaders in the city to discover the Lord's will for this potential church plant. Pray specifically that the Lord would show me if I am to serve as the lead church planter for it. 14. Diaconal needs update: Jesenia, the little girl in Santa Anita who was bit in the face by a dog is doing better. Her sight seems to be fine in the eye, but she will have a pretty bad scar on her cheek below her right eye. Ronald, the little handicapped boy in the Huaycán children's program has been placed by his mom in an orphanage in another part of Lima. She wanted the church to take him but at this time the resources are not there for them to take in kids on a full time basis. Paul, another boy in the program, has also been placed in an orphanage in another part of Lima as the situation in his home deteriorated to such an extent that he needed to be removed from the home for his own protection. New children have since come in to fill these kids' spots in the feeding and tutoring program, but our hearts long to be able to do more as we face these tremendous, heart wrenching needs. Thank you dear friends for your interest and support of the work here. We are thankful to have you behind us. With much love in Christ,
Mark and Lori Berry
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Greetings from Lima! We arrived late in the evening of Feb. 23 to begin our second term here. It has been a big readjustment for our family, as we knew it would be after being gone for a year, but we are thankful that the Lord has been with us every step of the way and has provided for all our needs and beyond, each day.
1. Our plane was late leaving Nashville so we arrived in Atlanta 25 minutes before our plane to Lima was to take off. We had used our entire limit for luggage, so we were carrying two carry on's per person, but our little ones could not carry some of their bags, so we were a sight running, fully loaded, from the B terminal to the E terminal. When we got onto the train, it started before we could grab on to a pole, so several of the kids ended up on the floor with Mom and Dad almost on top of them. When we made it to our gate, the flight was minutes from closing the doors, and they had given our seats away to stand by passengers, SO... "Sir, if you could wait a few minutes, I need to change your seat assignments. We're going to put all of you in business class." So, all six of us got to fly together in business class from Atlanta to Lima! It was for us just a beautiful token of the Father's love for us this gift of being able to travel in first class for the long flight to Lima, with all of us being so tired from the week and day of constant activity, travel and emotional strain of pulling up roots.
We have much to do unpacking and getting utilities, repairs, etc. done, so we are busy this week in set up mode. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel of our transition time back to the field and we thank you for continuing to lift us up in prayer to finish that phase well.
