The mission to the Peruvian Amazonia was a tremendous blessing. I, Carlos Astorga joined a team of 19 members from Washington State, Colorado, Nebraska, St Louis, Arkansas,Argentina, México, and Perú arrived at Santa Rita starting March 29th.
The teaching team of which I was a part, arrived to Santa Rita, a small village on the riviera ofthe Río Marañón on April 4th. The trip took 3 flights, a bus and a boat for a total of 36 hours oftravel. It was tiring but exciting. The Bible conference was scheduled to start on the evening ofApril 5th but as I learned from Tom, the founder of JungleMaster, “no plans remain unchangedin the jungle.” Pastors and leaders with their families arrived late in the evening on April 4th andearly in the morning on April 5th, eager to learn. We decided to add a few sessions to theconference so that those who arrived earlier could benefit the most from their time in Santa Rita.
Pastors and leaders arrived from almost thirty villages. For some, as the group from the churchat Dos de Mayo, the canoe trip took six full days! Twenty-three people from the church in thisvillage arrived late on April 5th, excited and ready to begin. In the end, a total of 287 adults andtheir children gathered in Santa Rita for three days of instruction, evangelism and fellowship. The Bible Conference included five teachers and 19 sessions in total. All lessons were related to Bible study methods, discipleship and evangelism. It was an amazing blessing to see so many believers willing to learn even in spite of the discomforts of the jungle.
My participation included five sessions. Four of the sessions were devoted to a basicintroduction to Bible study methods including close to two hours of practice. I was able toprovide the students with a Basic Guide to Studying the Bible that they could keep in theirBibles for quick reference. It is my prayer that this may be useful to them in faithfully studyingand teaching the Word of God. In total, we were able to leave with them 700 copies of this guide for distribution to the leaders and their churches. The Guide is a foldable double-sided page with 16 different sections that explain the basic steps of Bible Study as well as some essential guidelines to organize your study time and the structure of your lessons and messages.
When distributing the study guides to the pastors and leaders, I asked them to come forward so I could help them stick the guides to their Biblesso I could have a chance to meet each one of them. To my surprised, I quickly learned thatmany of them only own a copy of the New Testament plus Psalms from the Gideons. After thethird session I asked how many of them didn’t own a full copy of the Bible. More than half raisedtheir hands!
JungleMaster is doing and amazing job along the Peruvian Jungle. As part of the trip we wereable to build and stock a regional library in Santa Rita. More than 300 books were donated byvarious Christian Publishers. We hope these resources will serve the church in this region well.All leaders also received two books to help them in their personal walk and in their ministries.
The Peruvian leaders are growing. It was a blessing to see their hearts encouraged to continuein ministry in spite of many needs and shortcomings. Please join us in prayer for this ministry.Another trip will follow next month to provide health services to the communities. We are notworking towards providing a Bible to every leader in the region as well as a basic BibleHandbook to aid them in their ministries.
Thank you so much for being a part of this incredible mission. May the Lord continue to blessyou and encourage you as we seek together to proclaim the Name of our Lord and Savioramong the nations, so that, as Psalm 67 proclaims, His Name may be known, and praised, andenjoyed and feared among all the peoples of the earth.
God is good,
