2018 Christ Church Katy- Peru Mission Team

Day 5

Today we awoke to near freezing temperatures in Yanque, a small mountain village near the edge of the beautiful Colca Canyon. When I say ‘near’, we were 5 minutes (or less), walking distance from the edge of a several thousand-foot cliff. And yes, I was a bit nervous as we stood near the edge last night as we were admiring the night sky and spotting various stars and planets! After a hearty breakfast, we traveled further into the canyon to a point where we hoped to see the majestic condors that are known to fly through the canyon. After enjoying the canyon and the view afforded from our observation point, we were rewarded with several condors that flew quite close to us! We will look forward to sharing the photos via Facebook and at our presentation at CCK on July 22.

The little village where we stayed was at about 12,000 feet. As we traveled back to Arequipa, we went up again over the 16,000-foot pass and then down to Arequipa at around 8,000 feet. We were glad to get back to a lower sea level. These Houstonians were finding the high mountain air a bit challenging! After a short rest, we joined the saints at the La Roca Presbyterian Church for Wednesday evening prayer meeting. It was a time of singing, testimonies, and prayer. Nathaniel shared about his father’s conversion and about his own conversion and call to ministry. It was good to be reminded of the reach of God’s grace. We broke into small groups, and even those of us who don’t know Spanish were blessed to hear the prayers of the saints of God in their language. Following the prayer meeting, was the much-anticipated soccer game between the Peruvians and the Gringos. I think the Peruvians held back just enough to allow us to score a few points and then sealed our defeat. It was a great game and time of further bonding between our team and the church here.

Tomorrow we plan to visit a local university and are eager to learn more about the expansion of the mission here via college ministry. These missionaries and their intern are very busy about the work of the Kingdom here in Arequipa. They are looking forward to another team member who is currently raising support to join them in university ministry. Will you join us in praying for them? Please pray particularly for strength, wisdom, spiritual health and protection, endurance in their many ministries, and for their physical health, marriages, and children. Thanks for your prayers and interest in theirs and our mission here.