Prayer Request

Please Pray for Roberta Tello

It is with great sadness that I tell you that Roberta Tello, a member of Cristo Rey Church in Huanta, has a cancerous tumor under her left knee. Her health is deteriorating. She has limited resources for medical care.

Participants on the 2009 and 2011 mission trips to Huanta will remember Roberta for the delicious lunches she prepared each day for the students and faculty of the Bible Institute and for mission trip participants.

Samuel Montes writes: “We pray to the Lord for the health of our sister Roberta Tello, a woman with a long history in the church and at Radio Amauta. She is like our mother and has a tremendous amount of faith in the Lord and in us. We are praying for a miracle from God.”

Please keep Roberta, her family and all of our brothers and sisters in the Presbytery of Huanta in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.

Randy

Whitening Peruvian Andes

Perú’s Country Brand

Perú has moved up three places in the world ranking of ‘Country Brands’, rising from 47th to 44th position and placing it in the top five countries in Latin America according to the new Country Brand Index report (CBI).

The ranking, by the Country Brand Index (CBI), is based on awareness, familiarity, preference, consideration, advocacy and active decisions to visit or interact with a place.

Perú also remains in the top five countries worldwide in the category of ‘Cultural Heritage’ and was the only Latin American country to make it into the top twenty countries in this category.

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Perú’s Travel Treasures

If you want to see something truly indescribable, go to Machu Picchu in Perú. One of the seven wonders of the world, Machu Picchu is an Incan city that remained unknown to the Spanish conquistadors and to outsiders in general until it was "discovered" (I use this term loosely because the local people knew of its existence) by Yale professor Hiram Bingham in 1911.

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Slow Justice For Perú's Disappeared

Twenty years after the worst period of Peru's civil war between security forces and Maoist guerrillas, the cases of those "disappeared" in the conflict still haunt the country.

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Bead Ministry

The Sharon Presbyterian Church Amani Bead Ministry will be selling one-of-a-kind jewelry after worship on Sunday, November 13 and 20. Proceeds go to provide care for orphaned babies at New Life Homes in Kenya. Using beads made by women in Kenya, ladies of Sharon Church create beautiful jewelry to help support this ministry.

Prayers Answered

Good morning, friends!

We've just returned to the hotel after my hospital adventure. Everything seems to have gone very well - just a bit groggy from the anesthesia and a bit of a sore throat. The clunker is that Dr. Tsuji says I have to keep 7 days of silence! (Somehow I seem to have missed that detail! :-)

So Mary is my telepathic interpreter in the meantime.

Thank you for your prayers! I am honored and blessed to be so loved and so well accompanied...

Under the mercy,

Dennis

Dennis A. Smith
dennis.smith@pcusa.org
PCUSA Enlace Regional, Brasil y Cono Sur, Misión Mundial
PCUSA Regional Liaison, Brazil and Southern Cone, World Mission
PCUSA Representante Regional, Brasil e Cone Sul, Missão Mundial

Sucre 2855, 3o
1428 Buenos Aires, Argentina
telephone: +54-11-4787-0436
fax: +54-11-4787-0335
mobile: +54-911-3704-2500
www.pcusa.org/worldmission

2012 Perú Mission Scheduled

The 2012 Adult Mission Trip to Huanta, Perú is scheduled to take place from Friday, August 3 through Monday, August 13, 2012. Sara Armstrong and Rusty Edmondson will travel to Huanta on Sunday, November 13, 2011, and plan to meet with the leaders of the Presbytery of Huanta to begin planning for our 2012 trip.

Sara and Rusty will be in Huanta accompanying a mission team from the San Gabriel Presbytery in Southern California. The team will be installing water purification systems at the Cristo Rey and Maynay churches in Huanta.

I have learned that the leaders of the Presbytery have voted to create two additional presbyteries with ten or eleven churches comprising each of the three presbyteries. I am not sure what impact (if any) this change will have on future mission trips. As I hear more about this change I will pass it along.

Randy

“The real act of discovery is not in finding new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.”
-Marcel Proust

Prayer Request

Friends:

On Tuesday, I will have surgery to relieve symptoms of spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological condition that has affected my voice for the last 30 years. For more than 20 years I have received quarterly injections of botulinum toxin directly into the muscles that activate the vocal chords; these injections dramatically improved my ability to speak. In the last 12 months, however, I have received 4 of these treatments and none of them have provided relief for more than a week or two.

Not having a reliable voice has made my first year in my new position as PCUSA World Mission Regional Liaison for Brazil and the Southern Cone frustrating, to say the least. But colleagues have been patient and understanding; I've become a whiz at participating in on-line meetings using the chat function!

My physician here in Argentina, Dr. María Viti, put me in contact with Dr. Domingos Hiroshi Tsuji in São Paulo, Brazil. Dr. Tsuji is a world-renowned expert on the human voice; he has developed a new procedure that provides the same relief as the botulinum injections, but permanently. After looking at my clinical history, he and Dr. Viti determined that I am a good candidate for the surgery. The procedure is not invasive and I only expect to be in the hospital one night. I should be able to speak right away, although I expect to be hoarse for a week or two.

Mary and I fly to São Paulo early Monday morning; I check in to Albert Einstein Israelite Hospital at noon on Tuesday. The procedure is scheduled for 4 in the afternoon on Tuesday. We plan to return to Buenos Aires on Friday afternoon.

Our thanks to colleagues at the PCUSA offices in Louisville for working with the insurance company to get the necessary approval to cover the expense of this new procedure.

Thank you for your prayers!

I hope to be speaking with you soon...

Under the Mercy,
Dennis

Dennis A. Smith
dennis.smith@pcusa.org
PCUSA Regional Liaison, Brazil and Southern Cone, World Mission