Hola 2013 Perú Mission Team!

I wanted to give you a quick update on our upcoming trip to Peru, now just twelve (12) weeks away!

The dates of the trip are from Friday, July 12 through Monday, July 22, 2013.  The members of the 2013 team and their hometowns are:

• Rose Boelke {West Jefferson, North Carolina}
• Connie Dale {Charlotte, North Carolina}
• Diana Pardue {New York, New York}
• Beverly Vickrey {Charlotte, North Carolina}
• Gary Geisel {Edgewater, Maryland}
• Jim Hogan {Baltimore, Maryland}
• Randy Ross {Charlotte, North Carolina}
• Tom Skinner {Charlotte, North Carolina}
• Van Dale {Charlotte, North Carolina}

Sara Armstrong, Rusty Edmondson and Brenda Paredes will meet us in Lima.

The majority of the team (Rose, Diana, Randy, Tom and Beverley) will arrive in Lima on Friday, July 12th, and return to the United States on Monday, July 22nd.

Connie and Van will travel to Lima on Saturday, July 6th to visit the Paredes family and explore Lima. They will meet the other mission team members at the Lima airport on Friday, July 12th.

Gary and Jim will travel to Lima on Friday, July 12th and will travel to Cusco after the mission trip to visit the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu.

We will spend Friday night in Lima and fly to Ayacucho Saturday afternoon, July 13th.

The Presbytery of Huanta (the “Presbytery”) has asked that part of our team travel to the town of Lircay to help assemble benches to be used a pews in the churches of the Synod of Huancavelica. The other part of our team will travel to Huanta to help paint four (4) churches in and around Huanta.

Gary and Jim have graciously offered to share their many years of banking experience and are developing a curriculum on church and personal financial management to be presented to church leadership and members in both Lircay and Huanta.

The Lircay Team (Rusty, Gary, Jim, Diana and Randy) and the Huanta Team (Sara, Rose, Connie, Van, Brenda, Tom and Beverley) will depart Ayacucho early Sunday morning, July 14th. On Wednesday, July 17th the Lircay team will travel to Huanta and become part of the Huanta Team for the remainder of the mission trip.

We will return to Ayacucho from Huanta on Saturday, July 20th, spend the night there and take the early flight to Lima the following morning, Sunday, July 21st.

In Lima, we will travel to Amen Church (Brenda’s church) for worship and fellowship. That afternoon, we will visit the Inca Market in Miraflores before having dinner and heading to the airport (Gary and Jim excluded) for our flights home.

Sara and Rusty are finalizing our in-country arrangements, including accommodations, meals and travel.

This will be Sharon Church’s sixth consecutive trip to Huanta. Each year I travel there becomes more special than the year before, in part, because I am in awe of the blessing of yet another opportunity to worship and work next to my Andean brothers and sisters.

I am looking forward to the time together with each of you and each of them, a time of faith, fellowship and service to Jesus Christ.

I wanted to share a recent note from Samuel Montes, current Secretary (and past President) of the Presbytery:

“I am filled with excitement and encouragement in organizing the work we will do together in Ayacucho, Lircay and Huanta…the mission is not ours, the real promoter is Jesus and God himself, the One who moves mountains and changes lives… and nothing will stop Him.”

I treasure many aspects of the partnership that Sharon Church enjoys with the Presbytery. The most endearing aspect is how our partnership has enabled and empowered the Presbytery to reach out and minister to its neighbors. “…the mission is not ours, the real promoter is Jesus and God himself, the One who moves mountains and changes lives… and nothing will stop Him.” Amen Samuel, Amen.

A special thanks to each of you for joining this year’s trip to help bolster, deepen and move this partnership forward.

Twelve more weeks, twelve more weeks, twelve more weeks!

Grace and peace to each of you.
Randy