Mission in Ventanilla

These pictures are all Polly’s and I want to link you to her blog so that you can read her own words.  I shall be commenting with notes under each picture as I am able.  This post is about what God is doing and about how God is using Sarah Tester.  Sarah, and her husband Paul are SAMS missionaries from England.  They have been her for two and a half years.  Both are totally fluent in Spanish – which gives us hope and inspiration.  Paul is one of the two youth ministers of the Diocese of Peru.  Sarah works with children.  She has a rapport with these children that has to be a divine gift.  She LOVES them.  Sarah and Paul (their link for donations) are heading back to England very soon for their first furlough.  I met them in early 2008 when I first visited Peru.  They are impressive.  I am in fact hugely impressed with the missionary talent here.  Peru us fortunate to have such gifted and talented folk.  The local talent is served by the missionaries as partners in the Gospel.  It has been fashionable to criticize missionary work as an extension of colonialism.  Such critics have NEVER seen Peru and the kinds of servant partnerships that are to be found here.  I thank God for the missionaries who are here, especially the SAMS folk.

Ventanilla is a coastal community north of Callao and the Lima airport.  It is sandy and pretty barren.  The homes pictured are classically thrown together from various materials.  There is a community of disabled folk here as land has been made available.

Polly is getting more and more involved in children’s ministry here in Peru.  Curriculum development is her current task and so she is visiting to see what is going on and how and what are the needs.  Last week we both visited AWANA – known here as OANSA.  We had a successful ministry in the US with AWANA and we are thrilled to see it very active here in Peru.  We are looking at the possibility of introducing OANSA Clubs here in our Anglican ministry.

Enjoy the pictures – click to enlarge them