Anniversaries are useful; they give us the opportunity to reflect and count our many blessings. Twenty-two years ago, on September 26th 2004, we moved to Peru with two babies, a big dream and very pale skin - a lifetime under this equatorial sun is no joke. We love Peru. The Peruvian people welcomed us so lovingly and have become our people and our family. Building a life here and carving out a mission base in this jungle hasn't always been easy, but it's been a great adventure. We are super blessed to get to see our vision come to life - building and running a support base and hospitality center for tribal-working, church-planting missionaries to reach the unreached with the gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ.
God sent us some much-needed help! Josiah Thomason is here as an intern to work with us for a month and a half. He is nineteen and is a friend of ours from Oregon. He is a capable and sweet-spirited young man who loves Jesus and is eager to serve, work hard, and learn. He is helping Vann build molds to make concrete fence posts and, eventually, concrete pavers for the roads and driveways on base. The price of gravel has recently doubled, which makes a concrete project significantly more expensive, but it will certainly be much cheaper in the long run than maintaining our all-gravel roads for another twenty-two years. The price of hardwood for fence posts has become prohibitive and more difficult to find, so making our own concrete posts has been something Vann has planned to do for a while now. Since he has not had the time to devote to such a big project, Josiah is an answer to prayer and is a joy and blessing to us.
We urgently need a new lawnmower. Our old faithful John Deere 72” zero-turn has been limping along for a few years now and is about to bite the dust. It has served us well for ten years and has been a huge blessing, but Vann now spends more time fixing it than using it. The following link is the miraculous story of how it was donated years ago: eBay, Saints and Machines. We are waiting on a part to come down from the States before the mower will work again, and in the meantime, the grass is growing up around our ears. We'll have to purchase a new mower in the States and import it, so this is our next big fundraising project for Petra Mission Base. We trust God will provide spectacularly, as only He can.
Vann set a personal record this month when he passed two kidney stones at the same time. That intense pain slowed him down a bit, and he’s still recovering, but he's finishing the plumbing and electrical in the “Little house” and has a couple of local guys helping finish the drywall. The bedrooms and hallway are already painted, and he ordered a bathtub, fans, sinks, and more wood for the interior molding. Progress seems slow at times, but even slow, it is so satisfying for us to see our vision become reality. Every house on base was full this week, and our missionaries came and went from their church-planting work in the tribes. The ripple effect of your support of Petra Mission Base is multiplied by each of these missionary families and their diligent Kingdom work. Those big dreams that we had in our hearts twenty-two years ago are now visible - all thanks and glory be to God, who has enabled us in every way to do what He set before us to do!
Thank you for all of your love, care, prayers, and support over all these many years. May we not count our lives of any value nor as precious to ourselves, if only we may finish our course with joy and the ministry that we received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.
“It is God’s design that his wonderful works should be remembered, and it is our wisdom constantly to have those wonderful works in remembrance.”
- C. H. Spurgeon