Seventeen Days and Counting!

We are counting the days around here until Natalie gets back to Little Rock. We sure miss her. We are, however so glad that she is following the Lord and doing what she feels called to do. We are excited to think about the Peruvian brothers and sisters (maybe even generations of them) that we will meet in heaven because of her obedience.

The team is still in Quito Arma and will likely be there until time to head back to Lima. Please continue to pray for Leoncio and his wife. They will need great faith and encouragement from the Holy Spirit to continue the work after the "gringos" are gone.

Tonight the team (Natalie, Drew and Nestor) were going back to Huyatara to get to sleep in real beds and to get a shower and most importantly to get Leslie, their team leader! She has really had a difficult time. They deicided that she probably had bronchitious. Please pray that she will continue to get stronger and stay healthy and that the others will also stay healthy.

We would ask especially for prayers for the team's saftey these last three weeks. We knew from having been in the Andes Mountains in Peru, just how dangerous the roads (and the drivers) can be, but we are even more aware of it recently. On July 5th, one of the young men who came to Peru to work with the same program that Natalie's team is working with, was killed in a bus accident in the mountains.

His name was Greg Gomez and Natalie had just met him for the first time at the mid-summer debrief. Obviously this really shook all of the missionaries up and gave them much to process. I think that the translator for their team was also killed and that a girl from their team was also on the bus but not seriously injured. Please pray for Greg's family and friends and for all of the REAP missionaries, both the permanent ones and the summer ones.


The next to the last time we were in Peru with a group from Markham Street Bapt. Natalie and some others in our group rode on one of those buses down the mountains. There was a very close call that could easily have sent the bus over the edge. All of this has caused us all to remember anew that our life and times are in God's hands. That seems a trite thing to say at a time like this, but it is so true.

We are all humbled by and grateful for your prayers.