Dear friends of WMF Peru,
Greetings to all of you in Jesus' precious name! We hope that the reading of this letter finds you trusting in God's love, living and hoping for the sake of God's Kingdom and glory.
With this letter we desire to bring you up to date on some recent community developments in the hope that you will feel even more connected to the life and ministries of the WMF community serving in Peru, La Palabra Hecha Hombre.
New Peruvian staff arrangement: As part of our natural growth as an organization and also our spiritual growth as a community committed both locally and internationally, we are excited about the two new initiatives to (a) involve all contracted Peruvian staff in raising support through a personal support team, and (b) provide a fixed salary with benefits to all workers.Personal support teams: Living month to month on the generous and sacrificial support of others is a way of life for every North American staff member serving with Word Made Flesh. The money that we have available is money that we have raised through personal contacts. This dynamic has provided all of us with a simple and sustainable lifestyle and is a constant impulse to invite others into the work through regular communication and advocacy. Living on faith support also drives us to live with gratitude for everything that we have, realizing that God's gifts come to our lives first because of His goodness and grace, then secondly because of our efforts. The Peruvian staff want to rise to this challenge and walk with even greater faith into living out their vocation serving in community among the poor.Salary and Benefits: La Palabra Hecha Hombre is the legal entity and responsible agent for contracting Peruvian workers, for administrating the budget, and purchasing the new ministry center and all subsequent capital acquisitions. Due to complex laws and regulations, the Peruvian workers were initially contracted in a quasi-legal fashion which did not provide them health insurance, retirement benefits, or official employment history for loans or property purchases. As of May, 2007 this will change as all Peruvian workers will be contracted with full benefits, which also translates into a greater commitment to Peruvian workers. This means that the budget is assuming the extra costs associated with this change. For the year 2007, this represents a $10,000 increase. We are taking this step in faith!Fund raising: When we began our efforts to raise funds to purchase a permanent facility, we placed this longer term need alongside our then immediate need to rent office space. After closing our rented day center in January 2006 for various reasons, we spent the next 5 months praying together, and evaluating our ministry programs, which continued as best they could without any fixed space within which to work. The first week of May, 2006 our community was led to put these two needs before God in prayer, and to ask and claim two very specific things. The first was provision for a rented office space with certain characteristics meeting some but not all of our current programming needs. For this we felt God leading us to establish a 30 day period. The second was to begin to raise funds for a permanent location which would be purchased by and become the property of La Palabra Hecha Hombre. There was a property that we had already looked at with an asking price of $160,000. For this, we felt God leading us to a 6 month time frame. On June 1st, 2007 we received a call from our realtor informing us about 3 properties which were for rent. One of them is the current location we are renting, and meets to the letter the characteristics that we put before God in prayer. God's provision is timely, and perfect. Now, as we head into this new year of 2007, some 8 months after beginning to raise funds, we received news that the ProVision foundation has come alongside us in ministry to complete our fund raising effort to purchase a facility. We have been hard pressed to contain our joy at this news, and would like to express with this letter our praise to God through whom “all things are possible.” Gifts: For those of you who are led to continue to give to the building fund, we will gladly receive those designated gifts and direct them to the renovation and maintenance of the facility. To date, we have appx. $150,000 given towards the building fund. Wow! The property that we had been looking at (with an asking price of $160,000) has been sold. Please pray with us as we wait on God and contract a realtor to find an adequate facility to purchase.Memorials: All of the memorial gifts that have been given are going to be honored in the new ministry center. When we have purchased the building and are able to have a better sense of the physical space, how we are going to divide up the rooms, and what repairs and/or changes need to be made to the structure, we will make the decisions about how the memorial gifts will be honored.Communication: We recognize that each one of you who are reading this letter have been loving all of us across the miles, and some of you have been doing that for many years now. We want you to have as much access to us as you want; our desire is that you can feel connected to us and to the people we are committed among in ministry. Emails addresses: The following are all of our current email addresses, which we check on a daily (or multiple times daily) basis.Anna: amonteviller@gmail.com Jose Luis: lpvjose@gmail.comSebastián: jssevilla@gmail.comBrian: brian.langley@wordmadeflesh.comDavid: david.smith@wordmadeflesh.comLinsey: linsey.higgins@wordmadeflesh.comMonica: monica.ghali@wordmadeflesh.comRachel: rachel.langley@wordmadeflesh.comSarah: sarah.dobrin@wordmadeflesh.comThe Cry: This is our international quarterly publication which hopefully all of you are receiving. It is an advocacy and devotional reader which includes VERY good articles written by WMF staff, theologians, and practitioners among the poor serving with other organizations. Also included in The Cry are updates about the work of WMF around the world, including WMF Peru. Please contact Daphne Eck at 1800Cry4Kids for more information about receiving this publication.Website info: There is a section on the WMF website specifically devoted to each country of service. At http://wordmadeflesh.com/countries/peru.php you can find out more about our contextualized vision and learn more about our community. Very soon we will have our WMF Peru website online; we will let you know when this happens so you can practice your Spanish!Prayer requests: Every month, we upload prayer requests onto the website, which can be accessed at http://wordmadeflesh.com/countries/prayer_requests.php?country=Peru. Thank you for kneeling with us in prayer on behalf of the ministry of WMF Peru.Staff information: In this section you can find our more information about the staff currently serving in Lima, and access our monthly prayer letters. http://wordmadeflesh.com/countries/staff.php?country=Peru
Thanks again for your love. We couldn't live out our collective call to serve Jesus among the poorest of the poor without you.
Love
All of us at WMF Peru.