January 15, 2007
Dear Friends & Loved Ones,
Happy New Year! 2007 here we come! ☺ I have officially completed one year serving in Lima and I am just amazed. Amazed and so thankful. In some ways it seems as if the year has just flown by but at the same time I cannot believe all that has happened since I arrived this time last year.
Every six months we, as staff, are asked to turn in board reports sharing about life and ministry and some of our thoughts. As I wrote mine this time I felt like it would be an honor to share that with you all as well. I am so excited to share in another year of ministry with you all and have been even thinking-I would love to hear from all of you about ways that would help us as we walk this journey together. Feel free to email or write anytime: monica.ghali@gmail.com or America 344- 3er Piso; Pueblo Libre, Lima 21, PERU.
Okay, here's that board report, maybe get a cup of tea (may substitute coffee or hot chocolate) ☺.
So much love to you, Monica N. Ghali
* * * * *
Greetings in the name of our Savior & Lord! My prayers are with you all as you begin reading these reports and preparing for your time of meeting together in the spring. Every time I sit down to write to you I am reminded of how thankful I am for all of you and I praise the Lord for the opportunity to partner with you in ministry.
Today marks 1 full year serving in Lima! Since I wrote in August much has happened in our community and in my personal journey here in Lima. The arrival of the Servant Team changed life as I knew it for my first eight months in Lima, Linsey Higgins arrived to join the staff, we said goodbye to dear friend co-worker Craig Curell, we have been stretched & challenged as vision & programming is being clarified & renewed, we received a new beautiful member of the community in Natalia Marie Langley, we said another tearful goodbye to the Servant Team, and we survived the intensity of the Christmas season (my first in Peru).
Needless to say, life and ministry in community has been quite a journey. We have allowed ourselves to be in the midst of a time of change, refocusing and looser structure and thus we have experienced many of the joys and struggles that go hand in hand with that. We have recognized as a community our need to shift the weight of our programming and unite our purpose and vision so that we can move forward together in a healthy, affective, God-fearing manner and face together the very real growing pains that are a part of this process. Living and ministering in community has been one of my greatest joys and most real pains in the past six months. We are all learning what it means to have our actions so definitively affect the other members of our community and that all the decisions we make, good and otherwise, have their consequences in the lives of at least 11 other people. When you give yourself to community you open yourself up to amazing opportunities and great disappointments. You feel so deeply the absence and presence of the other members, you begin to discover the most incredible treasures of God's creation in them, and you begin to understand that letting one another down is a real part of life that our God continues to reconcile in our hearts as we allow him to do so. It's a humbling and messy life that we have chosen but I don't think I would trade it for anything.
In terms of specific ministry developments, we are in the midst of an exciting process of focusing more on the 11-18 year age range and taking on a more individual, focused, initiative based interaction with our older friends who are in a very different stage of their lives. I am excited about working as a team to understand how we can better connect and live life alongside these youth and how we can be a part of the prevention process for them before they are fully engulfed into street life. I see a lot of potential and a lot of hard work ahead as we forge these ties and seek out the Lord's dreams for our friends & ourselves.
As for the Servant Team-wow. I know I will not even begin to be able to scratch the surface in this letter. So many days I felt so unqualified to be the coordinator, but God's grace is so deep. It was an honor to serve alongside and to accompany these four incredible and unique people during their time in Lima. They taught me so much through their fervor, passion, openness, hunger to learn & relate, growing desire to pray and their new ideas. They were so grace giving and flexible as I made lots of rookie mistakes and discovered some great ways to engage them and help them process their time in Lima. In review, I tried to divide their time into three overlapped/integrated parts: Orientation, Engagement, & Debriefing with retreats, book studies and discipleship themes falling along those lines and loosely aiding the transitions. Our Monday night discipleship meetings were a highlight for me as we spent time sharing, processing, being together and then also specifically meditating on one of the WMF Lifestyle Celebrations each week. It was also a privilege to be able to connect with the Bolivia Servant Team for a joint retreat and then a visit to the field in El Alto. We were very blessed and encouraged by our time spent with them. I am excited now to spend some time in the next few months reviewing and evaluating the past for months in preparation to receive another team in August.
As I said, I am very much looking forward to these next few months for our community and for me. I feel that it will be good for all of us to have some time before the next Servant Team arrives so that we as staff and the youth have a chance to process the departure of our friends and prepare ourselves and our hearts to receive another group into the community. Time for revising and organizing some of the materials and other things that worked and did not work with the fall ST will be essential for my development as coordinator and for the betterment of the program here in Lima. In addition, I am excited about having a chance to dive in a little more with the Advocacy team here in Lima. I would appreciate your prayers during this time; that it would be a healthy and rich time of reflection and preparation in terms of the Servant Teams, that I would be attentive to the Holy Spirit's leading in terms of other involvement in the life of the community, and that it would be a time of reconnection with the youth and with the staff.
Personally, it has been quite the year. I am so thankful for my life here and for the privilege to live alongside the beautiful people of this city and this community. I am humbled daily and stumbling to know how to listen and love well, and to see people the way that the Lord our creator sees them. As I grow personally, and my relationships in community grow, I also see the need for connection within the larger body of Christ. Please join me in prayer as I desire to really allow myself to get involved and be truly connected with the church here.
There are many more prayers and hopes that are floating around in my heart and mind that I find difficult to give words to in these moments, but as I have begun to pray and seek the Lord this new year, I am continually brought back to Psalm 96:
“Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD all the earth.
Sing to
the LORD, praise his name; proclaim his salvation day after day.”
So even though the sentences haven't yet formed I know it is time for a new song and I look forward with anticipation to learning the words and the tune, little by little, as each new day unfolds.
Thank you again for your love, your support, your time, your prayers, and your commitment to meeting together.
with love & respect, Monica N. Ghali