August 1, 2007 Dear Sweet Friends & Family, It was another Tuesday night on the streets and I was looking for my friend C to wish him a happy birthday. He turned 13 on the Sunday before and Sarah and I were hoping to take him out for a celebratory lunch of salad, french fries, rotisserie chicken, & Inca Cola. When I finally saw him I ran up to him to pitch our idea. Before I knew it there were tears streaming down his face. He left his home shortly after his birthday last year and the passing of this one was a sharp reminder that a year had passed. He had spent his birthday on the streets and hadn't even remembered until that moment when I came running up to him. I hugged him. I grasped for something to say but no words came to my mind, so, I just squeezed a little tighter. Then the most amazing thing happened. The other boys began to notice C's tears and gather around. I started to push them away because I thought they would tease him. I couldn't have been more wrong. First came the questions “Por qué estás llorando?” “Why are you crying?” “Qué pasò amigo?” “What happened, friend?”, and then the “Why didn't you tell us it was your birthday?” “Its not too late to celebrate!” “happy birthday!” and there were hugs, lots of hugs. And I sat in the middle of the beautiful circle of boys and listened to them encourage each other and tell stories of birthdays forgotten & dreams of better ones to come. C's good friend J piped up, “The devil doesn't want us to have good things, that's why we need to pray to Jesus for truth.” I nodded and wiped the tears from my eyes and C's eyes. Again the words failed to come to me and I was in awe at the face of Jesus so clearly reflected in those boys' eyes. Through J's words truth was spoken into darkness. We talked a little about what J meant by that. We agreed that it is never too late to celebrate a birthday, that our God is a God who gives second, third, fourth and ninetieth chances, and that just because its been a year doesn't mean its too late to go home and/or try to make things right. Another group of boys came over to hug C and before I knew it I was in the center of a huge circle of boys and girls playing their instruments and singing every version of the happy birthday song they could come up with. During a lull in the impromptu celebration I got up and hugged them both and we agreed to meet for that celebratory lunch the next week, their songs filling my ears as I walked away. The whole idea of truth has been, and what it means to see truly has been surfacing in a lot of my thoughts, conversations, experiences & prayers. Amidst the suffering, finding truth and clinging to it is essential. Seeing things as they truly are, through the eyes of God, completely changes my point of view when I am able to get glimpses. At a conference about ministry to at-risk youth, which we recently hosted, I had the opportunity to share about the privilege it is to search for the “hidden treasures” that are the youth. Treasures that are seen and discovered when we are searching with the eyes of God, and when we are allowing truth to break down the lies we've been told about what makes a person valuable. C and his friends who gathered around him are hidden treasures and I am blessed to know them. They push me forward in the search for truth and in the fight against the lies that so often surround us, and I hope I do the same for them. Please pray for us as we walk this road together, that we would cling to truth in all things and ever be seeking to see ourselves, and the world the eyes of God. Please pray as well for the new Servant Team. We are excited to welcome these six incredible girls into the Lima community for the next four months. Pray for me as I lead them, for our community as we receive them, and for them as they integrate and open themselves to what God has for their time with us. It was a joy and a blessing to see and communicate with many of you over the past month. You have encouraged me and inspired me in ways you probably aren't even aware of. Time with you is priceless and I hold it in my heart as a treasure. Thank you a million times over. I attached a field update for those of you I wasn't able to see face to face. I am here because you make it possible through your generosity, your encouragement, your prayers, and your love. You amaze me. Thanking God for you! love & peace, Monica N. Ghali 344 America 3er Piso Pueblo Libre Lima 21, PERU http://mghali.blogspot.com 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. 1. 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. a. 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. b. 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! 2. 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 Go
d 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.” a. 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. b. 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. 3. 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. a. Emails addresses: The following are all of our current email addresses, which we check on a daily (or multiple times daily) basis. i. Anna: amonteviller@gmail.com ii. Jose Luis: lpvjose@gmail.com iii. Sebastián: jssevilla@gmail.com iv. Brian: brian.langley@wordmadeflesh.com v. David: david.smith@wordmadeflesh.com vi. Linsey: linsey.higgins@wordmadeflesh.com vii. Monica: monica.ghali@wordmadeflesh.com viii. Rachel: rachel.langley@wordmadeflesh.com ix. Sarah: sarah.dobrin@wordmadeflesh.com b. The 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. c. 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! i. 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. ii. 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.
