Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We know that many of you have been praying a little extra for us in these days and we thank you for it. I (Micah) am back to 100% after fighting with "bone break" dengue, Amy is also completely healthy after her difficulties with vertigo and Mya is feeling much better after having struggled with diarrhea and vomiting for a few days.

A couple of weeks ago, if we had taken our 17 hour trip through the jungle, over the mountains and down the coast to Trujillo we would have been stuck there and unable to make it back to Tarapoto. The highway opened up for only a few days and then was once again taken over by natives who still refuse to let anyone through until the government promises to stop exploiting them and their lands. As a result our city continues to be cut off from all transportation, commerce and gasoline. The city's electrical grid is run by gasoline generators which will no longer be able to function by midnight tonight for lack of combustible. The city has been rationing power the last ten nights cutting streetlights and starting tonight it'll be no electricity at all! (This might be our last e-mail for a while).

Today everyone is listening for news as much violence has broken out at the roadblock (Bagua Grande – halfway between here and the coast). The government has sent in hundreds of police armed with machine guns to take on thousands of natives armed with blow guns, spears and bows and arrows. Today a helicopter has been downed and the natives have killed several police but of course the police and army have taken out many more of the natives with their modern weapons. In Yurimaguas, the natives are outraged at the news of the killing and are preparing ambushes from the jungle around the highway and we've heard they are planning to blow up gas stations if and when the police attempt to get close.

Please pray with us that they can come to a peaceful solution soon.

-Micah for the Tuttle's

PS. When we say `natives', we do not use the term insensitively as, we as the American missionaries are the civilized and the Peruvians are the uncivilized! The term `natives' is a term the Peruvians themselves use for this people group, who are living as their ancestors have historically lived in their villages and/or nomadically living off the land. This is in contrast to the approximate other half of Peruvians who are part of a mestizo group who are of mixed Spanish and native Peruvian descent.