A few days before Christmas, Micah returned from the wild; that is, the bi-annual convention of the churches from along the upper Huallaga River. The conference was held in Yarina, a village of perhaps 1000 inhabitants. The aforementioned village being basically overrun for three days by more than 300 church goers from other villages around the area. Micah reports that his talks went really well. He says, “I started out by offending the fathers, exhorting them to love their wives more. I went on to offend the mothers, reminding them of their duty to respect their husbands. Last but not least, I offended the children by speaking to the parents of the urgent need to consistently discipline their children.” Quite despite this, they seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed the topic!

Micah traveled with nine of the believers from the church here on Thursday, all of whom slept together in one room; Micah inside his little tent. Sure it's hot, but at least you can zip everyone out for a few moments here and there for some sermon preparation or momentary relief of constant curious onlookers! One afternoon, Micah jumped into the river and was bitten by a flesh eating fish! And he, of course, PROUD of this! I'm just glad he arrived home alive and in one piece. If you care to read some unsettling information about these fish – follow these links:

http://fishindex.blogspot.com/2008/06/candiru.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candiru
http://animal.discovery.com/fish/river-monsters/candiru-catfish/

At the end of the conference, there was a meeting of church leaders in which one of the official points of discussion was none other than our very own Micah Tuttle. Yikes. That's enough to make one squirm a little. One's mind tends to run with that kind of information. Even as Micah was recounting the story to me, I was on pins and needles to hear how the topic fleshed out. But, surprised and humbled, he told me that the leaders wanted to purposely acknowledge and publicly recognize our family's sacrifice and dedication to the Lord's work in this area. They expressed their deeply felt gratitude for us having moved here to work with and encourage the churches in this region. Wow. Praise the LORD. It was definitely He who brought us here. What more can we say, it seriously is not of ourselves... Life here is less than convenient, it's not comfortable most of the time, and we certainly have had some down days. But His mercies are new EVERY morning. Great is YOUR faithfulness, O God. How to express the awesomeness of a God so faithful, so true? He will never fail us.

Please continue to pray for the work here. We SO need Him to continue to equip us, weak as we are in many areas, so that His body will be fed and nurtured. Pray that He would knit us together in love, together with all the saints and foster in us a willingness to be poured out on His behalf. Pray that we would cling to Him, keeping our gaze fixed on Himself, for we cannot bear the burden alone.

Thank you for your faithful intercession, your loving thoughts and kind notes. Thank you to each of you who have sent gifts this past year, and specifically those for the building project. We are looking forward to seeing much new growth in the coming year!

Amy for the Tuttles

PS. Unfortunately, something has cracked inside our less-than-a-year-old point and shoot camera, and so Micah was unable to take pictures of this event! We're so very sorry! We know you love the pictures!