Today we landed at our home in Tarapoto Peru!  We are beyond excited to be here with the brethren for the next several weeks and there are many ministry events on the schedule that I will be reporting about in the next blog.  But for now let me just say that it took many minor miracles to get here! There were so many hoops and obstacles to go through it was unbelievable.  We had to have the right face-masks and the right documents to go on the right flight with the right Covid tests, taken within the right time frame and, of course, all for the right price :/ ..... Yet, it all came together!  We are praising the Lord!     

I have let too much time go by without a blogpost/news-update and so many things have happened in these last two months that I cannot relate them all here. Exciting evangelistic encounters seem to be a regular occurrence wherever I go and there are many stories I could tell but let me focus on the one that is having the most multiplying effect.  This is just a short testimony about what the Lord has done in the life of a man in Watsonville named Michael.   

About a year ago one of our team members (Micah Williams) invited Michael to visit our little house church.  At the time Michael was growing and selling marijuana and dabbling in Hinduism, and was really searching for spiritual answers.  Fast-forward several months and he is now growing in a different way..... He is growing leaps and bounds in Christ!   I've been teaching Michael how I read the bible and how I take notes each morning and he's really putting it into practice.  He sends me a screenshot nearly every morning of all his notes from the 12 chapters he reads each day!  He's been reading his bible with reckless abandon and soaking up everything he's taught!  One of the other guys at our house church gave Michael a book on holiness which he immediately devoured and then yet another brother has been meeting with Michael and teaching him how to pray.  

When Michael learned from Dave Reeve how to lead a bible study he started asking some of his old marijuana friends to read the scriptures with him and they were so curious as to what had happened to their friend that they actually came .... and with great interest!  Michael invited Ceasar who, in turn invited Julian.  Michael also invited Tony who invited his friend Jonathan and now they are all quite excited about what they are finding as the read through the gospel of John.  All of these guys are pretty rough around the edges but precious in Gods eyes! 

A bible study with unbelievers is quite different than your typical "church cell group".  While doing the study the other night I was offered pot more than once, the F-word was quite commonly used to express joy over what they were discovering, there were plenty of cigarettes on the table and one guy even slipped into an off-colored joke.... but then caught himself and apologized.  But it was within that kind of context that there were actually some really good questions and some really good discussions about evil the world and suffering and the judgement to come.  A couple of times there were tears of joy but mixed with a trembling in fear of God.  There was no religiosity, no pretending to be something that they aren't, just a genuine interest and an honest searching of the scriptures.  We spent four hours in the first chapter of John that night and there were some amazing discussions about the person and work of Christ.  That particular  study was one of those awesome God-ordained moments that I will always remember.  Please pray for Michael as he continues to reach out to his friends!          

Missions quote for the day by Lawrence Tribble: "One man wakes, awakens another, second one wakes his next door brother. Three awake can rouse a town and turn the whole place upside down. Many awake will cause such a fuss, it will awake all of us. One man wakes with dawn in his eyes, surely then it multiplies."   

Micah for the Tuttle's