A rice field outside of San Rafael

We had a great trip to the jungle in order to visit with missionary Arturo M. Arturo is serving there as the pastor of a church that he planted in the town of San Rafael. He and his wife Gladys have been serving there for close to ten years. Gladys is from Lima and Arturo lived in Lima from the time that he was 14. He is originally from another town close to San Rafael.

In addition to serving as pastor, Arturo is also kind of a leader in the "local" Baptist association of 12 churches. I say "local" because the churches in the association are actually pretty spread out. In order to get to San Rafael some of these brothers had to walk over 9 hours.

Teaching during one of the conference sessions

Our main purpose in going to the jungle was to lead a conference for the pastors of these churches.We taught on the gospel, justification, regeneration, and the attributes of God. With regard to the gospel, Arturo was very much impacted by HeartCry's 2007 conference in Lima on the same subject. The focus of that conference was on the gospel and on how conversion is a supernatural work of God which consequently can not be brought about through manipulative evangelistic tactics.

Arturo leading music during one of the evening worship services

Arturo shared with us a couple of times that the 2007 conference was a turning point in his life. After the conference he came home and began to make some serious changes in the way that he was leading his church. He tried to cut out manipulative tactics and "church growth" gimics. Consequently several people left his church. Nevertheless, he has pressed forward in seeking to lead his church in the right direction.

Arturo also had shared some with the other pastors about his new understanding and practices. Most of them were very interested but not totally convinced of the things that he shared with them. Since our conference dealt with many of the same subjects we also were able to address many of the issues and questions that the pastors were dealing with.

2009 Conference participants and leaders

I believe that most of our teaching was very well received. The brothers seemed very receptive and very eager to learn. They invited us back whenever we wanted to come. Martin may be making plans to come back some time this year. Please pray that the things that these brothers learned at the conference would contribute to helping them to establish healthy, biblical, God honoring churches.

The pastors having breakfast at Arturo and Gladys's home before class started

Today we have been resting here in Lima and we will probably do so for the next few days before we head out to Sullana for a pastors' conference there. While there we will also be able to visit with 8 of our HeartCry missionaries.

Tomorrow is Peruvian Independence Day. So ¡Felices Fiestas Patrias!

A beautiful view during the trip from Tarapoto to San Rafael