Prayer Mail

Dear Partners in Prayer,

Peace be with you.

This is our weekly public prayer mail. We started it yesterday, and the final editing was today.

Thanksgivings:

1) Classes have begun and are off to a strong start. We had a very good preaching class tonight. We team-teach, and my unbiased opinion is that Julie did an exceptional job.

2) We had special prayer time in a person's home in Villa el Salvador (a District in Lima) on Sunday evening, after the service. The service was good too, and was partly a healing service; we led it with a lay person who is in the ordination process; he went with us to the house visitation, and he was awesome when praying in the home. The service had lasted two hours. Some serious things were going on in people´s lives that needed prayer. After all the above, we met with the in-laws´ family of the person in the ordination process for about an hour or so at the apartment at the church, and listened to their insights on what is making this generation in Peru tick.

3) Praise God that we did not have an accident either to or from the service on Sunday because of our taxi´s bad tire. Our usual taxi was able to take us, after all, and will do so, next week, as well. That is a real answer to prayer. As for the flat tire, we were at the church and vicinity for about 4 hours or so at night, in part because our taxi driver (another seminarian) had a flat tire, and his spare tire had two holes in it. He spent about 2 hours getting it repaired. We discovered the flat tire on the way to the home-visitation after the service. It just went flat during the service on its own. It is now in tire heaven. The adventure sounds a lot easier than it was, to get the tire repaired.

4) Praise God that people hung in there through the service on Sunday evening, with the bull-horn from a passing vendor blaring for the first part of the service so loudly, that sitting 10 feet away from the preacher, at times I could not hear the preacher. The vendor was trying to get the attention of the people playing futbol in the park near the church. Wow, and the people in the congregation really hung in there. They liked the prayer time, best. Music was good.

5) Praise God that I survived a serious cat allergy issue with hardly a symptom afterwords, in the home we visited on Sunday evening. That in itself was amazing. All the time, I kept praying for the other people who were ministering, and doing that, kept the allergy symptoms somewhat in a kind of stasis, and afterwards, nothing. Wow. Amazing.

6) Praise God for the rest of our week. Orientation week and the matriculation service at the seminary went rather well; the matriculation process and registration process has gone well.

7) Praise God that we had an opportunity to check in with our daughter, Ruth, in Chicago, on Sunday, between the services at the Mission of Ascencion in the morning and the mission at Jesus el Salvador in the evening. Sunday was Ruth´s birthday. Go, Ruth!

Prayers:

1) For the people, relationships, ministries, finances, planning, and priorities associated with the Diocese of Peru, Saints Augustine seminary, and the Missionaries in Peru (including us).

2) For the seminary courses, and for the preparations for the graduation service in April.

3) For the Albany short term mission trip plans in late July, and the mission trip preparation discussions that continue to take place.

4) For our landlady, her husband, and the others in our apartment building. We are planning to renew our lease for another year (one year at a time), and we hope that the renewal goes smoothly.

5) For Julie at New Wineskins and the SAMS worldwide conference in April in North Carolina, and for Julie, Lydia, and I in Pennsylvania and New York State/Connecticut in May/June, including our Diocesan Convention.

6) For the students and faculty of the seminary. For the improved access to the library and proper use of the computer system and the photocopy machine. For the various other administrative matters over the next year and half.

7) For the people in and involved with the Bishop Suffragan process. We hope to be hearing a list of candidates soon. The election is in about another month.

8) That the Holy Spirit would raise up the next clerical leadership for Jesus el Salvador, soon. We are helping out, there, in the interim.

9) For our Spanish. Personally, I pray this for our family every day. There is always something new to learn, and we want to be very good at it.

Thank you for praying for us. It makes a difference. I pray for you every day.

God bless you.
In Christ,
Shaw, and on behalf of Julie and Lydia
Lima, Peru