Preaching

Good evening to everyone. Hope that all is well with you in your place of service. I just wanted to ask that you would be much in prayer for me tomorrow as I will be preaching Sunday morning at a church here in Arequipa. The pastor will be out of town and he invited me to fill his pulpit for the morning service. I am looking forward to this opportunity. Please also remember Sara in prayer as she comes down the home stretch with Caleb (our new little one who is due in 2 weeks or so). Have a great evening, Robert

Good Trip and Good Class

What a busy last two days it has been. Monday, we went to Chile to get more time for Josiah because his visa recently ran out. We took a 6 hour bus ride to Tacna, Peru, which is the border city with Chile. Then, we took a taxi across the border into Chile. We thank the Lord that we were able to get the maximum time for Josiah's visa of six months. Because the process to get the residence paper takes so long, we wanted to get the maximum time possible. Thank the Lord that we simply asked for the time and they gave it to us (it doesn't always happen that way)! After we had crossed back into Peru, we asked the taxi driver to hurry to the bus station because our bus was to leave at 5:00 p.m.. We got there right at 5:00 and managed to get on the bus with 2-3 minutes to spare. Needless to say, we were quite exhausted after we arrived back in Arequipa at 11:30 at night. But it was 14 hours of travel well-worth it as the Lord allowed us to get the whole process done in one day. Tonight, we had our first English class on the church and 44 people attended. We were thrilled to have this number of people because it was such a wet and rainy night tonight. There were a number of visitors there tonight that do not attend the church. Please pray that we could form relationships and share the Gospel with these people. The classes will be every Tuesday and Thursday night for one hour.

Residence Papers Secured

Well, it has certainly been a busy week this past week or so. We went to Lima, the capital city in Peru, to pick up my mother-in-law last week. Everything went well and she arrived in good time with our field director Chris Gardner and his family; she will have the opportunity to visit us for six weeks. We are very thankful that Bro. Chris and his family are now back living permanently here in the country. Also during the time in Lima, I went to have the LASEK eye surgery performed. I have worn glasses since the sixth grade and had checked out the possiblity of my eyes being corrected back to normal. It is a procedure that can be done here in Peru at a tremendously lower price than in the States. My vision is now back to "perfect" and I am loving it. We also have been trying to get our residence papers so that we would not have to be constantly going out of the country every three months. We had been expecting to get a date sometime in the March or April, but we were pleasantly surprised to learn on this past Tuesday that we had gotten a date for yesterday to get the papers done. Thus, we went to Lima yesterday and got everything situated. Thank the Lord we got everything done in one day (which here in Peru that is saying something) in Lima and were able to fly back to Arequipa in the evening. Thank you for your prayers concerning these things. Please continue to pray because we still have to get Josiah's papers done and this process could possibly take a long while On another side note, I think that I mentioned that the exchange rate for the dollar and sole was at right about 2.80 when we arrived back in July. As of yesterday, the rate had gone up to 3.21 soles on the dollar; this is a tremendous blessing to all the missionaries here. Praise the Lord and thank you for prayers. May the Lord bless you with a wonderful day. Robert