Developments:
Last month our pledged monthly financial support remained at 70.3% of our budget; after adding one-time donations the Lord provided 92.5% of our budget—our Lord will be proven faithful..!
* On May 20th we had a special service in the church where we shared the vision for the church and showed the different ministries and potential opportunities for service. After this, we all filled a spiritual gift survey where we identified the different spiritual gifts that God had given us and are being encouraged to put them to use in the church for the glory of our Father.
That same day, we said goodbye to the Luna's as they headed to Cuzco for a couple of weeks before returning to the US. We are thankful to God for giving us the Luna's for a couple of months to bless our congregation with their spiritual gifts. Thank you Esteban, Violeta and Patty--you will be missed!
* May 21st was moving day for us and we're glad to report that we survived our move number seven, as a family, and number 13, personally. During this move we saw, once again, the body of Christ come together to help and comfort us. The glory of God displayed in very powerful ways as He orchestrated key resources as they were needed on the spot--God, You're awesome!!
After all was said and done, between the security deposit, a new refrigerator, a new water heater, and other unavoidable moving expenses we are about $4000 in the hole. We're trusting on God's provision..!
* On May 25th I got together with my fellow missionary Shane Treadway for dinner as he was visiting Lima in preparation for this year's missions course, Kairos, from Pioneers, Peru.
* On May 27th I shared the preliminary corporate results of the previous week's spiritual gifts survey with the congregation. We were pleasantly surprised to realize that about 87% of our congregation showed the gift of faith, no wonder the strength of our prayer meeting as it counts with the attendance of about 50% of our congregation--this is VERY encouraging! Later, Juan taught the congregation on spiritual gifts to equip the congregation and to promote the use of our God-given gifts for the works of service.
* On May 31st our son Sebastian reached a milestone as he started wearing contact lenses. Two days latter attended, all by himself, his first men's breakfast with the church. We're all blessed by his growth, both physically and spiritually--Father, glorify Your name in and through our children.
* On June 4th our TV set, that served our family since 2007, officially died.
* On June 5th Sandra Alegre got back from the States and that night our Prayer Meeting group had our first Prayer Walk. We divided in six groups that took on six different sets of blocks around our church location in Miraflores. We went out praying, as the Spirit led, for the furthering of the kingdom of God all around us. At the end we met back at the church and shared our experiences. We all coincided that we were pleasantly surprised by the strength of the leading of God's Spirit as we went about doing this--thank You, Lord, for opening before our selfish and unbelieving eyes the beauty of the life centered in others and the power of prayer through intercession.
Prayer Needs:
* For a fresh and empowering view of God, that we may learn to see His goodness in all places and in all things, and that His will be done in our lives.
* For our marriage, our devotional lives, and for our kids to continue to grow in their desire to know the Lord.
* For God's provision to pay for the moving expenses we had when we moved to our new home back in May.
* For God's leading on establishing the new multiple Sunday service format in our church.
* For a downpour of spiritual realities and an intense hunger for God in the hearts of everyone in the church, including our children and our youth.
* For the healing hand of God on the marriages of our church.
* For the development of male leadership in our church.
* For the Lord to make the ministry of the Alegre's here in Miraflores an extremely fruitful one to the glory of God.
* For the development of healthy home groups within our congregation where people come to know and grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
* For the Lord to strengthen and develop godly homeschooling here in Peru.
* For the salvation of the people of the Club Terrazas Swimming Team and beyond.
* For ministry opportunities with the orphanage El Amparo, the shelter for girls The House of Glory, and our local brothers from HeartCry Missionary Society.
* For the hungry kids of Lurin and Rimac and for the men in the rehab centers in Rimac and Victory Fellowship.
* For the missionary team from CC Ft. Lauderdale - Plantation Campus that arrived on June 14th and we'll be staying with us until June 24th.
* For our 1st missionary trip as a church to the mountains of Peru in August.
* For our monthly financial support to go back to 100% of our budget.
Thank you for holding us up through your love and faithful work of intercession..!
In His love,
Andres, Karla, Sebastian, Daniel, and Samuel—the Garcia’s.
PS: Make sure to check out the new pictures of our recent activities to your left... We've been having problems with the blog so if you don't see the new picture slides go straight to Picasa.
