Back to school!

The first week of our language classes is officially in the books. The classes are going really good and we both feel we are gaining a lot from them. Our classes start at 8:30 A.M. and finish at 12:00. Typically we have about an hour of homework. I must say it feels a little odd to be sitting in a class setting again at 42. I have to admit that the thought of, God, if you have me back in school learning a new language at 42 what else do you have in store for me? I try not to let my mind wonder down this path to far and just take things one moment at a time.

Carmen has started going to a school in Arequipa for the month that we are here. She was real nervous to start this school. Not only did she not know any one; this also was her first experience going to an all-Spanish speaking school. On the first day we stopped by at lunchtime to see how she was doing. Well in true Carmen spirit, she was all smiles, had a circle of kids gathered around her desk, and she was playing a card game with them. She saw us, came out real quick to tell us she was fine, and told us to go on. Her school starts at 7:50 and gets out at 2:30. We are able to walk her to school on our way to school then Amy and I have a couple hours to spend by ourselves before picking her up.

The cooler temperatures of Arequipa have been a nice change from the hot, humid jungle. It is nice to wake up in the morning, spend some time with God, and watch the sunrise over some snow capped mountains! The city is also a much more modern city than what we have in the jungle. It has been real nice to be able to get to go to school but also it is nice to get a little break from the rigors of life in the jungle. It is nice the way the schedules are set up. Amy and I feel like we have gotten some much needed time to focus on our relationship, which has been hard to do while living in the jungle. The family we are renting the apartment from took Carmen to a kids club so Amy and I took advantage of this and spent some time exploring the city. We all feel extremely blessed to have this opportunity to focus on learning more of the language. Thanks for all the prayers and support.

When God moves.....

    What a blessing it was to be a part of our first youth event at the Oasis Youth Center! The church from Iquitos put on quite the event for the youth here in Nauta. There were short dramas, interpretive dances, a short sermon, and lots of music.  The attendance started out a little low but in typical jungle fashion as the dramas began and the volume of the music was raised the people started to come to see what was happening at the old “Oasis disco tek”. When it was all said and done there was around 100 youth and adults getting to witness what God had done with what was once a bar. At the end of the event there was eight people who received Christ.  After praying with these eight I was talking to one of them who happened to be a bit older than the rest. He told me that he used to frequent the Oasis bar quite often and had just happened to be walking by this night and saw what we had going on. It interested him so he came in and was touched by the Holy Spirit and received Christ and wants to turn his life around. What a mighty God we serve and what a blessing it is to see His work being done.

    Preparations continue for our travel to language school in November. This will be a month long school which is located in the southern part of Peru. We are extremely excited about going to this school and getting better with the language.  After a year of immersion, we feel God is telling us the next step is getting into a structured language school setting and learning how to put the vocabulary together so we can better our communication skills.

   Thanks for the continued prayers and we look forward to updating you soon.

Through the eyes of a child.....

So today Carmen made this awesome video. It is her outlook of what the last year in our family has been like. What an amazing gift to see our journey through her eyes. To see what matters most to her. I see family, friends, animals, and lots and lots of joy, laughter, and smiles. Through all our worries and struggles of the past year...this is what stands out. I love this amazing girl and am humbled by her  daily. I also love the song she chose to explain this video...Appreciated! Please watch this video and enjoy our journey through her eyes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGtOHbOJ1Rk

Jungle update

It’s been quite a while since we have made any updates here, so here goes to fixing that problem. At the end of last week Amy and I (Joel) came down with some sort of stomach flu type thing that had us both captive to either the bed or the bathroom. I am feeling much better now and Amy seemed to be on the mend also until BAM! Yesterday she seemed to have been struck again. We’re hoping this time its only for the day. Carmen took it all in stride and continued to do her schoolwork, and help take care of her sick parents. We love that girl’s independence.

There is a vocational institute here in Nauta that teaches different classes such as tourism, secretarial, and agricultural, as well as other trades. Part of the tourism class is that they teach the students English. We were invited by the teacher and have begun to help teach the English part of this class. Along with us helping teach English the teacher has agreed to work with us on our Spanish.

Our prayer for the youth center has been that other people would catch our vision for reaching the youth here in Nauta and if this were going to happen it would need to be done through local people. In other words we have a building you can use, we can help with the program, but culturally we need help to come up with a program that will work for them. Well, This Saturday there is a team of 20 youth coming out from a church in Iquitos to put on an event for the youth here in Nauta. They plan on showing up here around 2pm and will head out into the town to round up and invite the youth to come. The program will begin at 5 and run for approximately 1 ½ hrs. This is a huge blessing and a direct answer to prayer. They’re bringing the program, we’re providing the building.

October Newsletter

So we finally got our newsletter completed! Click on the link below to read how God is using Junglemaster here in Peru.

McGee October Newsletter

Oasis Youth Center

It was a few days before the lease agreement was to be signed. We were praying that God would continue to open doors and that his will be done. Our good friend Keny randomly showed up for a visit and I started telling Keny about the possibility of renting the building and our ideas of a youth center there.  I told him we weren’t quite sure where God was leading with the use of the building but we were positive God wanted us to pursue renting it. Keny then proceeded to tell me about two churches that he works with in Iquitos; he knew they would be excited about partnering with us in this. His idea was that they could send youth from their churches for overnight “short term missions” to put on events and help get the youth of Nauta excited about this. I told him I thought this was a great idea but lets not say anything to anybody until I have the lease agreement signed and in my hands. Well Keny got a little excited about all this and went back to Iquitos and started talking to the pastors. The next day I received this message from him “I Just talked with Pastor Alcides my friend from Manantial de Bendiciones, a church in front of The University UCP next to San Juan Municipality, he likes the idea to go with his youth ministry and do programs in your place. He would like to go every week ... Si, I will try to connect another 3 churches,  we will have many teams to Help you!”

This morning I was drinking my morning coffee and just spending some quiet time with God, when I heard his quiet voice. This fits perfectly with the vision of Junglemaster (to train up leaders and pastors so that they can take the Word deep into the jungle to reach the lost). I had missed this part when I was envisioning a youth center. Let’s stop and think about this for a minute; the church of Iquitos sending young missionaries to Nauta to reach the lost youth of Nauta. The youth of Nauta getting trained to be leaders and missionaries and sending mission teams to the villages on the river to reach the kids there. Then those youth taking what they have learned even deeper in the jungle.

We feel that training current leaders and pastors is extremely important so that correct doctrine can be taught. We are also starting to see that if we want the cultural cycles to stop we need to be focused on empowering and training the youth. Teaching them the Bible and why it’s not ok to continue the cycle of sex, drugs and violence. Teach them that through Christ there are ways to be released of this bondage that a lot of them are trapped in. Show them the peace that they can have through the love and grace only Christ can give us.

Do you want to partner with us too? We are excited and ready to get things moving! You can be a part of this also in so many ways. Have you ever wanted to come to the jungle, are you one that has felt the calling to go on a mission trip and just haven’t been sure where to go? I ask you to seriously pray and ask God if this is where he may want you to go to get involved and see the hand of God at work. We also believe that this area needs to be in constant prayer, we believe we are starting to see huge changes because we know this area is being washed in prayer but we believe with more prayer poured over this area we will see even more changes, so please partner with us in daily prayers that the enemies strong hold on this area will be lifted.  Maybe Gods prompting you to partner financially, if you feel God prompting you to partner financially you can go to our Junglemaster blog page http://www.junglemaster.blogspot.com where there is a paypal link, or you can also find the Junglemaster address at the blog and mail a check. Most importantly though we ask you to pray and really ask God where God wants you to partner with us in doing his work. I also might suggest you ask God for courage to partner with us, God asks us to step out in faith and that takes courage, and the only place to get this courage is through him, by asking him for it.

God Bless you, your missionaries in the jungles of Peru.

Carmen's room

So as you can imagine; we were a tad bit happy that Carmen has her own room now.  After six months of sharing a room; it was time. But, we didn't realize just how happy Carmen was until we found this little video on Joel's phone. Thought I would share....

Our Foundation

Where is our foundation? Is it in our country, our state, our city, our churches or our homes? Or is it in the Lord?

We were having a devotional this morning and we were talking about having a foundation in the Lord. Carmen jokingly said, “ I have a strong foundation, our house.”

As I started to correct her …the next words that came out of my mouth shocked and convicted me.

I started to explain how our foundation should be from God. I told her about how I had moved 32 times before I was 23 years old. How this caused me to not have what the world sees as a secure foundation.  I told her that even though we moved all the time I always had Jesus with me. He was my friend. And, I always seemed to make new friends wherever I went. I explained to her that it didn’t mean it wasn’t hard for me and I didn’t struggle but my foundation rested more on Jesus.

I told her how I had always wanted what my other friends had i.e., getting to stay in one place, grow up with people you had known all your life, etc. And, how finally at 20 God had given me that in Bellingham.  I told her how I was able to finally put down roots. But, that it makes it harder to leave too.

That was when it hit me!! As I was trying to explain to my daughter how not having a strong foundation in the Lord makes us vulnerable to the world; I realized what had been happening to me.

In the last 20 years our family, friends, church, and even Bellingham have become my foundation. I realized that the reason I have been struggling so hard emotionally on the mission field is that my focus has been on the wrong foundation.

Ouch that stings just a little bit!

I was talking to Carmen saying, the reason her and I have been having a hard time with things is because we keeping looking to get to the time we can get back to our “foundation”….not good! This is really hard for me to write and I am ashamed to admit it. 

But, as 1 John 1:9 says: If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

God spoke to me so clearly this morning… He is my foundation!!! I love Him with all my heart and need to turn back to Him as my strong foundation and my everything.

No matter where we go in the world, we will always have family and friends. We are not leaving anything behind or losing anything. Instead we are gaining so much and growing the family of God!

Psalms 62:2 “Truly He is my rock and my salvation; He is my fortress, I will never be shaken.”