Ground-Breaking, Community-Changing

  Greetings from Peru, where we are officially under construction! Great things are happening in the Andes Mountains of Cardompata, Peru, and in Cusco. There is much to celebrate! 

Cardompata is a mountainous community that four months ago had no church and no knowledge of the gospel. Now, eager community members gather daily to survey the construction progress taking place on the first-ever chapel to be built in their midst. This is a place of worship to call their own, and the entire community has rallied behind this project with tremendous enthusiasm. Already six of the residents have come to Jesus Christ, including the president of the community, and the community is asking us to begin holding services in homes so that they can begin learning about God while the chapel construction is underway. They are hungry for the gospel!

 Likewise, what began in Cusco as a small flame in the original family we met and led to the Lord has now exploded into a fast-growing house church of between 40 and 50 people gathering weekly with a fiery passion and desire for the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. We worship and teach them the Bible, and then we give snacks and sweets to all who attend. There is joyful fellowship—a living picture of Acts 2:46: “…They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.” We are also praising God that the mother of the two boys we dedicated to the Lord (see last month’s newsletter for details) came to house church the following week, which is an answer to prayer.  To date, we have led 50 people in Cusco to Jesus Christ. 

I Need You More Than Ever

Imagine with me what it would be like living in a community that has no place of worship of any kind.  That is what it has been like for the people of Cardompata.  Now a sanctuary is being built so that the name of Jesus can be made famous.  It will be sixty-two feet long and thirty feet wide, with a cathedral ceiling and a small café for fellowship.  Because of your faithful support, you and I can dream together of the hundreds of souls that will be saved here.  But it does not stop with the chapel.  As soon as the chapel is built, we must immediately start building the orphanage.  The need here is great. Numerous are the children here that neither have a warm bed nor a place that they can call home.  At ten-thousand feet of elevation, the temperatures here usually fall into the 30’s and 40’s each night.  As we head into winter, I will more than ever need your help to build a warm and secure place that these children can call their own.

  Before I close, I must share with you 3 very special moments I have experienced here in Cardompata, beginning with the groundbreaking ceremony we had on the property at the onset of our construction. Approximately 60 people from the community gathered for the occasion, including their four elected officials, one of which is “Benigno “—the community’s president who also happens to be the donor of the land on which we are building. In Peruvian style, the people dug a small trench over which they suspended a decorated bottle of champagne and flowers. Benigno then addressed the community, casting vision and explaining what the building project means for their future. Rosa and I also had the chance to address the community, thanking them for the opportunity they are giving us to preach to them the gospel, and then we led them in a prayer of gratitude to God. After prayer, Benigno asked Rosa to assist him in breaking the champagne bottle. As the champagne soaked the ground beneath, the people cheered and celebrated. Then we provided them all with a feast of chicken, boiled potatoes harvested from the very property we had just christened, a beautiful salad, and refreshments. It was a very special day for them and for us; one that will long be remembered.

 The second moment I want to share involves Benigno. A few weeks after I began the construction project, he came to me one day in tears. “Tony,” he said very humbly and sincerely, “Will you teach me to pray?” You can imagine my joy as I paused what I was doing and journeyed on foot with him to the little room where I currently stay. There I explained more about prayer and we knelt down and approached the Throne of Grace together. What an honor!  Two weeks later, his whole family traveled the one-and-a-half-hour car ride to Cusco so that they could attend the house church meeting we were conducting.

  The final moment I share with you happened just last week during one of the days we were pouring cement. Looking into the skies above us, I noticed distant, dark clouds quickly approaching, threatening to ruin our newly-poured cement job. Then I remembered how our Lord Jesus had spoken to the storm on the Sea of Galilee. I decided that I would do the same. In the name of Jesus, I spoke to the storm I saw approaching and forbid it to rain on us. Glory to God, it rained all around our area but never once rained at our construction site. I then proceeded to ask the Lord for a bit of sunshine to dry up our wet cement. After praying, the sun came out and I received exactly what we needed. I was overjoyed, humbled at God’s goodness, and FULL of faith after that experience!  I know that other “storms” will try to form and threaten the work of the Lord, but I am convinced that God is in this and HE will provide everything needed for us to complete this project and see a great harvest of people enter into His kingdom. It is going to take a lot of finances for us to keep constructing. There are two main ways to be involved: we need those who pray and fund the work, and we need those who pray and physically come to participate in the work. It is exhilarating to be involved where the fields are RIPE UNTO HARVEST, and there is A LOT to accomplish. Will you join us in the adventure?

From the Andes of Cardompata, Peru,

Tony and Rosa Rivera