A true faith in Jesus Christ will not suffer us to be idle. No, it is an active, lively, restless principle; it fills the heart, so that it cannot be easy till it is doing something for Jesus Christ.

—George Whitefield

We leave on August 9th!!!!!!

We are leaving for Peru on August 9th.  We could not be more excited to go and see what the Lord has in store for us.  The Lord is so faithful and is continuing to confirm to us that we are following His lead.

Psalms 37:4 says "Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart."

When you read that, sometimes we take it like God will give us all that we want, all that our heart desires.  Jesus said in John 14  "whatever you ask in My name I will do" Then in John 15 Jesus said  "you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you".  See the more we have fellowship with Jesus and the more we abide in Him, as John 15 states, we will begin to have the same desires as Christ.  We will be conforming to the image of Christ, so we will be asking and desiring the things that Christ would be.  When we present our request before God they will be more inline with what Christ would be seeking.
When we "delight" ourselves with Jesus, He will "give" you your desires.  I take it like Jesus Himself with place in your heart, your desires, what you long for, what you yearn for.  Delight yourselves today in Him, open His word and let Him speak to you today.  He is so faithful.

Prayer letter

This is our prayer letter that we have sent out.  Please keeps us in your prayers.  We are planning to leave on August 11, so the time is getting close.   Check it out here-

http://public.iwork.com/document/?a=p197660524&d=Petriks_to_Peru_cajamarca.pages

As I was preparing for 1 Samuel 16, I was comforted by the fact that God didn't give Samuel all the details about what was going to take place when he got to Bethlehem.  I like to know all the details before I do anything.  That is mans way.  See God isn't going to give us the play by play before we go and He has been growing me in this area.  If God was going to show us everything that was gonna take place, maybe we wouldn't go.  The Lord wants us to be relying on Him and if we knew the out come, if we had already seen the big picture we probably wouldn't really be dependent upon Him.  When Samuel got to Jesse's house the Lord instructed Samuel what to do.  Each step of the way the Lord revealed more to Samuel, all the way up to the point when he anointed David.  Samuel really didn't know what was going to take place, not all the details, but he went any ways.  It was very encouraging for me, a very detail oriented person to see Samuel's faith and the Lord leading.  Hope it encourages you as well.

Jig Saw Puzzle

    The other day I heard a pastor speaking and he was using this analogy about jig saw puzzles.  It really made sense to me.  At this point in our lives that is where we are at.  When I do a jig saw puzzle I start with all the straight lines, the outside border and then work my way to the middle.  Fitting all the pieces together.   Right now we got the four corners out and are getting all the flat edge pieces out to start the border.  As we put the pieces together we will see the picture more clearly.

     The border for us is going to bible college and getting a firm foundation.  Getting well prepared that way we have the message to bring.   A lot of people have asked us why go to school just get out in the field.  I had struggled with that until I was sharing with a pastor and he told me a bible story.  It was when Davids son Absalom was in rebellion.  Davids men ended up killing him.  They were getting ready to send out a messenger to report to David and there was one guy who kept insisting to let him go because he was faster.  Finally they said ok go.  He ran and ran, he was much faster than the other messenger no doubt.  David saw him coming from a distance, covering a lot of ground.  David knew that he must have an important message.  As David went out to meet him the messenger was out of breath.  David said what is it?  What happened?  The messenger said " there was all kinds of dust and commotion!"  David says "AND WHAT HAPPENED?"  The messenger replies "There were many men and fighting"  David again responds "WHAT HAPPENED?"  The messenger didn't have the message.  He was there he saw it yet he couldn't deliver it.  How important is it that we have the message and are able to bring it to people so they know what that message is. After hearing that it gave us such peace that we are taking the right steps.  That is why we are going to school first.  While in school we will be learning to live cross culturally.  Learning the language and how to serve to people.  It will be an important time.
    As we get more of the pieces plugged in, we will see what the Lord has in store for us, but we are just one piece at a time.
  

Back from Peru!!!!!

We are back from our short trip to Peru.  It was such a blessed time.  The staff and the students were very welcoming.  The Lord is definitely continuing to guide us in that direction.  We foresee one of the struggles we will encounter, which is family time.  I will be very busy with school and practical ministry that we really won't have a great amount of just family time.  Please pray that we can set a schedule so that we have some quality time.  On the positive side the Peruvian culture is so warm and they love kids.  Also the school seems very kids friendly.   At this point we are starting to get everything in order so we can leave in late July or early August.

Going to "spy the land"

We are heading down to Peru today to get a feel for the area.  We will be down there for about a week checking out the school and all the ministry opportunities.  Very excited to see all that the Lord is doing in Peru.  Please pray that the Lord will gives us direction on our housing situation.