1st week in Peru. Changes, Baptisms, & Spanish

*Originally written and sent out October 1st, 2012*
Writing to you from Arequipa, Peru, my temporary home for the next 5+ months. I’ve been here for a week now, and I can only say Gracias a Dios for everything that He’s doing, preparing, and starting.

- Living with a family with 2 kids 6 & 7 years old, on the roof’s bedroom quarters.

- Spanish classes 4hr/day, 5 days/week.

- Helping with local missionary’s Home bible studies, and discipleship classes 2-4 times a week.

- 6 people baptized, 1 new salvation, lots of people studying & hungry.

- 1 Earthquake our first night

- My team rules, my teachers rule, my host family rules, Extreme staff rules, my house rules, and the local missionaries rule.Pictures, videos, and brief updates available to everyone on my facebook: www.facebook.com/davidandrewmorrison

The Long, Very Detailed, David style update, blog style:

Apologies that it has taken me so long to update. We’re either extremely busy (90% of the time) with Spanish classes, outreach events, 4am prayer, Casas Abiertas – home bible studies, discipleship classes, & eating…. OR – My brain is just too scrambled from learning, speaking, reading, and singing so much Spanish that I can’t even figure out how to type out a full length story in English of what has been going on here, b/c I’ve been telling all the Peruvians in Spanish!When I left Iowa last week it was… hard! I had already said goodbye to a lot of friends and family members around the country, but I still had a couple more goodbyes to say at the airport with my friends. A couple good friends of mine that I lived with for the last several years ended up having their baby a few days early, the day before I left, so they weren’t able to see me off to the airport as planned. That was pretty emotional! While goodbyes were hard, they only confirm more the calling of God on my life to be here. We don’t do it FOR rewards, but if you ever question leaving your family/home for the sake of the Kingdom, you can be excited about the Red letters in the Gospel that say those who leave Home, Family, Friends, etc. Mark 10:29-30…. will receive 100x more in this earth, and eternal life in the next. BOOM! I don’t even know what I will do with 100x, but if Jesus said it, I believe it!If you’ve been following my Facebook, then you’ve seen some brief updates and pictures. If not, you can follow along here, all my posts are public:

www.facebook.com/davidandrewmorrison

We arrived here in Arequipa, Peru last Friday morning after almost 24 hours of flying/layovers. We had the weekend to meet people, get situated in our houses, catch up (a little) on some sleep, and see some of the church plants. I’m living in a bedroom w/2 bunk beds, and a bathroom/shower, that is on the roof of a 4 floor house/building. The first floor of the house is our host family – Manolo (dad), Jessie (mom), Miguel (6), & Manuel (7). I share the rooftop bedroom with one of my teammates Brandon. We have 4 people on our team right now – Brandon, Chelsea, CJ, & myself. We will meet our Ecuadorian partners in January.

GOD IS MOVING!

Sunday, Brandon and I got to go to one of the new church plants baptism service that was at an outdoor YMCA more or less. 6 people were baptized in the public pool, and we sang “I have decided to follow Jesus” in Spanish after each person submerged from the water. It was really powerful, I was tearing up! There’s a video on my Facebook of it.Sunday night, at the church plant that we’re regularly attending called Puerta Abierta (open door), 5 new church members were officially received into the church, and 1 person accepted Jesus as His savior for the first time. AMEN! After the baptisms, members, & salvations in the first weekend, everything just became soooooo clear and obvious about why I was here, and it’s only just begun!There’s a local 40/40 missionary team of young people working here in Arequipa, so we get to study under them while we’re here and help them with bible studies, discipleship classes, and outreach events. It’s going to be priceless training for our work in Ecuador starting next March. We each have local missionary partners that we work with. Mine are Patrick, & Heyner. I’ve gone to 2 Casa Abiertas with them, which are home bible studies. These are the home bible studies that we’ll be working on opening really as many as possible while in Ecuador. God is moving all around the city, as my partners are only 1/4th of the Arequipan missionaries.

Currently, I’m not really dealing with any crazy culture shock, as this is just 1 of 30+ countries that I’ve been to. The traffic is as crazy as usual, the food is as typical as usual, you cross the street like the game “frogger”as usual, and everyone’s late as usual… God was definitely preparing me for this over the last few years! The food is typical for Latin America, a lot of rice, chicken, and bread. Generally for breakfast we have bread w/fruit and coffee or tea to drink. Lunch is usually rice, chicken, and cooked vegetables, or some variation of that. I’m enjoying it. I could use some hot sauce if somebody wants to send me some!

Extreme Nazarene Ministries – David Morrison
Coop. Victor Andres Belaunde Mz. D, Lt. 17
Yanahuara, Arequipa
Arequipa, Peru

Spanish classes have been GREAT. These are definitely the best Spanish teachers I have ever had, and it also helps that all day, every day we speak, sing, read, and work in Spanish. Learning a LOT, and I am extremelllyyy grateful for my previous Spanish language. I can have conversations with people, understand the majority of sermons, and know what I’m singing.

Feel free to contact me for anything!

John 3:30 “He must become greater, I must become less.”

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