The Beginning of Something

Tuesday, November 2, 2010 is our official first day of church planting work.

Now you may be asking, where do we start?

Well, Ester and I asked the same question. Where do we start in our three/four church plant areas (San Jeronimo, San Sebastian, Wanchaq, and Pisaq)?

And since we were completely unfamiliar with Pisaq, we went and visited on Friday.

Pisaq is a town in the Sacred Valley, which is located about and hour and a half from where we live.

Now let me just tell you, it is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen in my life. Alex said it best when he said, “It kind of takes my breath away.”

Breathtaking.

And on the way there, we missed our stop, and went to the last town in the Sacred Valley, Calca, which would have been a church plant site too. And there are three or four other towns in between.

We checked out the town of Pisaq, which is a major tourist attraction. There are Incan ruins in the mountains above Pisaq, and I’ve heard that it is the site where one of the Incan emperors retired. The Plaza is a tourist market, and pretty much the whole town caters to tourists. But like my cluster mom Amy says, “Everyone needs Jesus, tourists too.”

So in our walking around and chatting with people, we found out that there are a few Christian churches in Pisaq, and we found the home of the leader of a nondenominational church called La Vid. His name is Mario, and he has been a missionary in Columbia and Brazil before God brought him back to do ministry in his hometown, Pisaq.

He has a vision for reaching the whole town, and then the whole valley with the saving message of Jesus Christ. And he is really open to working with us. We spent about forty-five minutes talking to him at his house. It was amazing, a God-ordained appointment for sure.

Hermano Mario also told us that two of the other towns in the valley (which we had “accidentally” driven through) do not have ANY Christian churches. So Ester and I feel like we will focus our ministry throughout the valley, especially in the areas that don’t have any access to the gospel.

Because one of my life verses is Romans 15:20-21, which says, “It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. Rather, as it is written: “Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.”

Paul wrote those words about 2000 years ago, and yet there are sill places where Christ is not known. So that is our vision for Cusco and it’s surrounding areas, that “those who have not heard will understand.”