In our last newsletter we talked about the idea of building a training centre in Nauta, a town 105 km away from Iquitos. Plans for this centre are developing but in the meantime we hope to start a 3 year “mobile” training programme for 30 pastors and church leaders. Many pastors in the region have never received any formal training and feel inadequately prepared to do their job. This training will make a huge difference, both to the pastors themselves and to the communities they serve.

As we were thinking about building a training centre, we started to think about the need to provide food for the volunteers who have offered to help with building work. Our colleague Rober and his wife Emerita offered to provide and cook the food, but their method of cooking, which involved an open fire surrounded by 4 bricks with a grate over the top, would have been inadequate when cooking for larger numbers. This open fire method of cooking is very common here, but is time consuming and produces a lot of smoke which in turn leads to respiratory disease and eye problems.  Using a model of “ecostove” we were familiar with from our work in Honduras, Rober and Emerita built a new stove in their house. We didn’t anticipate just how much interest this would generate. In a very short time people were coming from far and wide to see the stove, asking if they might have one of their own. This led to the development of a project which will involve local pastors introducing ecostoves into their communities.

We’ve managed to access a small environmental fund which will allow local pastors and community leaders to identify the most vulnerable families in their communities and assist them in building an ecostove. The hope is to build a bridge between church and community, demonstrating something of the life in all its fullness that Jesus talks about in John 10:10. As we believe our role here should be that of facilitators rather than actually implementing projects, we hope that after some basic training local pastors will be able to reproduce the stove in their communities without us having to be too involved.

Earlier in the year we started meeting with pastors and local authorities in Iquitos to discuss the possibility of an environmental programme. There are now 18 churches in our network of churches and they are currently looking to introduce rubbish bins in and around their church buildings. We hope that at some point we will also be able to start a safe drinking water project in some of the communities where these churches are based.

As a couple we’ve always intended to work together as a team. Though the experience herein Peru with foreign “missionaries” has generally been that the man is the “missionary” while the woman stays at home to look after the children, we finally feel that attitudes are starting to change and our shared approach to our work is being recognised. However, though Gill is now being invited to speak at events and asked to advise on certain issues, people are still shocked when Harland stays at home on his own to look after the children instead of calling in a female babysitter to help him.

Lilia is also doing well and continues to attract lots of attention.
For the first 9 months of her life she’s been very healthy and we’re
grateful to God for that. She’s starting to be more mobile now and
waves to friends and strangers alike. She adores Ingny and
generally seems happy and content.

The newest addition to our family is a 1 year old Amazon
parrot called Lucy, formerly known as Luciano by her previous
carers until it was discovered she was female. Harland brought
her back to Iquitos from a recent jungle trip promoting the
ecostoves. She’s still rather quiet, though we expect that will
soon change as Amazon parrots are famous for their talking
abilities. So far she says “hola” and tries to copy Lilia’s crying.