A weekend in Ica

Last weekend we all had a break from our clases, so we decided to spend the weekend in Ica to get to know the city a little better and see what God has for our family there. We are still waiting for God's conformation. This is a processional that was going on infront of our hotel. There are many of these in Peru. The people are always hoping to be the ones that get to carry the statue through the street. They use volunteers from the street and the priest follow behind giving blessings. This one is rather small, often the street is so crowded that no one can pass by.

We also got to spend some time having fun as a family. Right outside of the city of Ica is a Lagoon or Oasis in the middle of the desert. We took a boat ride with the family and walked around to look at the stuff available there. Earlier in the day we had the opportunity to visit a musuem of the history of Ica, which Tracy and I enjoyed a lot, but the kids were really bored. In all we had fun. We also got to spend some time encouraging and getting to know some of the people that go to the Bible Study everyweek in Ica. This is Tracy and the kids with Zumiki (Sumiki- a japonese name) She is 19 and loves the Lord with all of here heart. It is awesome to have believers like this in the study. She always has really interesting questions and comments. We also spent some time with another couple from Ica, Mario and Elizabeth. They have two girls, one is five years old and one is 8 months old. They are the couple that started the study and invited us to teach there in Ica. The people in Ica have been praying for a Pastor for many years. Pray for these guys by name if you can remember. Right now we can only have study a week on Friday nights and they are begging for more. Many of them have stopped going to their other churches because of the bad doctrine being taught, the only time they get fed is on Fridays and there personal time with the Lord. Pray that we could find a place to meet in Ica and possible open the door to one more Bible study. Right now we meet in the house of Mario's parents (which has been an awesome provision from the Lord). We would like to open the doors to more people but don't feel that it is wise to invite a lot of strangers from the street into a house that is not our own. Pray for the location and the Lord's provision for the rent each month. God has been abundantly faithful to provide each week for the bus fair for Americo and I and the other expenses.

The people in the study each week are: Mario and Elizabeth, Zumiki, Jorge and Lucha, Cesar and Rosio, Carlos, Martin (Marteen), Gerardo and Angelica. From time to time there are others, but this is the core group. Please pray for them!

God bless!!

Robin

A much needed update...

We have just recently moved (3 weeks ago) to a new apartment. We needed to have a bigger apartment with an extra room. There's a pretty big reason for this need... we're going to have a baby!! I am 4 months pregnant, and am doing well. We haven't been able to update the blog or send out emails due to the move. The phone company finally showed up at our new apartment after 3 weeks of waiting to tell us they can't connect the line, the control box in the building isn't connected yet. Yikes! So, we don't know how much longer we'll have to wait with no land line for phone or internet. Please pray with us for this. Anyways, we want to keep everyone updated on our new address.

Robin y Tracy Shelley
Jr. General Luis La Puerta #231 Dpto. 202
Liguria, Surco, Lima Peru 33

Some updates...
-Liam turned 4 years old April 13. Happy Birthday Liam!!
-Kilaine lost her 2 front teeth. She's growing so big!!
-I (Tracy) am in my 2nd trimester of the pregnancy and am feeling good after a somewhat difficult 1st trimester. Praise report: we found a woman that practices midwivery, so we can have a homebirth (that's pretty important for me). She's from Germany, but she speaks English, added bonus.
-Robin goes to Ica with Americo every week on Fridays. It's a 4 hour bus ride and he gets home at 3a.m. There have been recent robbings on the buses going there, but the Lord has kept them safe.
-We are praying about moving to Ica in about 1 year or so. We're still not sure this is the next step, but the Lord seems to be opening the doors.
-Angie came back from being in India for 6 months.

Thank you for your prayers and support. We really wouldn't be able to serve here in Peru without solid believers on their knees for us. We really mean it when we say how much we appreciate it.

Tracy

Happy Birthday Tracy

Last Saturday Tracy had a birthday. She is in full denial of her age and insisted we use Kilaine's six year old birthday candle so that no one would know how old she really is. Just kidding, she's 31, even though she still looks 20 (even more beautiful today than the day I met her). We had a quiet day with the family, then went to see a movie together. Tracy didn't want anything special, not even cake. Kilaine insisted that we needed cake for mommy's birthday, so we bought a couple of pieces of cake and sang happy birthday in english and spanish. We had a great time together and we thank God for the blessing of our family.

Robin

Baptism

the group that got baptized with Pastor Brian, Betty and Pastor Jim Nelson from CC Palm Harbor in Florida.

singing praises to our Lord

Yesterday 11 people got baptized. Some old, some new, some from Puente Piedra and one that was on a mission trip to Peru. Praise God, He works in mighty and wonderful ways. We used a small pool of one of the families in the church. We had such a blessed time with the Lord. Afterwards we went back to the church to break bread together and celebrate the Lord's majesty and glory.

Robin

Continuing on in Ica

The kids of Ica
These are the kids of that are always in the Friday night study. There are a few missing. The kids just kind of run around an play, mostly in another room.



Each week we study the Bible for about an hour or more and afterwards there are usually many questions. We stay for another hour and answer questions and spend time getting to know the people more and more. The people here are very hungry for the Word. Praise God for His faithfulness.

Robin

The ministry in Ica

The ministry in Ica is changing. We recently stopped the afternoon Bible study in the street and invited them to the nighttime Bible study. I am currently teaching the nighttime Bible study each week, Praise God. Pray for me (Robin), because teaching in Spanish is very difficult. I enjoy it, because it really makes me depend on Christ for each and every word. Currently we are looking for a place to rent once a week to open the doors to more people. We meet in a house now and it is an incredible blessing, but we don't want to fill the house with a bunch of people from the street, because it is an offering of a very nice family. Thanks for all your prayers for this ministry. Pray that God would continue to open the doors and tear down spiritual strongholds in Ica. I have been told that Ica has a plaza called the "plaza de brujas" (park of the witches) A very dark place. Starting this week only Americo (a peruvian that lives at the church) and myself will be going to Ica for the next few weeks or more. We are praying about changing the day to Thursday, once we find a place to rent.

Robin

Updates...

Two and a half weeks ago, we had a ladies Bible study. It was really nice. The guys served us our lonchecita (light dinner). A couple of the girls came from Canete.

Me and Gabby.

Betty did the teaching. It was nice. We might start having a ladies study every 2 months or so.

By the way, Brian is back, and it sure is good to have his jolly face around again!

------
Family...

Liam, goofy as ever, dressed himself up to be a knight in shining armor. He modeled himself after a picture of a little boy in a chilren's book we have.

There's just nothing like laying around on a free day and reading an american cookbook...

------

Conferencia de jovenes Youth Conference.

Ricardo and I were invited to play the worship for a youth conference here in Lima last Saturday. "Youth" here can mean all the way up into your 30's. Yay! I'm a joven!!! There were probably around 200 youth there. We had about 20 there between the church in Surco and the church in Canete.

practicing in the morning...

The worship was great. Unfortunately, the teachings were lacking. We only stayed for the first 2. We felt that they were either totally not from the Bible, or completely watered down. It was very sad to see all those youth soaking up a bad teaching. It reminded me how important the Word is, not that I had forgotten, but I could really sense it's importance. It also made me really appreciate our church here in Peru, and in Florida. I really appreciate Kelly and Kaulana, the youth pastor(s) back in Florida. Wow, our youth there really have it great. My heart was pretty saddened that day. We went back to the church and began to do our own impromptu conference to straighten things out with the youth here. Americo, Ricardo, Robin & I shared. I shared a Bible study for the girls on modesty and dating, or really the lack of dating. At the end of the day, it was really good. Pray for the chruches here in Peru, that they would be churches of God's Word and churches of prayer.

2 Timothy 4:2 "Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfull your ministry."

Brian's away

Brian is in the US for 3 weeks to go to the Pastor's Conference and to do some visiting and sharing. Pray for him while he's away from home. And for Betty and the kids, who stayed behind this time.

Jimmy is helping out teaching some of the Bible studies. So is Jaime, and Jose.

Robin is helping out teaching the evening Bible studies in Ica.

It's a group effort!!

Baptism in Canete

We had a baptism in Canete last week.

We met in Playa Hermosa where they have the children's Bible studies. Jaime talked about what it means to be baptised.

There were about 9 adults and 2 kids there.

Then we walked over to the beach.

Senora Flor and Senora Maxi were 2 of the ladies that were going to be baptised. Lina got baptised, too.

First was Lina.

Then Senora Flor.

Then Senora Maxi.

It's awesome to see believers take the step to show that they are believers. How exciting seeing the 4 of them out there praying together.

Yay!!!!!

I was playing some worship songs the whole time. (And videoing at the same time!)


There's Lina with her arms stretched out. Yay!!


Afterwards, a lady let Jaime get some water out of her well so they could rinse themselves off and get changed before heading back to San Vincente.

It was a beautiful time together.

Robin Teaches in Spanish

I (robin) taught a Bible study in Spanish in Ica. Yeah! Glory to God I was able to speak cleary and be understood. While I stumbled over some words and need help from time to time with my pronunciation, all went well. I pray that the people were blessed and encouraged with the Word of God. I will be teaching again this Friday, so please be in prayer. Also, be in prayer for Tracy and the kids each friday. Each friday I go to Ica for the ministry there and it is a very long day. I leave about 10am and arrive home about 2:00am. Pray for our safety each week as well, we drive for 4 hours in each directions to do the ministry there. What an awesome blessing to used for the glory of God.

Robin

Vbs in Canete

We went to Canete to repeat the vbs in San Vincente and in Playa Hermosa.

The kids started out pretty tired. Liam was sleepy on the bus to Canete. When we got there, he seemed like he had a low fever. Later he had a very high fever that we couldn't get down most of the night. I stayed home with him at Jaime & Sylvia's house the first day. That evening, we took Liam back to Lima to take him to the doctor.

Oninxha doing the songs with the kids in Playa Hermosa.

Karla is teaching the kids here with Americo's helping hand.

The kids in San Vincente.

Vbs in Ica

Here's the group that went to Ica to do the 3 day vacation Bible school. We used a Catholic school for one location and we went to La Tinguina for the other.

First, we cleaned the bathrooms. Yippie!

Ricardo and Kilaine were practicing the songs and moves before we got started. It was pretty awesome to see Kilaine singing and dancing for the kids. She would sing the songs and do the moves all by herself for the kids that were there early.

Gabby teaching the older kids.

Robin teaching the little ones at the school.

Meanwhile, Americo was outside sharing with the parents. Jaime and Sylvia had come that day, so Sylvia was sitting in with Americo.

Here we are in La Tinguina. We used the garden area of a lady that goes to the Friday Bible studies in the street. She was really nice, her name is Dora.

Doing some crafts outside. This was the 1st day... no rain that day...

Americo teaching the kids in part of Dora's garage.

The moms were always listening and watching everything that was going on.

Robin teaching the kids in La Tinguina. It started raining, so we crammed them all in to this little porch space.

Oninxha is sporting our lovely solution to the rain clothing... yes, we all wore them.

Pilar is helping to keep the kids dry. Can you remember the story of Moses having to keep his arms raised up?

Jaime...
Jaime again. I couldn't pass up this photo opportunity. He's got his wife's bag on his arm, wearing a bag, and sweeping the sidewalk. Who ever said pastor's don't get their hands dirty?

Ricardo teaching in the garage.

Pilar teaching.

It was good to see a little bit of Ica and to minister to the kids. But the best part was working together as a team. We got up every day and spent almost 2 hours in prayer and devotion time before breakfast. And it was really awesome seeing everyone pull together to figure things out when we had 60 kids our first day in La Tinguina and when the rain started the second day. It was really a great trip.