The Lord is always good to us. God continues to lead us, change us, and use us, by His grace. What a privilege to serve the true and living God, our Creator.

Chile Trip

In late June, our whole family flew to Chile to visit my parents. We had not been there since 2007. It was great to spend time with my parents, my brother and sister who were there with their families, and with the folks in the church.

Pastors Meal

On June 20^th, we hosted a meal for Pastors and their wives. The purpose was to formally present the vision for the new camp and conference center and to get feedback from them concerning possible locations, their commitment, etc. There were 20 pastors in attendance, and it was exciting to see their overwhelmingly positive response to the vision. They all indicated their commitment to having a part in the new camp in a variety of ways: sending campers, providing staff, sending work groups, and giving offerings toward site improvement in the future.

I’ve been hesitant to seek commitments from the churches here in the process of buying property because of their financial reality. However, it is very important to us that the Peruvian churches embrace the camp as their own, and that they are committed to working and giving towards the success of the camp in the future.

Pray for us as we continue to pursue obtaining property for the camp. There are still two properties that we are considering at this point, and we are working through the process of getting the financial help we’ll need to be able to purchase one of these two properties.

Preaching

August and September are full months of preaching for me in Lima. We are in the middle of four weeks of church meetings, a youth event, and a week of preaching with a Christian School. In October, our focus will shift to two major youth events that we’ll be hosting. We’ll direct two “Day of Camp” events for young people from all over Lima. We expect to have 125 young people at each of those events.

Family

Cheryl began homeschooling Lauren last week, and she will be starting soon teaching kindergarten to Micah and Abby. The Lord has given us all good health in the last few months and we are grateful for that.

Prayer

• Pray for wisdom as we continue to pursue purchasing property for the camp
• Pray for God’s grace in preaching and for His power to change lives through the preaching of The Word
• Pray for grace for our family as we live and minister here in Lima

In Christ,
Tim Chapman

We’ve been back in Peru now for four months, and we are slowly starting to feel settled in again here. Cheryl has been homeschooling Lauren as she finishes second grade, and Cheryl plans to continue homeschooling Lauren along with Micah next year. We’re very thankful for the opportunities for ministry that God is giving us here. Thank you for your interest and investment with us for the sake of the gospel in Peru.

Camp Ministry Events

We finished the week of youth camp in late February and began the process of moving back into our house. Our friend, Rob Fipps, program director at Northland Camp, arrived in the middle of March, and we hosted a “day of camp” here in Lima. We had over 240 young people come and the Lord gave us a great day of ministry with them.

We’ve run a week of youth camp for three years now, but this year we wanted to take the next step to begin programming "camp" events during the school year. This was the first of these events. Later in the year we plan to host two more similar events. The group of guys that God is raising up to help us in camp ministry worked very well that day, and it’s exciting to see them progress in their burden for the ministry and in their ability to work alongside of us in the camp ministry.

The second week that Rob was with us, he and I flew to Iquitos. There is a group of churches there that has run camps for many years and had expressed their desire to get help in that area. Rob and I spent two days teaching camp philosophy and counseling to a group of pastors and church folks. Then we ran a retreat for the young people there. You can read an article here that Rob wrote after his trip. We took advantage of the free times at camp to meet with the leaders, and it became apparent quickly that the best way for us to help this group of churches in the future will be through our camp ministry here in Lima. I encouraged them that as we get to a point of running camps all summer, we would love to be involved in training their future camp leaders at our camp in Lima. We believe this scenario will repeat itself over and over again throughout the years.

Last month, Trevor Gearhart, a good friend from Northland and the former program director at Northland Camp, came to Peru with a student from Northland, Ramsey Magoto. We flew to Piura in northern Peru to work with a group of churches. The program was very similar to what we did with Rob Fipps in Iquitos in that we taught camp philosophy to a small group of pastors and then ran a retreat.

After a couple of days off in Lima, we traveled south of the city about an hour to run a retreat for La Molina Christian School. There were around 90 students that attended the retreat and the Lord gave us a great time of ministry with them.

It was a great blessing to be able to spend time in the last few months with both Rob and Trevor, two friends from our days at Northland Camp. They were both a real encouragement to us especially as we continue to push toward the start-up of a new camp in Peru.

Back to Peru

I get back from Uruguay on January 23rd. Two weeks later, on February 5th, our whole family will be flying back to Lima. We are excited about getting back. Pray with us as we have to pack everything, move out of the mission house we’ve been living in all year, and take care of all the details of moving back to Peru. Pray also for the adjustment for the family of having to leave grandparents and other family and friends here in The States.

Camp Property Search

When Rob Fipps was with us in March, we drove up the river valley closest to our home to see if there were any real possibilities for a potential camp property in that valley. I have been looking for property elsewhere mainly because the price of land in that valley is very high. However, the Lord directed us to a beautiful 22-acre piece of property nestled between the river and the hills. This is the second piece of property that we have given serious consideration to purchasing. The other property is in a valley where land is much cheaper, but it’s also much further away from Lima. We believe God wants us to use the camp year-round, and our concern with the property that is further from Lima is whether or not it would be close enough to Lima to be able to successfully run retreats and conferences throughout the whole year.

The next step in this process is for us to meet with pastors here in Lima to get feedback from them concerning the start-up of the new camp. Next Monday, June 20th, we’ll host a dinner for pastors and their wives in which we’ll present more formally our vision and plan for starting the camp. We need to see what level of commitment they have for the vision. We also want to get feedback from them concerning how a camp ministry can best serve their local churches.

Chile

At the end of next week, we’ll fly with the whole family to Chile to spend a couple of weeks with my parents. My youngest two siblings, David and Karen, will be there with their families, and we are looking forward to a great time together.

Prayer

• Pray that God will give us wisdom as we continue to pursue the purchase of property for the new camp.
• Pray that God will provide for us to be able to buy land and then be able to outfit the property so that we can begin running camps there.
• From September to December our schedule is full with preaching and mission teams. Pray that God will give genuine fruit from the preaching and teaching of His Word through the rest of this year.
• Peru just elected a new president, Ollanta Humala. There is some concern about his direction heading forward, so please pray that God would allow Peru to remain politically stable over the next few years.

In Christ,
Tim Chapman