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Lauren with her friend from church before the Christmas play

The kids on a Sunday afternoon visit to the Ocean

It rained last night!  I know that doesn’t sound like real news to many of you, but it just doesn’t rain here.  It made quite a mess since there is dirt and dust everywhere, but I did enjoy hearing the rain come down when I woke up this morning.  Traveling in Peru, I get to enjoy aspects of the great variety with which God created our world.  We do serve a wonderful God.FamilyCheryl’s parents have been here since the middle of January, and we have really enjoyed their visit.  The hardest thing for us about living in a foreign country is that we don’t get to spend a lot of time with other family members.  This has been a special blessing.

Lauren turned nine-years-old in January.  She, along with Abby (almost 5) and Micah (6), has enjoyed her summer break.  After our week of camp at the end of this month, the three children will be starting back to homeschooling.

Camp Property

At the end of last year, we received a large gift toward the purchase of camp property.  Since then, we have received several other significant gifts putting us in much better position to negotiate for property.  In early January, I drove to the property that has been our main focus for many months.  I met with the owners there and basically communicated to them a price that we felt we could negotiate for.  They rejected our offer outright seeing as they are asking over 1.3 million dollars for the 22-acre property.  So, we are continuing to look at different properties.

This Friday, I’ll be meeting with some Christian businessmen here in Lima sharing the vision for the camp and conference center.  Pray that God would bless the contact and communication with these men.

Youth Camp

At the end of February, we’ll be directing a week of youth camp.  Last year we had 175 campers, and we are hoping to be near that same number this year.  The next two Saturdays I’ll be training the staff for the week of camp.

This will be the first camp that we’ve run without help from Camps Abroad.  It will be important for the guys who work with me in the leadership of the camp to take a step up in the administration and program responsibilities for the week.  I’m actually really excited to see how they will do as I believe we are ready for that step.

Prayer

• Pray that God will lead us soon to the right property for the new camp and they He will make that clear to us.
• Pray for God’s blessing in the preaching of the Word during our week of camp.
•  Pray for God’s help in the preparation, training, and directing of the camp this month.

Continue reading »]]> September of this year marked five years since we arrived in Peru to begin full-time missions and evangelism work here in Peru. We are grateful for what God is allowing us to be a part of here in this great place.

Family

Our family is doing well. Cheryl is homeschooling all three children along with taking care of the house and everything else. She thoroughly enjoys the homeschooling, and covets your prayers as she seeks to balance the myriad of responsibilities that the Lord has given her. Lauren is in third grade and has recently returned to taking violin lessons. The Lord has directed us to a great teacher for her to study with. Pray for Natasha, her teacher, to be saved. The Lord is giving Cheryl a good inroad with her. Micah and Abby continue to grow. Micah is learning to read, and Abby is enjoying her K-4 time with Cheryl.

Spiritual Maturity Conferences

I’ve prepared an 8-session series on Colossians chapter 3 entitled: Learning to Live the New Life. I’ve begun preaching this series on weekends for local churches here in Lima. Since September I’ve preached the series in four different churches, and next year I’ll continue to do the same. We’re discovering that this is one of the best ways in which we can genuinely help local churches. The Colossians 3 Study focuses on spiritual growth, spiritual discipline, church life, family life, and more. My plan over the next few years is to continue to develop series similar to this one that I can use in preaching for churches here in Peru.

October Camp Events

In October, we ran two all-day camp events for youth here in Lima. Between the two events, we had over 275 young people participate. Segundo Rodriguez preached for the teen event, and I preached for the older-youth event. There were some great spiritual decisions made at both events. We are now taking a look at what camp programs we want to add for next year. Those include a couple’s retreat and a youth retreat along with the regular youth camp we’ve run for several years now. We want to keep adding camp-type programs each year. When the Lord provides us with our own camp property, we should be in position, Lord willing, to keep right on increasing the programs we can offer for churches.

Frazor Evangelistic Team

On Monday next week, Evangelist Jeremy Frazor will be bringing his team to Peru to spend 10 days here. They will provide a music concert six nights in a row in six different churches all over Lima. Jeremy will preach the gospel each night, and we are praying for a great response to the gospel each night. We are looking forward to the fellowship with Jeremy, Misha and the team.

Camp Property Status

As far as camp property is concerned, we continue to receive offerings toward the purchase of the property. What we have received so far is not enough for us to make an offer on the piece of property that we would love to have. I’m continuing to pursue options which include other property possibilities as well as communication with potential donors. We recognize that God is in this project, and we will continue to work at it and wait on Him until He makes it possible for us to operate on our own site.

Camp Scholarships

Last year, in one of our updates, I mentioned that we’d like to have camp scholarships available for unsaved campers to be able to go to our youth camp in February. We received the funds to cover 40 scholarships ($30/each) and we ended up using 30 of those. Of those 30 unsaved young people that came to camp because of the scholarships, almost half of them made salvation decisions during the week. For the camp this February, we’d like to do the same thing. We have the funds available for 10 scholarships, and I believe we could use between 30 and 40 total scholarships for this camp. If you’d like to participate in this way, the instructions for how to give are included below. $30 will cover the cost of camp for one unsaved camper.

Prayer:

• Pray for Cheryl to have wisdom and strength to balance her responsibilities.
• Pray for God’s provision for camp property
• Pray for a great week of ministry with the Frazor Evangelistic Team. Pray that the believers in the churches will bring their unsaved friends and coworkers to hear the gospel preached.

Giving for Camp Scholarships- make the check out to ‘EMU International’ and put ‘Peru Camp Scholarship’ on the memo line. Mail the check to:

EMU International
209 Roberts Rd.
Taylors, SC 29687

Continue reading »]]> 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 TripIn 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

With Grandpa Chapman down by the ocean

Having fun at Grandpa and Grandma’s house

Lauren and Grandma Chapman

Sunday at night of the evangelistic campaign at the Baptist church in Independencia, Lima