Brenda’s Bulletin

Archive for December, 2011

December 22, 2011 Christmas

December 20, 2011 - 9:16 pm - Posted by Brenda Matthews

Before mentioning Christmas activities, let me thank you for your prayers for the meeting Dec. 16th. There was a good attendance and people were challenged to fill out a card indicating their commitment to form part of the new church, Piura Norte.

The Miraflores church in Lima has adapted a satellite campus strategy (multisite), so Piura Norte will be a campus just like the other two new campuses started in Lima in the last year and a half. The main difference is that they started with a large group of people from the Miraflores church. So far I have received the commitments of 17 people, but there are others who haven’t turned in their card yet. I’m also discovering that not all of the 17 understood that they were making a commitment, but rather thought the church wanted their info. But for those who do commit, this group will continue to attend worship services in the Grau church until the pastoral couple arrives and we launch the church, but in the meantime, I’ll be organizing small groups and working on building our identity. As we reach out to our families, neighbours and colleagues, the new contacts will be channeled into the small group ministry. It’s exciting to be taking our first baby steps.

In the last few weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time in the kitchen preparing food for different groups of friends to celebrate a Christmas meal together featuring pan de jamón (rolled ham bread) from Venezuela and one of my childhood favorite cookies from Canada.

000 2011 Christmas collage1

On Sunday I experienced my first chocolatada. Our small group traveled 45 minutes to the port city of Paita to support one of Grau’s missions. The main ingredients in a chocolatada are panetón (panettone – a sweet bread with dried fruits) and hot chocolate, and the kids would be happy if it also included a gift. Our group took panetón and some gifts and upon arriving discovered that they expected us to do the whole program. Fortunately we have some very talented people and everyone took part in telling the Christmas story, acting in the skit prepared while the Christmas story was being told, leading some games and songs and distributing hot chocolate, panetón and gifts. From the comments I’ve heard, everyone enjoyed the event and there was a lot of discussion about what could be done next year.

000 2011 Paita Chocolatada

Thanks for your prayers and support. Please pray especially for guidance in taking those first steps.

Have a merry, Christ-centered Christmas!

Brenda

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