June 13th-18th

[Jeffrey Surrett]

A long but fruitful day (June 13th) Due to some complications with transportation, I was not able to travel out to Los Sureños on Saturday and a taxi was going to be expensive to go out Sunday morning. The missionary family that I am staying with let me use their car. I was a little nervous driving across town since I have not driven in Peru for many years. Since it was Sunday morning at 7:00am, there was not much traffic and I was able to make it to the church in about 1 hour. I had the privilege of teaching the combined youth-adult Sunday School class and then preach in the morning service. After the service, I was able to spend some time talking to the pastor before going out to lunch with the pastor's family. For the evening service, I drove out to Pachacutec, another church where our teams from previous years have labored, and preached for the evening service. It was encouraging to see how the Lord has continued to bless both churches throughout this last year. I was also grateful for the Lord's protection as I drove back home that night arriving at around 10:30pm without any incident. Continued teaching (June 14th-16th) I have enjoyed my stint as a 4th grade teacher. Being an elementary teacher has some unique privileges such as working with the same group of students for longer periods of time but also some unique challenges such as working with the same group of students for longer periods of time. You might get frustrated with them when you do not get a break from them when things do not go the way you might want, but you also have a chance to work on character issues which become more obvious as time goes by and you deal with the students in many different capacities. I do thank the Lord for having given me this challenge. JD's excursions (June 14th-17th) On Monday, the mission team that was assisting with the play as well as another mission team that had just arrived from the States took the day to do some sightseeing. JD was able to go with them and to become fast friends with the son of the youth pastor whose team had just arrived. After some discussion with the youth pastor, we agreed that JD could travel with his team on Tuesday to go the mountain region of Jauja for a few days while I continued in Lima. We said goodbye Tuesday morning and they left. They did not make it though as part of the roads had been closed by some striking miners and they were forced to change their plans. They were able to stop in another city as they returned home to hand out tracts and to visit a Christian deaf school.  On Wednesday, JD joined the group in Cañete to hand out invitations to some special meetings that would be held the next two evenings. The group then assisted with the special meeting Wednesday night and with an evangelistic medical care clinic on Thursday before JD returned home with another missionary so he would make it back in time to travel overnight with me to the jungle. Preparing for our jungle trip (June 17th) The same strike which had prevented the other missions team from traveling to Jauja, was also a concern for our trip out to the jungle. We were not sure that it would be safe for us to travel and I had to keep following the news and talking to a couple of pastors to see if we would be able to make our trip. After much prayer and debate and news that the roads had been reopened, we decided to make the trip. It is still a matter of prayer that we will be able to make it back to Lima in a timely manner as the strike could resume at a later time. After making the decision to travel, I had to finish preparing the lessons and pack for our trip Traveling and Arriving in the jungle (June 17th-18th) JD arrived home at 5:15pm in time for us to eat and then leave at 6:30pm to go to the bus station to leave for the jungle. We traveled overnight arriving safely at 6:30am in the jungle city of San Ramon. After checking in to the hotel (rustic with no hot water), we went to the pastor's home for breakfast. We had a good time reacquainting ourselves with the pastor before going back to the hotel to get some rest. This afternoon, we visited a couple schools inviting them to the teacher's conference and family conference that we will be hosting tomorrow. As we traveled to meet a different pastor, I had the opportunity to witness to our taxi driver. He was very attentive and receptive to the gospel. Please pray for his salvation as well as for the conferences that we will be hosting tomorrow. The girls  Debbie and the girls have had some good visits with some friends and family though Amy and Julia have been sick a few nights. They are doing better now and are looking forward to going to camp next week. While they were visiting Granny and Grandpa, Amy was able to talk to another girl from the neighborhood and took the girl through the good person test having the privilege of leading her to the Lord. Please pray for Kayla that she would continue to grow in her new relationship with the Lord.

Sending Church Emmanuel Baptist Church 4681 East Trindle Rd. Mechanicsburg, PA 17050 717-761-7000 www.ebc-ebca.org

Contact Information 225 Gettysburg Pike Mechanicsburg, PA 17055 717-791-9116 www.surrett.org je...@surrett.org

Mission Agency Open Door Baptist Missions 1115 Pelham Road Greenville, SC 29615-3603 864-297-7890 www.odbm.org