First Day of Ministry

John wrote:

After weeks of moving, shopping, furnishing, waiting for installers, going to immigration, and settling in, today, I was able to go and visit a pastor and a partnering local school, in one of the areas that we will be working in, in preparation for a medical mission team that will be coming next July. It felt good to finally get started with ministry, though I had to depend on a veteran missionary to give drive me, since we still do not have a vehicle, which is being held up in red tape in customs. (a big prayer need)

Just as a summary, as church planters, we will be working in an area called the South Cone of Lima. This pretty much constitutes six of the thirty districts of Lima that are in the south part of Lima. Out of the six, for now, we will be focusing on the three largest and most densley populated. The areas are named "Villa Maria del Triunfo", "San Juan de Miraflores" and "Villa El Salvador". Each district has about 350,000 residents, while the square area of each is quite small, which makes the areas unbelievably densely populated. So in total we have over a million residents in our areas, not including the three we are not focusing on now. At the bottom of this blog, I found some statistics that can give you an idea of how some of our partner church cities compare in size, population and density to the three districts.

Anyways, I was such a blessing to shake hands with the pastor in Villa Maria, talk about ministry and strategy and then together visit the area where the medical mission team will be working. He also asked if I would preach this Sunday morning for there family emphasis weekend, along with another Peruvian pastor who is preaching Sunday night. But we have prior commitments on Sunday morning, as well as no way to actually get to the church, which is 45 minutes away. But I am sure he will ask again. I have been told to always keep one or two sermons in my back pocket, because pastors here like to have guest speakers, even if you are a first time visitor. Our friend John McLamb was sitting in church in Northern Lima and the pastor all of a sudden asked him to preach an impromptu sermon. That happened to me in Costa Rica. I showed up for a service at the House of Restoration and was asked to preach since the normal pastor did not show up. Just another fun part of living here in Latin America.

St. Cloud, Florida
- Population: 27,000
- Area: 9.2 sq mi (23.7 km²)
- People Density 2,934/sq mi (1,139/km²)

Orlando, Florida
- Population – 227,907
- Area: 101.0 sq mi (261.5 km²)
- People Density 2,180/sq mi (842/km²)

Yucca Valley, California
- Population: 25,500
- Area: 40 sq mi (103.7 km²)
- People Density 637/sq mi (245/km²)

Kansas City, Missouri
- Population: 447,306
- Area: 318.0 sq mi (823.7 km²)
- People Density 1,406/sq mi (543/km²)

Villa Maria del Triunfo
- Population: 355,761 (2005 census)
- Area: 27.2 sq mi (70.5 km²)
- People Density: 13,079/sq mi (5,041/km²)

Villa El Salvador
- Population: 367,436 (2005 census)
- Area: 13.6 sq mi (35.4 km²)
- People Density: 27,017/sq mi (10,362/km²)

San Juan de Miraflores
- Population: 335,237 (2005 census)
- Area: 9.3 sq mi (23.9 km²)
- People Density: 36,047/sq mi (13,979/km²)