Prayer Requests for Iquitos Peru
March 26, 2008

May the Lord's abiding grace and love be with each of you. Knowing that you take the needs of our ministry before the Lord in prayer, I continue to give thanks for your service and commitment.

We only have two months remaining before our second team trip to minister in Iquitos, this time focused on the Punchana district. Before our EMM team heads out for the festival in June, Carl Dawson and Ben Owens have a lot of planning and preparations to finalize with the local committee of ministers in Iquitos.

Please cover the two of them in your prayers during their upcoming planning trip, asking that the Lord will bless their efforts and smooth their way.

Carl and Ben left for Peru on Easter, scheduling the trip to fit with Ben's college spring break. They will remain in the Punchana District of Iquitos until next Sunday evening, March 30, when they will depart for home at about 8pm.

Please pray specifically for the following prayer needs during their trip:

• Hotel space in Lima for the first night team layover needs to be negotiated. Pray that Carl and Ben can find a suitable hotel that can house our large team, with space for team devotions and meetings. Ben will need to work with the hotel in Lima and Iquitos to make arrangements for meals and so forth. Since there will be many team members going out each day in Iquitos we may need to arrange for boxed lunches.

• The local ministry schedule and budget needs to be finalized with the pastors. Pray that there will be unity in the discussions, and that the Spirit of the Lord will guide in the planning.

• Carl will also have separate meetings with each of the sub-committee chairmen to answer any questions that they may have and to train them and pray with them. Please pray that the Lord will guide and bless those meetings, and make them fruitful.

• Locations for each of the ministry activities need to be selected and checked out to be certain that the facilities are sufficient for ministry and that we are able to transport the team to the locations. Punchana District is the home of the three major ports of Iquitos so the pastors want us to spend much of our daytime ministry out in villages along the Amazon River. That means many of our team will be traveling via river each day.

• Carl needs to work with the pastors to determine how many conferences will be included and the curriculum that will be taught. We can potentially do three conferences- one for pastors, one for youth and one for women. Please pray that the Lord will lead the planning so that the pastors committee can come to agreement on which conference and subjects will most minister to the people.

• Carl and the ministers need to go to the plaza where the evening festival will be held. They will be planning the logistics for the speakers, as well as working with the intercessors, ushers, counselors and other volunteers. Our God goes before us, and He is even now calling those who will be volunteering their services in His name. Pray that planning for all of the groups will be coordinated smoothly, and that there will be many workers for the harvest.

• Carl and Ben will meet with the Mayor of Punchana to see how he might become more involved in the festival. Praise God that he is already very supportive. Pray that the Lord will use his influence and involvement to draw the people.

• The team will once again be distributing vitamins and medicine to protect the children of Punchana from parasites. Please pray that the financing for the medicine comes in from our supporters and that the local pastors committee can select the best locations to distribute them to the children.
  Pray that the outreach ministries for the children are planned in a way that truly touches the hearts of many of the children and communicates the love of Jesus.

• Pray that all of the financial needs for renting a large sound system for the evening festivals can be resolved. We also need to locate a local contact who will arrange to have all of the equipment in place when it is needed.

• We are hoping to also set up arrangements for a separate festival in one of the outlying villages. Adam Weatherby, a youth pastor on our team, would preach. It would be a two day festival in a much smaller place but it would still require a lot of work to prepare as it needs to be a quality event. So please pray for ushers, councilors and so forth to be available to help in the village.

• Carl hopes to have conversations with the local committee about church planting opportunities, both from our San Juan festival last year, and following the upcoming Punchana festival. Pray that the Lord will multiply His harvest by leading the pastors to identify and select those places where the people are open to the Good News of the gospel. Pray also that the Lord will call ministers to support and pastor the church plants.

• Carl is hoping to visit some of the people of Iquitos whose lives have already been changed as they came to the Lord. Pray that they will be available to share their testimonies so that others will hear and be encouraged by that the Lord is doing in the midst. Carl also hopes to follow up with some who gave their testimonies last year to see how the Lord is working in their lives. Please pray they have been richly blessed as they follow Jesus.

• During our last trip many of our financial supporters provided funds for EMM to purchase portable stoves that could be taken into the small villages to help feed the children a warm breakfast. We want to visit some of the places where the stoves are now being used and get testimonies from the people who are benefiting from them.

As you can see, this is a critical planning trip when many decisions and arrangements need to be finalized. We are trusting the Lord to open opportunities for ministry. Thank you for your commitment to support these needs in prayer before the Lord. Because of your faithfulness much of the ministry work that we do is enabled and blessed by our Lord, who goes before us in all that we do.

May God richly bless each of you,

Janet Grout
Prayer Coordinator
Eternity Minded Ministries