Greetings from Peru! We are certainly blessed to be living at this time in history and to be a part of all that God is doing. We apologize for the lateness of this letter; somehow the time got away from us. As always, we have been busy in the service of our Lord. We have much to be thankful for, including good health and many opportunities to advance the Gospel of Christ.
As we write this update, Peru is in another total lockdown, and churches are prohibited from holding services. The lockdown began the middle of February and will continue until at least March 15, so until then, we are meeting online and in open areas in the hills surrounding our church. God has been good to allow us to reach several new families that are getting involved in Bible study, soul winning, and discipleship.
Team Peru just completed our virtual Youth Conference! This was a great blessing to the area churches, and many teens made decisions to serve the Lord with their lives! Of course, it was disappointing to our teens and young adults not to meet in person, but God still worked in hearts.
We are looking forward to our annual Missions Conference at the end of this month. We are assuming it will have to be virtual, so we are planning a lot of fun activities for the families to participate in via Zoom. Please pray that God will move in hearts and that we can continue to support our missionaries and even increase our Faith Promise giving.
The state of emergency in Peru continues! COVID restrictions are still in place, masks are required everywhere, schools are still closed, and churches are at 0% capacity. Politically, Peru is a disaster. In November, the president of the country was voted out of office by the Congress in the middle of the night. A puppet president was put in place, but protests (that turned violent with two people being killed by police) forced him to resign. A new president and cabinet have been put in place until the general elections to be held in April 2021. We ask you to please pray for Peru.
We have had one summer class already in our institute. Bro. Tommy Ashcraft taught a week on church planting. This month we have two classes planned, and then we start our fall semester in April. Please pray that many new students will join us and that our current students will remain faithful. The classes will be held virtually, as schools here are still not allowed to open.
We took a trip to the jungle area of Yurimaguas to hold a Pastors’ Training Conference. What a blessing these dear servants of God were to us. We took a big group of people that we were able to teach, preach, and train others to win souls. We had 64 people trust Christ when we took the pastors and families out soul winning. One pastor led his first soul to Christ! We were saddened to hear that this past week, one of the host pastors passed away from COVID. While he is rejoicing in Heaven, his family is grieving. Please pray for them.
Please continue to pray for us! I will be heading to the jungle in the next couple of weeks, taking medicines and hopefully encouraging the pastors there. Also, please pray for Karin’s parents, as they are battling health issues. Zach, Jr. and Cassandra are doing well here in Peru and are such a blessing to us! Caleb is doing well in Bible college, and Logan is a big help to us here. He will turn 17 years old this next week! Where did the time go?
We are certainly blessed to have so many prayer warriors who faithfully bring our names to the throne of God. Thank you and may God bless you.
His for souls,
Zach and Karin Foust