January 7, 2013

Dear Pastors, praying friends and family,

    In our first correspondence of 2013, Carla and I are praying that all of you had a wonderful Christ-centered Christmas and a safe New Year holiday.  We were so glad to celebrate the holidays with our family all together for the first time in quite a while.  We tried our best to spoil the grandkids while we had the chance.

    My shoulder surgery went well in December.  Thank you all so much for your prayers.  I am staying busy while recuperating and finding that it is interesting, to say the least, to preach while wearing an arm sling.

    We received some very sad news from our church in Peru recently.  Leydi, a nine year old young girl who had received Christ in our church, passed away from Leukemia.  She was faithful to be in church and always sat on the front row.  She and her family had moved to the jungle to work but had to go to Lima when she became ill.  Her extended family is still our neighbors in Los Baños del Inca and our church has been reaching out to them during this difficult time.  Please pray for her family and that our church will be a lighthouse in their storm and can continue to point them to the True Lighthouse.

    The youth minister for many years at our home church in GA also passed away on Christmas night.  He was 46 years old.  It is unknown as to physically why he died.  Please keep the family of Chuck Sprayberry in your prayers.

   We are on the downhill stretch of our furlough with a full calendar between now and April, when we are scheduled to leave.  We have heard through another missionary about a situation that we will have to contend with when we return to Peru.  This is part of the info that we received from him:   “A few months ago, two evangelicals got elected to office in Peru.  Their intentions were to give evangelicals the same recognition (concerning visa laws) as the Catholic Church.  They got it through but the Catholics pulled a fast one on them.  In a very sketchy, undercover way, they added to the new law that the government will only recognize an evangelical group of over 10,000 people.  There is not even close to a group that big in Peru, which is what the Catholics thought.  Now the new law is in effect which means that there are no evangelicals that can get missionary visas right now.  This of course affects us and every other missionary in the country.  They are trying to change the law right now to make it 250 people from the 10,000 people that it is currently at.”

   We just received another update from him:  “This past week we found out the President of Peru is refusing to sign and renew the current legislation that allows missionaries/religious organizations to have residency visas under a “religious” title. This will affect almost every missionary organization that is currently there if the President does not reconsider signing.”    We can always have a tourist visa and leave the country every 180 days but that is costly and can cause other headaches with paperwork that we have established in the country for our ministry.  We are asking for your prayers that this will be worked out soon. 

    Our missions agency has now set up “online giving” for anyone who would like to utilize this easy way of giving to our ministry.  The website is   http://cmcmissions.org/donate 

    With all of these prayer requests we want to leave you with some good news.  We continue to hear that our church is growing in Peru with souls saved and believers being obedient in baptism.  Also, many bibles continue almost weekly to be sent out to national pastors and missionaries for their works.  God is still on the throne!

Serving Him for You in Peru,

                                  Don & Carla Rich