Rich2Peru - Reaching the People of Peru for the Lord Jesus Christ

June 27, 2005

… “For Such a Time as This”

Dear Pastors, Praying Friends, and Family,

We would like to share with you a great and effectual door that has been opened to our ministry. Please bear with me in the length of this letter. I will try to keep it as brief as possible.

First, may I say that God has truly blessed our first two years here in Peru with seeing souls saved, learning the language and culture, and seeing Him work in our lives over and over. We, as your missionary representatives to Peru, want to thank you for the trust you have placed in us and for your prayers and financial support given.

Now that we are here in Cajamarca, we are continually amazed at what God is doing. In addition to a safe move, He has blessed us with being able to find a national pastor for our first work, a building to rent to start this work, and He has provided a piece of property on which to build our first church.

Also, God has blessed us during our first two years to be able to save the money needed to purchase the pews, pulpit, tables, chairs, etc. to start our first work without having to ask for funds. We have enough support at this time to pay the pastor’s salary, rent on the church building, and other incidental expenses by using the money that was formerly used for our language schooling, money saved from living in a lower cost area, and our personal support. We have strived to be good stewards of God’s money and we believe He has blessed it. Today, we purchased a small table and six chairs for our children’s class. It was such a blessing to stand back, look at it, and just imagine the first six children that will occupy these little chairs.

The gift of a piece of choice property in the area where we want to start a church is a blessing in itself, but I would like to explain a little background on this property. A social working missionary, now retired, dug a well for the city thirteen years ago and in exchange, his association was given the property to start a church. The property has remained dormant for these thirteen years. When we were praying about the area to move to start a new work, I contacted this retired missionary and visited him while he was in Peru for a short time. He told me of this property and said I should see what the association was going to do with it. After much prayer, I contacted the association and found that they had no plans for the property. I asked if it were possible to use it to start a church. They checked into it and decided to GIVE the property free and clear to our ministry to begin this work. What a blessing!

But, there’s more! The property is in a new development with the corner property next to it being designated for a park. It is a perfect location one block off the main road at the entrance to the town. The 700 square meter lot runs between two roads. That means we have double access.

Not only this but… After all these years, the city has JUST FINISHED the installation of water and sewage to this new development. Ours was the last property that needed to be connected. The city was about to close the job in this area, which would have meant more waiting, paperwork, and money to be connected in the future. Instead the connection has now been made and the property is ready to begin construction.

And… we have been told that hardening of the roads for this development will commence in the next year.

There is no doubt in our minds that God wants to do a great work here and that we have been called to this work “for such a time as this”.

We plan to use this location to start a Bible preaching, soul winning church to reach the many lost souls in this area. We are planning to use this as a base from which to send national pastors to other areas in need of Baptist churches. We are planning a Bible institute to train national pastors for about a week at a time, three to four times per year. We are talking with a national pastor in a neighboring city who has had a low power Christian radio station that has been running only 18 hrs a day. The key is that it has a hard to get license to operate in this area. We plan, Lord willing, to move the radio station to our location, boosting the signal, installing a taller antenna, and expanding the broadcast to 24 hrs a day to reach many more souls with the Gospel of our Lord. Space does not allow me to share all of our plans for this site, but let me say that, with God’s blessings, we plan on using it to glorify Him.

I say all this to explain the reasons for our requests. We would like to begin construction on the church building and surrounding security wall as soon as possible. We know that many churches and individuals save and plan for special gifts for missions, whether it is through a missions conference, for a Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter gift, etc. We would like to ask that you pray about our construction project as to whether God would lead you to assist us in this endeavor for Him.

We also would like to ask that you consider a missions trip to come see the work that God has called us to and possibly work with us on the construction. We would be glad to help with the details, answer any questions, and we would strive to make your trip a memorable one for His glory.

Thank you for your time and prayers for our ministry. We can’t say enough how much each one of you are an encouragement to us as missionaries.

Serving Him for you in Peru,

Don & Carla Rich
Romans 12:1-2

*** If you would like to help us financially in our construction, please send all funds to our support agency, CMC, with a note that it is for the “Rich Building Program”.

If you have any questions, please write.