Grace upon Grace (Pt. 1)

For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. (John 1:16) In May, I was in the Andean city of Huaraz, teaching the doctrine of salvation to a small group of pastors and teachers from Ancash (the Peruvian Department – like a State). One of the points that I got to emphasize was the meanings of the words - grace, mercy and justice. People say that they want “justice” – which means getting what we deserve, but what we all actually need is “mercy” – NOT getting what we deserve, (we deserve eternal separation from God). But the last word is the best, “grace” – getting that which we don’t deserve, eternal life, forgiveness, reconciliation, acceptance and love. Yes, we have received, as John wrote, “grace upon grace”. We are receiving yet a new “grace” that I want to share with you. You may remember that when we were last in the States, we shared with you about our “20/20 Vision” – the goal of starting 20 new Bible Colleges in 20 locations in Peru by the year 2020. Well, God is opening doors faster than we thought that he would. In many ways, we are well ahead of where we thought that we would be now. We are partnering with The Bible League International, Libreria Kairos (a Peruvian Christian book distributor), Unión Bautista Evangélica Peruana, Southern Baptist Ancash Quechua Team, and others in 7 Peruvian Departments to bring leadership training to Quechua and Aymara believers in the Andes. The Unión Bautista alone has over 5,000 churches in which they want us to help them train their leaders! We have also been working on producing material and programs to train “sub literate” people. Most of the people in the high Andes have very little education and do not read Spanish well. Many are monolingual in either Quechua or Aymara, and these folks are usually unable to read in their native language. Not to mention that, there is almost nothing available in Aymara. Talking with the church leaders in these areas and working with other missionaries and Missions, we have developed a program to teach non-reading people here the essentials of the Faith, the basics of the Bible, how to make disciples and defend the Faith. The program is called, “Fundamentos de la Fe Una Vez Dada a Los Santos (Fundamentals of the Faith Once for All Delivered to the Saints) or FunFe. All of this is so exciting that it is hard to believe. It is so exciting that we have grown to a team of 8 already and I have met with 4 more folks this month. These are Peruvians, and mainly seminary trained. The most exciting part – they think that what is happening here is so exciting that they are working for free. People are interviewing to work with us for FREE! Grace upon grace.