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August 2008
Dear Praying Friends, Things have been going very well here. Our church has been doing really good lately, and for that we Praise the Lord! Our attendance has been up and that always makes things more exciting. Pastor Fredy has been traveling for the past month, and we have greatly missed him! Shane hasn't had anyone to visit with, and has had to preach all services, and lead the singing, so we have been a bit loaded down. We praise the Lord though our people have become more faithful, and we are looking forward to them starting to be able to fill some positions in the church. Pastor Fredy will be returning by mid August just in the nick of time for us to move out of our house and into a small house and then to head out for the USA for furlough. We are flying in on the 2nd of September. Please keep this time in your prayers as we have many loose ends to tie up and much to get done. We are thankful we have found a small house where we are able to store our stuff and Pastor Fredy will stay there too to keep an eye on things. This will save us a lot of rental cost. Please pray for us as we will need an 8 passenger van for while we are in the US for 6 months. The Lord is still working out all the details for which we are thankful we have a God we can trust in! This past month we have been blessed to have a new missionary family come to Cajamarca to work with. The Burns family have been here for just a couple of weeks and we already feel a kindred spirit with them and are excited about helping each other reach Cajamarca and its surrounding areas for Christ. We also were excited that our good friends and fellow missionaries, Don & Carla Rich have returned from their furlough. We praise the Lord that we have such good friends that we are able to have fellowship with and to encourage each other in the work of the Lord. As for our family, the kids are excited about returning to the States and seeing Grandparents and cousins. They have also throughly enjoyed having the new missionary children here to play with. They have quickly became the best of friends with Tim & Rebekah Burns and will surely miss them while we are gone. Kathy and the baby are doing good. This pregnancy has been a little harder on Kathy and the next few weeks are going to be very busy with moving and traveling so please keep her in your prayers. We are excited to be able to see many of you in the next few months and if you would like us to stop by your church please call Shane at 1-330-437-1170. We will be based out of Lansing, Mi this time, but our Vonage phone is still an Ohio number. Once again, we thank you for your prayers and we want you to know how important you are to our ministry here in Peru.
God Bless, Shane, Kathy, Rachel, Rebekah, Moriah, Micah, Charity & baby |
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Anchor Baptist Church 2700 Richville Dr. Massillon, OH 44646 330-837-0101 |
Shane & Kathy Rice Casilla #90 Cajamarca, Peru 330-437-1170 |
Baptist International Outreach PO Box 639 Maynardsville, TN 37087 865-992-0999 |
June 2008 Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Wow, we have so much to tell you. God has been so good to us and our church is doing well. We have had a young man working with us for just under a year, and he has been doing a wonderful job. He had promised that he would come and work with the church for a year, just as a trial to see how things went, and see how the Lord would lead. We were a little concerned as time was drawing to a close for his one year commitment. One day while visiting we were talking and he let us know that he would be staying. He will be traveling back home for a month to visit family and will be back. Praise the Lord. We have known this young man since we came to Peru in 2002, and he has always maintained an excellent spirit, and testimony. We have been praying that God would use him as Pastor of our newly started work since he has been involved since the beginnings. Please pray for him, his name is Pastor Fredy Nuñez. He has done a good job leading the church, and we look forward to him doing great things for the Lord. Another blessing, we are expecting another one in the family. Kathy is due in November. I know what you are thinking, two or one? The ultra sound showed that there was only one. We are praying for a boy, as we (the boys) are slightly out numbered in our family! We are excited and pleased with whichever the Lord gives to us. After much prayer we are planning on coming home for a short furlough. We plan on being in the USA in September and staying till February. If you would like to have us come by your church please contact us. We have a Vonage phone which allows us to have a USA phone number that will ring here in Peru. The number is: 330-437-1170. Please keep this in your prayers as there are many details to be worked out. Our family is doing well, and everyone is in good health, and we praise the Lord for that! Our children are finishing up their school year, and looking forward too a summer break. They are growing so fast it is hard to believe. Rachel and Rebekah will be finishing up the 3rd grade, and Micah and Moriah will be finishing up the 1st grade. Next year, Charity will be starting school!!! She is already very smart because she is schooled by her siblings! Please continue to pray for the deaf in this area. We have tried for several months now to get something going with the deaf, and have yet to have any real positive results. I have offered to teach signs to another church in the area, and Pastor Fredy has been learning signs. We are equipping people for when the time is right. Deaf is yet another culture inside the Peruvian culture and not an easy one to be accepted in. Please pray that God will give us wisdom and the right timing to reach the deaf here in Cajamarca. We appreciate your prayers and support, and could not be here without you! Serving the Lord, Shane & Kathy Rice | April 2008 Dear Pastors and Praying Friends, The last two months have went by super fast. In February we had VBS in our church and helped in another church here in Cajamarca. Shane's cousin was able to come down and do the program for us. It was a lot of fun and we had lots of new kids come and about 10-15 saved. The Sunday after we were surprised with over 60 kids at church which isn't so bad if you have teachers and classes but they were all in the same class. They were hanging out the door standing all over the place because we didn't have enough seats. What a blessing it was! The following week we took Shane's cousin to Lima, a 15 hr drive, and stayed the week and went to special services at the deaf church there. It was great to see all our friends there and to get some American food like McDonald's! After we got back home we had a week to get ready for our Anniversary services. Bro. John Yingling, the director of our Mission Board was able to come down and be with us for this special time. We packed the church out every night and the preaching was awesome and just what our people needed. On Sunday we had over 75 people! We were encouraged by Bro John and the people of our little church. What a wonderful way to celebrate our church's 1st anniversary! We have had visitors every week at church and have had a few new families want to join. The Lord is definitely blessing our church. We will soon need to be looking for a bigger building. Also, we found out recently, that our landlord is selling our house that we are renting. We have a contract until August but we really love this house and was hoping to stay here for our whole term but I guess God has other plans for us. Please pray for us as we begin house hunting. The housing here is very expensive due to the mining industry and it is hard to find any with a yard which we really need. Pray that God will lead us in the right direction and that we will not get ahead of Him. Plese pray for the following
Your missionaries to Peru, Shane & Kathy Rice Rachel, Rebekah, Moriah, Micah & Charity |
December 2007 Dear Friends, We have been staying busy in the Lord's work and are enjoying seeing the fruits of our labours. The church is growing and getting stronger which we are extremely thankful for. We started as a bible study last November and turned it into a church in March and we will be celebrating 1 year shortly. We are running around 30-40 each service. We had our first baptism last Sunday and were excited to witness it and are hoping it will show some of the others this important step in their Christian walk. This being a Catholic country many are hesitant to take this step as it really separates them from the Catholic Church. We are rejoicing with the many visitors we've had and especially Jaime, the man we asked you to pray for in our last letter. He has come now about three times and has yet to get saved but we can see the Lord working on his heart. Please pray for this man that he will accept Christ and allow him to change his life. We also have a new family coming and we are praying for their salvation also. Their names are Max & Carmen. The Lord has opened the doors to start a ladies bible study every other Friday and they have been going real well. Kathy is teaching them to make different desserts and then she teaches them a Bible lesson as well. We have had about 10 ladies coming faithfully. The first weekend in December we are having a Family Training Conference. Shane will be preaching on relationships within the home and raising children. Also Pastor Freddy will be teaching the teens different topics as well. We have about 2,000 invitations that we are passing out and have also posted fliers at some of the area schools. Please keep this conference in prayer. We are hoping to grow out of our building shortly. Right now we can fit at the most 50. We are praying for land so that we can build or with a building already on it. In the area where are church is, it is very populated so there is not much land and what there is, is quite costly. Pray that the Lord will guide and direct our steps to where he would have us. We are also busy getting ready for our Christmas activities as well. We are having a Christmas Program plus a Chocalatada, which is a Peruvian custom, of Hot Chocolate and Fruit Bread. Pray with us that the people in our area will see the love of Jesus through us. We had a nice Thanksgiving which we shared with some of our Peruvian friends here. We were reminded that we have such a great big family in Christ and are thankful that where ever we are we can have a common bond in Jesus Christ our Saviour. We also recently celebrated the birthday of our youngest daughter, Charity. She turned 4 on Nov. 24th. The kids are all growing so much and are all looking forward to Christmas. We want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. May the Lord bless you and yours in this most joyous season!
His Faithful Servants, Shane & Kathy Rice Rachel, Rebekah, Moriah, Micah & Charity |
February 2008
Dear Friends,
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February 2007
Dear Praying Friends, Well, the time has flown by. We have been very busy, and things have been changing faster than I can keep up with. We did have good holidays, although it seems like we have been sick for the past month. It has been rough, the devil uses sickness to discourage, and Go uses it for our betterment. Please pray for our health and the health of our children. It seems as though we are starting to get better now. Please continue to pray for our need of a vehicle. We have been here for over 6 months, and life would be simpler with a vehicle. I'm amazed at the prices of cars here. We had thought that we could just go out and by a cheap vehicle to get us around town. We went to the car lot and for a winter 'rat' (that is what they are called up north) it was about $2,000, and would not seat the whole family. For a station wagon, they were anywhere from $6,000 - $10,000. These are not new, they are used. Praise the Lord we have about $6,000 of the $13,000 needed for a 4x4 used vehicle that will seat our family and be fit to travel in. Our Bible study has been going well. We just started a Discipleship series and it seems to be going well. The people who were letting us use their home found a new house so we had about two weeks to find a building, I spent hours walking around looking for a building. Every sign I called on I would hear the same answer, 'I'm sorry someone came yesterday and rented the building.' As you can imagine that gets frustrating to hear We wanted to be able to tell the people where we would be meeting the following week. We were pretty discouraged thinking we would have anything to tell the people. But, Praise the Lord, the last night of the Bible study we walked down the street to the Bible study and we saw a big truck. I jokingly told Kathy, that we needed to look for moving trucks that way we would know it hadn't been rented. As we got closer, it was a moving truck and the neighbors were moving out of the building next door. They had just moved in about 3 weeks before that. We had looked at the building before them, and was interested, just too slow. That night we talked with the owner, and the next day signed a contract! We are planning on continuing with the Bible study throughout February and are planning on starting Sunday services the beginning of March. We had a good trip to Celendin (pronounced – sell-in-deen). The trip itself was exciting. We spent over 2.5 hours driving at 15 – 20 mph because if we had gone any faster it would have tore up the truck! Needless to say the road was not a nice road. I was able to preach two times and about 5 made decisions to serve God. The most precious thing to me was an elderly Christian fellow that had walked about 45 minutes to arrive at the morning service. After the preaching, he came up to me with tears in his eyes and thanked us for coming and preaching. I can't explain to you the humbling, and yet blessed experience that was, and how it thrilled my heart. I look forward to the day when we can go further out of the city and reach people with the Gospel that have yet to be corrupted by other religions, and technology, just simple folks that need to know of a Saviour and need to be reached. Thank you for your prayers, as we have witnessed these past couple months, it would be hard to stay here without it. We appreciate you all! May God bless you! In His Service, Shane & Kathy Rice Rom 12:1-2 |
June 2007 Dear Pastors & Praying Friends, Grettings from the Rice Family! We have been busy the last two months with our new church. I don't think we realized how much work is involved in starting a new church but the benefits are amazing. Shane is preaching 4-5 times a week and keeping busy with just that. Kathy is teaching 3 classes a week and planning a mini vacation bible school. We are excited to tell you that on Mother's Day we had a high attendance of 53 with 3 saved. Praise the Lord! In the evening service we had 2 more saved. We are ready to fill the pool for Baptism. Please pray that these people will realize thier need to follow the Lord all the way. One of the ladies who was saved was the landlady of the building we are renting. We use the bottom floor and her and her family live upstairs. Her 6 yr old son has been coming since we started and really enjoys the kids class. She herself started coming a couple weeks before Mother's Day. We had been praying for her salvation and were very excited when she raised her hand for salvation. Later we found out that she is a school teacher and has invited many people to our services! Also this last Sunday after church she asked Shane if he had any material she could use to teach religion in her school, which is Catholic. Praise the Lord for His timing in finding the right building for our church. We are planning a family Conference for the weekend before Father's Day. We have quite a few people but lack in families so we are hoping to get some families in. Please pray for this conference as Shane will be preaching on the family each night. In August all the schools have a two week break so we are planning a mini VBS for this time. Please keep this in your prayers as well. We are planning for 75 kids. Pray that the Lord will use this time to reach many families as well. With all of God's blessings, the devil keeps fighting. Pray that we have the strength to keep fighting back. As we reported in our last prayer letter, we bought a VW Bug to get around town. We are thankful for it, but have realized our need even more for a 4x4, 7 passenger vehicle. Recently we had to make a trip to Lima, the BIG City, for passports and other reasons. They had a much better selection of cars and prices so Shane is planning a trip back soon. Pray that God will supply the funds needed for this. We thank all of you for your prayers for us. We are constantly reminded that we could not be here without your prayers and support. May God richly bless you! Your missionaries to Peru, Shane & Kathy Rice |
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September 2006 Dear Praying Friends, We want to thank all of you who had us in while we were on Furlough. It was a blessing to be able to share with you the part you have in our ministry here in Peru. If we were not able to be at your church please be aware that you are in our prayers and we appreciate all your support and prayers. We would have loved to been at every church this past year but it was impossible to get to everyone. We are excited to be back in Peru as of the middle of July. We have finally found a house and are getting settled in. It was a much bigger chore than we expected. The Lord has blessed us with just the house we were praying for. We would love to have all of you visit us. If any of you would be interested let us know. For the time being we have been working with some fellow missionaries that have just started a church near us in the last year. It was a blessing to be able to be a part of their first Anniversary Service. It has given us an opportunity to get to know the people here in Cajamarca. They are very sweet, hard-working people but many are so set in their Catholic traditions. Now that we are settled in we are anxious to get started on our own. Please pray as we are gearing up to get a Bible study started that will be developed into a church. Also pray as we are praying and looking for a Peruvian that can pastor the church. We would like to start another Bible study for the deaf, and yet another Bible study close to the area, so we can merge the three into one church. “And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” Ecc 4:12 We have much we want to do, and accomplish here in Cajamarca. Please pray for us as we start this new part of our ministry. Also we were able to spend some time at the church we worked in in Lima, Efata Baptist Church. It was a joy to see the people being faithful and that the church is growing. Shane had the opportunity to go to Efata for the Bible conference. He greatly enjoyed the opportunity to refresh his signs again. We are looking forward to working with the deaf as well as the hearing here in Cajamarca. Also while we have been here we have been able to come across some deaf that we pray we will be able to minister to as well. There used to be a deaf work here but it has slowly died out and the deaf have gotten away from church. Many have accepted Christ but they need training. Pray that the Lord will show us what part we can have in this ministry. We would also love to start a ministry in the little towns outside of the city where there are many who have never heard the truth. Please pray with us that we will be able to raise enough money for a 4x4 vehicle to be able to go into these mountain towns. Right now we are without a vehicle and have been taking taxis and walking everywhere. Which has been good on the waistline but hard on the feet. As always we covet your prayers for our ministry, family, safety and health. “Grace be unto you, and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God upon every remembrance of you.” (Phil. 1:2-3) God Bless you for your part in our ministry here in Peru, SA.
Serving Him for you in Peru, Shane & Kathy Rice
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Dear Praying Friends, Praise the Lord, time is flying by, and things are starting to get busy now. We are excited about our new Bible Study. We started on November 2nd, we had a total of 21 the fist night. We were very excited with that. I have been hiting the pavement hard, and we have been averaging 24. Praise the Lord I have had plenty of opportunity to plant the seed. We are in the sowing stage, and That we are doing. We have passed out more than 1500 invitations with the plan of salvation on the back of them. I have had the opporunity to share the gospel with about 20 different people that have listened intently. Praise the Lord, I had the opportunity to lead a young teen to Christ. Please pray as His word goes forth, that God will continue to work on the hearts of the people. Also pray as I will be preaching special services December 6 - 10th at another Baptist church here. Our family has been doing well. We have been busy still trying to setup house, and get some things that we need. As we had said before the container cost us more than we expected, and we have been trying to catch back up ever since. We still need some things in the house, and are saving to help with those. We also are praying that God will provide us with the money for a vehicle. We have priced cars and it will cost around $12,000 for a used 4x4 vehicle that will take us back into many villages. We are not even looking at the new ones, vehicles are costly here for something that is worth anything. I looked just last week at a late model 1980's jeep that was too small for the family, they were asking $13,000 negotiable. Many of the roads are dirt, and we are beginning the rainy season now, so as you can imagine those dirt roads are no longer dirt roads, but rather mud roads. Please pray and consider this need, we ask if you would like to send any special love gifts for Christmas, that you could send it towards a vehicle. Please Pray about this need. We have been using taxis, and I have cut costs by using the over-crowded public buses to try and save more money for a vehicle. Kathy and the kids have been doing well. School is in full swing for all 5 of them, Charity still roams the house wreaking havoc while Kathy is in school. You can tell she is going from the angelic two's to the terrorific three's. It is neat to watch them grow, and learn so much. I'm amazed at the amount of verses the older 4 memorize, and songs that they learn. Praise the Lord that they are getting it young! So many of the adults here do not even know the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament! On another hand, we have had problems with our web page. The server where our web page was hosted was hacked. As a result our email has not worked right for a little over a month. We are still ironing out a few bugs with this, if you have tried to email us and not gotten through, please continue to send them until they go through. If they don't come back to you then we got them. I have updated the look to our web page, and added new pictures since we are back in Peru so stop by and see the pictures. Also, we have had problems with our 'snail' mail, and we are mysteriously losing mail. We know we have lost at least 5 pieces of mail in the past 2 months, it is not only slow, it sometimes doesn't ever make it. (And that is not good when only 8 things have been sent to you.) Please pray that this will get fixed as well. We have talked to the post office here, and they are not too interested in helping, we really don't know what more can be done but to pray. Please continue to pray for our family as we strive forward for looking forward to starting a church very soon. We hope you have a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New year! God Bless! Serving the King, The Rices |
July
2006 Dear
Pastor, Wow, so
much has gone on since our
last prayer letter. Let me summarize, our past two months. In the
very beginning of June, I was able to go and preach at The Wildreness
Camp in West Virginia. We had a great Junior week, and were able to
see three souls come to Christ. Praise the Lord. I love camp as I
got assurance of my salvation at camp, and was called to preach at
camp! Praise the Lord he is still working on young peoples hearts,
and who knows 20 years from now, if the Lord tarries, they may be
missionaries serving in Peru! After
camp we came home to repack and
head to Atlanta, GA for Candidate School with BIO. Praise the Lord
it was truly an encouraging week for us, and we continue to learn
more about the work of missions. It is always good to fellowship
with others that are doing a work similar to what you are doing. Well,
back home to finish the serious
packing, and contract a container. It took some time, and drove us
to the last minute however we packed everything we could into a 20
foot container and sent it off to Peru. Praise the Lord we had saved
enough money to just cover the expense of the container. We
appreciate the teens in our church helping us load the container on
the truck, we could not have done it without them! Praise the Lord
our sending church, Anchor Baptist Church, offered to pay for our
tickets all the way to Cajamarca about $4000 worth of tickets. That
was truly a blessing as we didn't have the money for both the
container and the tickets. I was
privileged to preach a going
away message in our home church our last Sunday home. It was quite a
day. First all of our family was there as we desired to dedicate
Charity to the Lord. She was born in Peru and we wanted our Pastor
to do the dedication. It was also a joy to our hearts to see our twin
girls Rachel & Rebekah get baptized. That night I preached a
farewell message. We were excited to get back to Peru but it is
always sad to part with our friends and family. All our
international trips are always
exciting, you can't travel with 5 children, and not have an exciting
trip. We ended up flying out of Cleveland late, which in turn
complicated matters in JFK airport. When we arrived in JFK, they
(Lan Peru) didn't have us booked on the flight, and told us we were
too late, and couldn't board the plane after about 50 minutes of
explaining, etc, we were finally allowed to board the plane. We were
the very last to board, and there were not 3 seats together, much
less 7. The flight attendants were very nice and moved things around
and got us into two groups. Praise the Lord. Upon arriving in Peru,
we spent a few days in Lima, and enjoyed seeing our friends in Lima. It
was good to wake up to the noise of the bread man blowing his horn
at 6AM to let us know he was coming and selling fresh made bread in
the morning. It was a “Welcome to Peru” sign that I
enjoyed
hearing again. It was so good to see people that we had worked with
for almost 2 years serving the Lord there in Efata Baptist Church,
filling various roles. Praise the Lord. Now we
are anxiously awaiting for our
container to get here. We are really not sure how much it will cost
to pay for taxes for the container, and for shipping it to Cajamarca.
Please pray that God will provide for the finances needed for this
project. We can say that He has never failed us yet! We are also
saving for a vehicle here, please pray that the Lord supplies for
these needs quickly so we can move on to more important things. We
are currently in Cajamarca looking for housing. It is not as easy to
find housing here as it is in other places in Peru. The gold miners
pay very high prices for housing, and therefore drive house prices
much higher than they should be. Every house we have looked at, we
tell them our little line, “We are missionaries, not
miners.” Please pray that we will find the right house for
the right price,
and that God would lead us clearly in this area. Thank you so very
much for your faithful support and prayers as we are serving in Peru. Serving
the King, Shane
& Kathy Rice As
I am writing this we are sitting in traffic anxiously awaiting to get
home after more than two weeks on the road. We have been extremely
busy over the last three months putting more than 10,000 miles on our
van. We have been from Upstate New York to Mexico. The Lord has
really blessed us with safety on the road and no problems with our
van and we know it is because of the prayers of our faithful
supporters and friends. We have been in quite a few new churches and
are praying that the Lord will touch their hearts to support our
ministry in Peru. We
were excited to be able to take a trip to Mexico and spend some time
with Bro Humberto Gomez and his work in Matamoros, Mexico. Shane was
able to preach twice and we were also able to witness a baptismal in
the Gulf of Mexico. It was quite an experience! We were once again
reminded of our need to get the Gospel to the lost. We are already
anxious to get back to Peru and speaking Spanish again made us even
more ready to get back to the work the Lord has for us in Peru.
We
have many prayer request for the next two months as we prepare to
return to Peru for our second term. There are many logistical things
that we need to set in order. We need to get tickets roughly about
$3500. We are working on getting a container to ship our things and
materials for the ministry (Bibles, Tracts, John & Romans) to
Peru. Often in Peru you end up paying 3 months of rent to get into a
house (2 months security deposit, and one month in advance). We will
also need about another $10000 for a vehicle. We would like to get a
4 wheel drive to be able to go into some of the villages. We will
know more once we get into the country and can shop around, however
this is the price that we had found before we had left the country.
There are many logistics to work out besides these as well. We know
it sounds like a lot but we know we have an even bigger God. Please
keep these needs in your prayers as we endeavor to tie up all the
lose ends before returning to Peru. We
also have a few more meetings before leaving and would like to spend
time with family before heading back to Peru. We want to sincerely
thank you for your prayers and support, it has been refreshing to be
in so many churches and see so many people that have been praying for
us faithfully. May God richly bless you and return a double portion
on you for your labors and sacrificial giving.
Serving
the King,
April 2006
Dear
Praying Friends,
Shane
& Kathy Rice
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June 2005 Dear
Friends and Family, Greetings in the precious name of our Lord & Saviour. He has been so good to us and we never cease to be amazed at His presence in our life and ministry. For Mother's day, our school Efata Deaf School had a mother's day program and 4 of our students mother's were saved that day. The one was very Catholic and lives about 4 hours away. Since she has been saved she has been coming every Sunday and is very interested in the Bible. Pray that she will soon get baptized and grow and that her husband will also receive Christ. That was on the Friday before Mother's Day then the next day we had our monthly ladies meeting. We usually have about 20-25 ladies and teen girls so I was expecting about 30 as I had asked them to invite their mother's. We were very excited and surprised when over 60 ladies showed up! Then on Mother's day we had about 30 mother's present in Church. We were blessed to have Bro. Ray & Anita Bradley, missionaries in Ecuador, with us. Anita was able to teach at our ladies meeting and Bro Ray preached several times. They were such a blessing and encouragement to us. Please continue to pray for the Efata Baptist Church. As we are in our winter months now, a lot of the people don't like to come because of the cold or it gets dark earlier. Please pray for their faithfulness and protection. As many of our people have been mugged right out in front of our church. This next week our family will be traveling to Cajamarca, Peru. It is a city in the north and is about a 14 hour bus ride over the Andes. This needy city is one of a few places that we are praying about coming back to after furlough. Please pray with us as we pray about this. We want to be right in the center of God's perfect will for our lives. There is so much need here in Peru and so few laborers. As this will probably be our last prayer letter we will write before our furlough please pray for us as we get ready to pack up again. Shane has been able to talk to quite a few of our supporting churches and schedule meetings. If he has not been able to contact you, and you would like us to come and give an update please give us a call at 330-437-1170 (this is a USA phone number that will ring in Peru!) or drop us an email at Shane@rices2peru.com. Please pray for our furlough as there are many logistics to get in order, things here, as well as things there. We need to sell vehicles here, buy a vehicle there, get prayer cards, store things here, take care of pets here, get a slide projector, and all the rest. Praise the Lord our wonderful sending church is setting up a house for us to live in! We will be in the USA in the beginning of August. Thank you all so much for your love, prayers, and support. We are constantly reminded of your faithfulness to us and to the Great Commission. We love you all and thank the Lord for you all. God Bless! Serving the King, Shane, Kathy Rachel, Rebekah Micah, Moriah, & Charity Rice |
September
2005
Dear Friends and Family, Praise the Lord we have arrived back in the States. We said our goodbyes to all our friends in Peru and headed to the airport, something that difficult for every missionary. We arrived at the airport 2 hours early got all 7 of us checked in went through the security and were waiting at the gate when we found out the plane was delayed. We waited an extra 2 hours at the gate for the plane, making our connection in Miami tight. Upon arrival in Miami I thought we were doing well until they announce local time, I realized we were really tight. We had half an hour to get through customs get our 12 seventy pound bags while we are keeping track of the kids. As you could imagine, we didn’t make the connecting flight. We ended up having to stay the night in Miami with disappointed grandparents waiting in Chicago to see the grandkids. The trip was not what was planned, and a little frustrating, but Praise the Lord it all worked out. We ended up flying into Cleveland, and our parents drove from Chicago to Cleveland to pick us up. Upon arrival to our house we were pleasantly surprised to find our house all set up! Our home church had located a house for us, and then took much time and work upon themselves to setup entire house. We want to thank Pastor and Mrs. Jacobs for all their hard work, and time in setting up the house. We praise the Lord for our Pastor’s wife that spent countless hours shopping, cleaning, setting up and decorating the house for us! What a tremendous blessing for us. There was food in the cupboards, the kids’ rooms were all setup complete with toys, there were towels, soap, shampoo, and every single little thing that we would need! PRAISE THE LORD!!! We have enjoyed being in the states thus far, we have been, at two different Pastor’s fellowship meetings and have enjoyed sitting under the preaching. We are contacting our supporting churches, and setting up meetings for this year. If we have not contacted you and you would like to have us come please feel free to call us at 330-437-1170. We are looking forward to being with you all. Kathy is starting home schooling this month. This is a big responsibility. We appreciate your prayers for this as we plan on traveling as well, this will mean schooling on the road. Please continue to pray for the children and Kathy. Please pray for our travels here in the states! Thank you for your prayers! Serving the King, Shane & Kathy Rice Rom12:1-2 |
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February 2005 Dear
Friends and Family, Wow, we are already in the second month of 2005 and don't know where January went. We have been too busy to know what day it is, let alone the month. We had a very good Christmas and New Years here with the people of our church. We spent Christmas Eve at Efata until about 1:00am (as is Peruvian tradition) then we spent Christmas day with some dear friends of ours here in Lima. Praise the Lord wherever we are we can find family in Christ. We had a great New Years Eve service complete with homemade Hot Chocalate and Paneton (a fruit bread). Kathy and a bunch of the teens spent the rest of the night playing games and fellowshipping. December proved to be a great month as I was able to take a trip to Tarapoto with another missionary. Tarapoto is a city of about 100,000 people. To our knowledge, there are no Baptist Churches in Tarapoto. I was amazed to overlook the city and see such a great need, with so little hope. I ran into an Evangelical missionary there that told me there are Mormons, Jehovah's Witness, and Pentacostales but there are no Baptists. We are greatly concerened about this city. Please pray for the people of Tarapoto. We handed out many Gospel tracts and talked with several people. I was also able to take a couple other trips in January. The more I travel the more I am burdened for the countless villages here in Peru without a Baptist church. Please pray for us as we seek God's will where He would have us to be in the future. Also in the month of January we were privleged to have missionary Jim Sloan come and preach our Missions Conference. We had a wonderful conference complete with an International Banquet. Bro. Sloan presented a wonderful slide presentation of the different countries he has been to and the need to reach the deaf. There are entire countries without a single church reaching the deaf. Our people were greatly burdened and promised 5,000 soles($1500.00) to missions this year. As you all know, we are helping in Efata while Bro. Joe Kotvas is on Furlough. We are looking forward to their return in the end of June. After almost three years here in Peru we have decided to take a ten month furlough in August 2005 until June 2006. Once again we thank you for your prayers and support as we labor here in Peru. We love you all and think of you often and are looking forward to seeing you all this year. Serving the King,Shane, Kathy Rachel, Rebekah Micah, Moriah, & Charity Rice |
April 2005 Dear
Friends and Family, We
are in the middle of a Sunday School campaign and are excited to see
the growth in the church not only numerically but spiritually. In this
latin american culture it is hard to get people to be on time so we
have been pushing them to be on time. We have been teaching on the
family for the whole month of March and it has been a big blessing to
the families in the church. The end of February we had a three day
ladies meeting. The ladies really enjoyed it and they learned alot. It
has been really neat to see them learning and applying what they have
learned to their lives. We
had a wonderful Easter Sunday. We had lots of visitors but none
saved which we were kinda sad about, but Praise the Lord the next
Sunday one of our young men who has been coming for awhile accepted
Christ as his Saviour, and another young man got saved. As
many of you know Kathy's family has had three deaths in the last
month and so she flew home for a week to be with her family. The three
deaths were all cousins of her mom. The day she flew back to Peru her
grandmother went in he hospital and is home now, but not doing very
well and her aunt went in the hospital last week and on Sunday had a
heart attack while in the hospital. She was not doing very well and
they had to put a pacemaker in. Please continue to pray for Kathy and
her family. In
May we will be traveling to Arequipa to take part in the
incorporation service in Tabernacle Baptist Church, the church that we
worked in there. We are excited to see it grow from a mission to an
indigenous church. Please pray for Pastor Charlie and his wife as they
take this big step. Currently
we have been seeking the Lord's will as to where we will be
starting a new work after our furlough. Please continue to pray for
this as there are many opportunities and much need here in the country
of Peru. Shane has been traveling to see the different needs and he
still has a couple more trips planned before we go on furlough. As
we said in our last prayer letter we will be leaving Peru in August
for a eleven-month furlough. We are excited to see you all again so if
you would like us to come and report in your church please e-mail us.
We have already scheduled quite a few meetings but still have some open
dates. Thank
you all so much for your prayers, support, cards, and packages.
It is always a blessing to hear from our friends back home. |
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Dear
Friends and Family, |
December 2004 Dear
Friends and Family, |
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June – July 2004 Dear
Friends and Family,
Winter is now in full swing, and we
have a misty rain daily, and the sun doesn't shine too much here. We
Praise the
Lord that THE SON does continue to shine, and his Word does continue to
go
forth.
During our Father's Day program at the
school, we had one deaf boys dad get saved!!! Praise the Lord. I had
the
privilege of sitting down and sharing with him the Gospel of the Lord
Jesus
Christ. I happen to be in the right place at the right time, and praise
the Lord
for that. Pray for Fernando. I have encouraged him to get into our
church, and
be faithful. Also pray for his wife, Sandra who is
expecting
a baby
soon and has had some complications.
Please pray for the church as we have
had some problems in the church lately.
Church attendance has fallen some as a result. We are looking forward to
overcoming, and
going forward.
Our family is doing well. We have
found a house, and want to thank everyone for your prayers. We are
looking
forward to moving into our house this month (JULY). We are also looking
forward
to traveling to Arequipa and being with the church there. They have
invited me
to preach in their anniversary service on July 11. We plan on traveling
to
Iquitos also in August, as I will be preaching the anniversary service
of the
deaf Church there.
We have added an extra page
to this
months letter explaining a special prayer request we have. We
would ask
that you read this and pray with us that the Lord would supply this
great need.
Our Children continue to grow like
weeds, and continue to learn Spanish, English, and signs. I have
updated
pictures on the web page of the family and work here, it will give you
a first
hand view of the them and what we are doing. www.rices4peru.com
Thank
you for your faithful support and prayers. May God richly bless you! Serving
the King, Shane
& Kathy, Rachel
& Rebekah Micah
& Moriah, Charity Rice John 4:35 |
August – September 2004 Dear Praying Friends, Well the Lord has blessed us this past month. We have found and moved into a house. We had been looking for some time. The house is just right for our family and at a good price. Thank you for your prayers. I appreciate those that have contacted us to ask questions regarding the last prayer letter. I also apologize for not being clear in the request. Efata is not going to lose the land. It is just not titled, which means in technicality the government “could” come in and take the land. They are not doing this, nor in the process, however in the future it could happen as it is officially untitled property. The second thing, is, this is not our permanent mission or work. We are helping another missionary while he is on furlough. Our plan was and is to work with another missionary for a short time to “learn the ropes” sort of say, and then later branch out onto our own. God has blessed us greatly with this opportunity and we are learning much being in charge of the ministry here for this time. This is not to discourage anyone that feels lead to help. We just wanted to express the need so that if God touched hearts and churches felt lead to give, great! We don't want to hinder that process, we want to help. We are looking forward to September when we have the annual Bible conference here. We have invited many churches and Pastors. We are looking forward to having a time when we can encourage the Pastors, and Missionaries here in Peru. The conference is specific for the work of the deaf. The conference will be a full schedule with 3 messages/classes in the morning, and then 2 preachers every night. It is a time when the Pastors/Missionaries get a chance to sit and absorb the Word of God for a week. They can then return to their churches, refreshed, and recharged for more work. Last year many pastors, leaders and missionaries came and were encouraged in their work. Rachel and Rebekah have started Kindergarten here in Lima. We are excited about them actually being in a school that teaches in English. There is a mission school here for Independent Baptists children, and they have been accepted there. They are excited to have some English speaking friends and Kathy is excited to have a little more time for the other 3. Pray for Micah & Moriah as they are adjusting to thinking for themselves instead of following their sisters around. Charity is doing good and has just got her first two teeth which makes her smile even more precious. Please pray as we continue to minister here and stay very busy working with the deaf and maintaining our hearing ministry that we started. We fight daily an enemy that we cannot see. Pray also for my Grandfather as he has suffered a stroke this past month. He now has trouble swallowing, he has been in and out the hospital lately. Thank you for your faithful prayers! Serving
the King, Shane
& Kathy, Rachel
& Rebekah Micah & Moriah, Charity Rice |
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January 2004 Dear Pastors & Praying Friends, “The BEST year ever!” This is our goal for 2004. We have many plans for this year. We are excited to be working in the deaf ministry here in Lima. As we have lived here in Lima for the past two months we have seen the extreme need to reach the deaf and their families. In some churches, they have a deaf ministry but in ours we have a hearing ministry. While 80 percent of our members are deaf we have quite a few hearing members also. One of our goals this year is to strive to build our hearing ministry so the families of the deaf will feel included too. We would like to reach many of the parents of the deaf students in our school. As we celebrated the New Year in with testimonies and prayer we were blessed with the testimonies of two students especially. One deaf girl has been at the school here for two years and now her mom and brother are faithfully coming to church. She knew no sign language when she came. We praise the Lord she has learned sign language, accepted Christ as her personal Saviour, and brought her family to church. Another one of our orphan deaf boys has been here since March, when he came he knew nothing, no words, no signs only how to spell his name on a piece of paper. We rejoice now that he can sign so fast no one can keep up. He still has so much growing and learning to do, but it is exciting to see the fruits of labor. One of our personal goals this year is to learn sign language. We have learned a lot just living hear amongst the deaf people but please pray for us as we strive to learn another language. We had many blessings in our life in 2003. We were able to see our church in Arequipa grow from about 20 people to an average of about 40. We were sad to leave it but rejoice to hear of new visitors every week and people being saved. Shane was also able to finish language school, which he was very excited about. Kathy is still working on hers and hopes to finish here soon. One of our biggest blessing is that we a Peruvian has come to live with us……… Ok, she is Peruvian only because she was born here, but she is our daughter. J Charity Faith was born on the 24th of November. She is doing well and is smothered in loved by her brother and sisters. We do have baby pictures on the web at: www.rices2peru.com We thank all of you for your faithful support throughout the year 2003. If you would like to see the fruits of your sacrificial giving we would love for you to come and visit. We have plenty of room and lots to keep you busy. For all you northern folks who want to go south for the winter, what a great way to spend a vacation. Serving the King, The Rices |
March
2004 Dear Prayer Partner,
The funerals are very different here. The first one a deaf boys
mom passed
away. He kept
bothering his sister
until they finally called and asked me to come and say a few words at
the
funeral that same day. (You
don’t get
much advanced notice.) An
hour later I
was heading for the house. When
I got
to the house everyone was setting around the living room. There are idols, burning
candles, and
flowers there in the room around the casket.
You walk in and greet everyone, and everyone
continues
talking. They sit
there all day, some come
and some
go, but the family is usually there all day.
They usually come around and serve you with
some
juice of
some sort and
everyone drinks out of the same three glasses.
The first time, I wasn’t sure what
to do,
so I just sat
there for an
hour or so, and then finally I talked to the widowed husband and asked
him if I
could say a few words. He
said that was
fine, so I presented the Gospel, waited a little bit, talking to the
family,
and then left. It
was an interesting
experience.
The girls started school this month.
They
have been learning, and keeping Kathy
busy with the schooling. Kathy
teaches
them in the mornings from 8:30 – 12 PM.
We tried teaching Micah and Moriah in class
with
Rachel
and Rebekah at
first, however decided they just weren’t ready for school.
Kathy is in the States right now, and having a
good
visit
with her mom. Regretfully
my parents
are not able to go and see the new grand baby, please pray that they
will be
able to come to Peru and visit soon.
Please pray as we continue to learn signs:
that we
will
learn them well, and quickly. Please
pray for the ministry here, that the church will continue to grow, and
that we
will be able to train more leaders in the church.
Thank
you for your support and prayers.
The
Rices www.rices2peru.com |
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Dear Pastors & Friends, We thank you so much for your prayers as we moved to Lima. The move went smoothly. We are all settled in, after several days of looking all over Lima for a house we decided to live right on the campus of Efata. This is the Church, school, and home for the deaf where we will be working. The missionaries we are working with are leaving for the States on Jan 15 for a time of furlough so please pray for us as we spend these next two months learning the ropes. We are excited about our opportunity to work with the deaf and be an integral part of the ministry here in Lima. Shane will be in charge of the ministry while Bro. Kotvas is in the states on his furlough. We are planning on starting a Sunday School class for the hearing. Please pray this ministry will be up and running in the new year. There is a great need to reach out to the families of the deaf that can hear and we plan on heading that up. There is also a need for the families of the deaf to become directly involved in the life of their deaf relative. We will also be greatly involved in learning sign language and working directly with the deaf. Please pray as we endeavor to learn yet another language. The kids are adjusting well, however they are still adjusting. They have started learning sign language as well. Rachel (now 4 years old) finds it hard to understand that deaf people can’t hear. Lupe, the lady that helps us is deaf. Rachel told her the other day that she was going to take a nap. Lupe had her back to her, so obviously didn’t hear or see her. Rachel then repeated herself louder. Rachel noticing that Lupe still had not heard her begins to yell louder to Lupe, “I’m going to take a nap!” Lupe still unresponsive and even unaware of Rachel’s presence continues doing whatever she was doing. Rachel gives up and goes to her room to take a nap. Lupe never knew what happened and Rachel still doesn’t fully understand the meaning of deaf. It must be hard for a 4 year old to really understand what it is to not have the ability to hear. Perhaps harder still for us to understand that there are people that are completely deaf to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They have never heard of the wonderful love of Jesus Christ. They have never understood that Christ paid their sin debt. Yet they live on in the constantly quiet world they know. They are the deaf of Peru. Most cannot read well enough to understand a tract. They will not know the Truth that can set them free, until someone shows them through sign language. “How shall they hear without a Preacher?” Pray we learn signs quickly to be able to witness and train others that they can witness and share the Good news with other deaf. As we celebrated Thanksgiving we had so much to be thankful for this past year but the biggest blessing was the birth of our new daughter, Charity Faith. She was born Nov 24 and was home for Thanksgiving. Mom and baby are doing well. Of course, you can see pictures on our webpage at www.rices2peru.com. We want to thank you all for your prayers and support. May you all have a wonderful and blessed Christmas and New Year.
Serving the King, The Rices
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October
2003
Dear Pastors & Praying Friends,
These past months have gone by quickly. We have
seen
the
church start to grow, and pray that it will continue to grow slowly,
but steadily. Shane¹s parents brought down about 500 John
&
Romans. We had the privilege of handing out many of them. At first we
just handed them out, then we started only giving them out if they
would take the time to listen to eight or ten verses from the John
& Romans. This gave us the opportunity to go through the Romans
Road and show them how they could be saved. We saw one saved, and for
many others we had a great opportunity to plant the seed of
God¹s
Word into their hearts. We praise the Lord we have the promise that it
will not return void! The Catholics here are open to hear the Bible and
have respect for the Bible, but lack good Biblical teaching.
The last two weeks of September Shane¹s
parents came
down to visit us. We had a great time fellowshipping with them. Shane
got his exercise with the language translating while his dad preached
four times in the two weeks that they were here. Also, while they were
here, we were robbed for the first time. While in a restaurant, someone
walked in and took Kathy¹s purse as we were occupied with our
children eating. We didn¹t even notice until we went to leave,
and
it was gone! Needless to say it made for a long day. Praise the Lord,
we didn¹t lose too much. We did however lose her passport, our
bank card, and a credit card. We were able to get them canceled the
next day. We are always careful because this is something we learn to
watch for
everyday. Kathy is doing well with the pregnancy
and
the
kids are getting anxious to meet their new brother or sister. The kids
are doing well and were so excited to spend two weeks with their
grandparents. They enjoyed lots of American candy and goodies Grandma
brought them. I¹m sure that we will be making a trip to the
dentist soon.
We have lived in Peru for one year, just got
comfortable
here in Arequipa, got our house setup completely, learned the city of
Arequipa, have all our regular people we deal with, and... God is
moving us. We are excited and yet fearful to say we are moving to Lima.
Lima is the capital of Peru with about 6 million people. We are moving
to help a missionary (Bro. Joe Kotvas) that
is heading back to the U.S. for a year. We will
be in
charge
while he is gone. We are excited at the opportunity, and yet fearful at
the great responsibility. The missionary has a deaf school, home, and
church. There is no other missionary that is working with him right
now. We will get a crash course in sign language while we are there. We
are planning on moving there
in November after Shane finishes language school
in
October.
Pray that he will be able to get it all completed by the end of
October. Also pray as we prepare to move; it will be a lot of work, and
cost a little bit of money.
Pray as Kathy is due in the first week of December, this will be a lot of work for her. We will probably live in the Deaf School for a month or so. Pray as we look for housing, save to move, and pack. Life will be very busy, and Thanksgiving and Christmas will be a little hectic as we move and try to find a house to settle down into. This will give us the much-needed opportunity to be greatly involved in the ministry with another missionary and get some hands-on experience. There is another church that is being pastored by a national about an hour away from this school, and we look forward to being able to help and to be a blessing to him. We would love to see this church get up and off the ground. Thanks for your prayers and support. God Bless! Serving the King,
The Rices
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August
03
Dear Pastors & praying Friends,The month has flown by. I have finished book 3 in Language school. I am taking a week off to get some church things done before starting book 4. Language school isgoing great. We are looking forward to finishing language school this fall. Kathy wants to finish before the baby comes. I was able to go to ILO this past month and be a part of a team that helped encourage a church and Pastor there. The church enjoyed the fellowship every night. After church we sat around and sang, and talked for a while. The man in charge of the music has only been saved for 8 months and seemed starving for fellowship. He loved to just sit around and sing with the group. The Pastor and his wife have made a great sacrifice to move to the coastal town of ILO. The coastal towns are very wicked here. There are no other Independent Baptist Churches for the Pastor to fellowship with. They live in a small house beside the church, and they live on next to nothing. They have no family in this town, and traveling for them is really not an option because of the cost. I don’t tell you this for you to feel sorry for him, he is content to be pastoring in ILO. I tell you this to think about what we have sacrificed for our LORD? Christ gave much more than this for us, and so often we can’t sacrifice a single thing for him. If we don’t have extra, we don’t give an offering, if we don’t have time, we don’t offer to help, and if it isn’t convenient forget it! It was a blessing to be a blessing and encouragement to this Pastor and his dear wife. Praise the Lord; we don’t have to buy diapers anymore. All of the twins are done with diapers. We have been buying diapers for almost 4 years now, and never just for one child. This truly is a praise for us. Kathy will begin teaching Rachel and Rebekah in the fall. They are excited to start school. This will really make Kathy’s days busy, as she will start teaching in the morning, and then have language school in the afternoon. The kids have gotten so big; it is hard to believe that Rachel and Rebekah will be 4 this month. Next month, one of our supporting Pastors, who also happens to be my father, and his wife are coming to visit. Needless to say the kids and Kathy are thrilled to have family coming to visit. I have scheduled my dad to preach and the people here are so excited that he is coming. This will also give me an opportunity to practice translating. We are always excited for people to come visit so if your church or youth group is planning a mission trip, our house is always open. It is a great way to get your church burdened for the cause of Missions. Thank you for your prayers and support. God Bless. Serving the King, The Rices |
June
2003
Dear Pastors & praying Friends, We have had a very busy past couple of months. In the Iglesisa Bautista Tabernaculo (Tabernacle Baptist Church) we had a very big Sunday on Mother’s Day with about 40 people. Then we had a family conference with good crowds everynight. We have seen two of our teens mothers saved and have had quite a few repeated visitors. Praise the Lord! We are looking forward to a big day on Father’s Day also. We are now half way through with our language studies and are excited to be nearing the finish. We have so many things we want to do it is hard to wait. Kathy is doing very well in her studies. She is now taking classes at home which has worked out very well. She can spend more time with the kids and still get her studies in as well. As many of you have heard we are expecting another baby. We are excited but apprehensive at the same time. We have found a very good doctor here and are trusting the Lord to take care of the rest. We have found out that it is only ONE!! Of course two would be a extra blessing but kids are kinda like ice cream, you love it but you can only eat so much. She is due Dec 4th. Please continue to keep Kathy in your prayers as she has been sick with the baby. We have also just purchased a van!! It is a Mazda and will make a great car for our family and to get people back and forth to church. Shane is very excited to be able to drive again. He doesn’t make a very good backseat driver. We want to thank everyone that had a part in helping us purchase this van, especially the people of Anchor Baptist Church. You all have no idea what a blessing this is to us. Shane had to travel to a city six hours south of us to purchase this van, as he was away for a couple days of course the house seemed to fall apart. When he came back, our computer had a virus, our hamster died and our guard dog ran away. She wasn’t a very good guard dog but she was big and could bark. We plan on getting another dog soon, as it is a good alert as to what is going on outside the house. All of the kids are doing well and are excited for another baby they all want a sister but we would like a boy. They are doing very well with their Spanish and sometimes we have to remind them to speak in English. Their favorite thing to do is to go to the children’s home and play. The Children’s Home has two Llamas and one just had a baby so the kids were very excited about that. As always, we thank you for your prayers and support. Every month we are reminded what faithful friends we have met over the past three years. Please continue to pray for us as we pray for you all. The Rices |
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February
2003
Dear Pastors and praying friends,“It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto Thy name, O most High.” The Lord has been so good to us as we serve Him here in Peru. We are thankful that the holiday season is over and life is getting back to normal. The last three months have been crazy! We had a month to settle in, and then Christmas was upon us. We had a nice sunny Christmas. We missed our family but the Lord made up for it with family in Christ here. After Christmas we thought things would quiet down but I am beginning to think a missionaries life is never normal, especially with two sets of twins. In January the missionaries we are helping here in Peru had a group of 25 men come from the States to work on the Children’s Home for a week. We had seven men stay in our house. It was a very busy week, but we had a great time of fellowship and got a lot accomplished on the Children’s home. There are pictures on our web page of the work they did. We also had to take our kids to Chile to get their passports renewed and get their Visas at the Peruvian Consulate in Chile. This was a trip we will not soon forget. It was quite a trip, five hours on a bus with four kids each way. Exciting to say the least. We are also planning on going to Lima to get our children’s carnets this month. This should be our last trip for a while for Government paper work. It amazes me that we have been here for 3 months, and are still trying to complete our legal paper work to live here. What a time and money-consuming thing this is! Please pray, as we are seeking to get a vehicle. We have been looking for a vehicle, and have found to get a decent vehicle we will need about $5000. We have saved up $500 and our home church said they will help with another $1000. We are lacking the other $3500. If we had 50 churches that were able to give $70 we would be able to buy a vehicle. Please pray about this need, and if God leads your church to help in anyway we would greatly appreciate it. We would like to have a vehicle by April 30th. Please mark any special offerings for vehicle fund. God has blessed us in allowing us to help a new church, Tabernacle Baptist Church, in getting started. There is a Peruvian Pastor, and we are striving to help in every way we are able. Right now we are limited because of the language, however we are able to find projects in the church and help get these things done. Please pray for the Pastor Charlie Copa, his wife and their one boy as starting a church in a Catholic country is not the easiest task one has ever set out to do. God has blessed, and we are looking forward to the day we can have our own property and building. Please pray as we will need to find a new place to rent, as the place we are now renting the owner wants it back. Thank you so much for your prayers & support. Without you we couldn’t do it. By His Grace, Shane & Kathy Rice |
March
2003
Dear Pastors and Praying friends, March has been a very exciting month for us. We started the month out at Camp. We had a great time of preaching, fun, and fellowship. It was also a very big help with our Spanish. The kids really enjoyed being with other kids and also learned a lot of Spanish that week. Secondly, in March, Shane preached his first message in Spanish. It was a lot of work but the outcome was very good. If you would of told us four months ago we would be able to understand a whole service in Spanish we would have said your crazy. But with the Lord’s help and lots of practice we finally understand the services. It has helped our Spanish to spend t |