Frank & Suzanne Matthews
June 2002

Dear Family and Friends,

It has been great to be in touch with so many of you over the past several months. We really appreciate the effort you make to encourage us, and we value the relationships we have with you.

In God¹s Word it talks about different seasons in our lives. In May, we ended the season of seminary as we both walked across the stage to receive diplomas for our master degrees at Covenant Seminary. It was wonderful to be back in St. Louis and visit with so many of our friends. We greatly enjoyed our time there, and God changed us and moved us in so many ways over the past four years. It was a challenging yet wonderful time in our lives.

As you know the spring has been a whirlwind of activity as we have visited with churches, taken a trip to Peru and gone back to St. Louis for graduation. The summer will calm down a bit with travel as we will be in Atlanta for most of June, New York City for training in July and then in the upstate of SC until October. Frank will be seeking ordination as a pastor before we go to language school. His ordination exams will take place in October, and then, Lord willing, we will go to language school. We had previously thought we would be able to go to language school in August but this will not be possible with Frank¹s pending exams and time needed for study.

We were able to squeeze in some vacation time in the NC mountains which was truly a blessing for us. It was very relaxing, and we had time to reflect on all that has been going on over the past few months. God has been very faithful through all our travel this spring and has truly blessed us with some great relationships with members within the churches that are now supporting us. We look forward to building these relationships as many we have talked to will be praying for us, writing us and hopefully coming to visit us in Peru as well. We truly thank God for you all as you have been a blessing to us!

WHAT'S HAPPENING IN PERU

In the middle of April, we were able to go to Peru for a week and be with several members of our team. It was great to be back in the country and with the people God has called us to serve. We were able to spend a lot of time with our team members the Berrys and visit with our team leader Santos Buendia and the rest of our team. It was also a time of celebration as the Buendias had their first child arrive while we were there. Her name is Karis, which means grace.

Baby Karis Buendia 3 days old.

It was also very exciting to visit one of the five new church plants that has started in Lima in connection with our team and several Peruvian leaders. They are in the beginning stages but some exciting work is being done in each of these churches as they reach out into the neighborhoods. Please continue to pray for these new churches that God will raise up godly leaders in the churches and the gospel will reach the adults and children of these neighborhoods.

We also had a time to meet with our whole team and begin to process the vision for the ministry in the future. It is exciting to see what is to come as Christ is being proclaimed in Peru. There are several pastors currently getting training, and we are working on different areas of training for existing leaders in the church. We will be asking for your help soon for materials that can be translated for teaching in different parts of Peru. We are encouraged by how God is moving in many different ways!

Growing and on the go. Both boys are moving and talking up a storm. They have done wonderful at the churches we have visited this Spring. Joshua and Micah have started learning a little Spanish as we have some books that have English and Spanish in them. They had a great time in Peru when we went! They quickly picked up Hola (hello) and chau-chau (goodbye) and were quick to say it to everybody with a smile. Of course they enjoyed not riding in car seats as we took taxis all over Lima!

Joshua and Micah play well together and yet still get on each others nerves at times. It is fun to watch them interact with one another. Lately, each one gently pushes their brother down and sits on him. They say ³tickle, tickle² as they tickle them under their arms and on their bellies. This is a fun game until we hear the brother on bottom yell ³Get off!²

Both Joshua and Micah enjoy reading, coloring, going for walks, playing with balls and singing songs. They also love to pray before meals and they call out ³hands, hands² so that we can all hold hands as a family while we are praying. They are learning to say short prayers like ³Thank you God for this food. Amen.²

Currently the boys¹ favorite Bible characters are the animals. We have a children¹s Bible that has illustrations of camels, bees, whales, fish, lions etc. We identify which Bible stories we read each night by the animals. _ God has blessed our family so greatly, and we praise Him for the incredible gifts he has given us through our boys.