Dear Friends,

            In preparing our family for Easter, we have been reading through The Children's Story Bible over the events that led to Jesus' death and resurrection.  Today we read about Peter denying three times that he even knew Jesus, and the gut-wrenching part about Jesus looking at Peter right after his third denial, and Peter, cut to the heart, going out and weeping bitterly over his unfaithfulness to his Lord and Friend.  We talked about how sad it is when we fail Jesus and one another because of our sin, but I explained to the kids that it is our failures that show us how much we need Jesus.  We talked about how Peter learned that he needed Jesus more than he thought, because on the inside he was worse than he thought, with weaknesses and sins that prevented him, despite his desires, from being faithful to Jesus.  Isn't it wonderful that we can learn what we are really like in all its ugliness and know that Jesus looks right at us, knows our failures and sins, and still chooses to die for us?  That's such good news, that we don't have to have it all together.  We can admit we don't, and trust in our Savior who died for us to come into our hearts and give us what we lack, with love and forgiveness.

            That message of the gospel is one that we would ask you to pray we would rediscover on a daily basis, as our tendency is to shift our reliance, like Peter, to ourselves and our own resources, and away from the grace that is in Jesus Christ.  Pray that the Spirit would reveal our sins to us and keep us humble and repenting and feeding on Christ for all our needs.

            For this letter I want to highlight one specific way in which the Lord expressed his love and goodness to us in our ministry here over the past two months since our last letter.  In March we hosted our friends Glenn and Meg Hoburg and their two girls, Madeline and Isabelle, for a week.  Glenn was leading an RUF team from Harvard, where he has been the campus minister for the past six years.  It was the fulfillment of a long dream we had had together in seminary to work together on the mission field with a group of his students.

            God very much blessed their time here. They worked in Punta Hermosa, helping to put a roof on the church building and doing visitation in the afternoons with Peruvian leaders in the church.  Glenn preached three times and I got to translate for him once, the last night in Punta Hermosa for an evangelistic worship service for many of the folks we had visited.  It was a real joy to be together again after many years and to have the privilege to minister the gospel together. Lori and Meg had some great time together as well.  We want to praise the Lord for providing his encouragement to us in such a special and timely way through these dear friends.  We also praise the Lord for the fruit of their ministry in Punta Hermosa.  Their ministry was a great encouragement and practical help to the brothers and sisters there, and a boost to the church planting effort.

            I know many of you were praying for this team, so I want to give you an idea of how the Lord worked.  The last day, when the group was scheduled to do a city tour of Lima, the group decided to cancel it and go back down to Punta Hermosa, where they spent one last morning with the kids there.  In addition, upon finding out that one of the elderly members of the church had some tremendous medical and dental needs, they decided to contribute $300 to help her get an endoscopy and a set of dentures.  My prayer for the group had been that they would develop a deep love for the people of Punta Hermosa and be used by God to make Christ known there with words and deeds.  I believe God answered my prayer, and I just want to testify to his faithfulness and thank you for praying as well.

            Below are the prayer requests from last letter, which I'd like to keep before you with some comments as to how they're going.

            Last letter I asked you to pray:

• For the spiritual health of our team.  Pray for revival through the power of the gospel, leading to greater Kingdom vision, passion and heroics through the Spirit.  We had a spiritual retreat at the end of February in which we were able to pray for one another in depth over a couple of days.  We also spent time reading our Bibles through large portions of Scripture. Please continue to pray that God would bless our times of corporate prayer on a weekly basis.
   
• For VBS outreaches in:  San Pablo, Siete de Octubre, Sapotal, America, Punta Hermosa, Manuel Correa, Perales, and Nocheto from Jan 27-Feb 15.  Pray for conversions through these outreaches, both in the events themselves and especially in the follow up that will be done in the months following which we hope will put us in contact with the rest of the family, as well as the children who attended.  Continue to pray for these follow up efforts.  In Punta Hermosa, the RUF team helped with visitation follow-up and the effort was blessed.  In Sapotal, Sean and Percy have been making weekly visits. In both places we need to continue working to organize ourselves so that the follow-up and visitation will be thorough and consistent.  Pray that God would lead and help us.
   
• For the leaders we are working with to be set on fire by the gospel.  Pray for me in the opportunities I am having to teach and preach the gospel to these leaders that the gospel would penetrate my heart and life first, and then that God would use me to pass on to them the same treasure.  Right now I am teaching Jack Miller's team ministry material to the leadership team at Perales.  The group is made up primarily of teenagers, but they seem to be tracking pretty well with the material.  Pray for my Spanish to improve, as in situations like this I see so many holes in my language abilities and feel much weakness in that regard.  I know this is part of God's humbling me and using me, so pray I'd embrace that part, but nevertheless, I do want my language to improve.  Pray also for a new believers' class I will be starting at Sapotal on May 10.
   
• For our 2002 team evaluations and 2003 planning, in process during the months of January, February and maybe March.  Pray for unity in the Spirit, a desire to pray first instead of trusting our own wisdom, and a Spirit-given plan for 2003.  We have had some very good, often quite hard discussions about where we are going as a team.  I believe some significant things have come up that remain for us to wrestle through as a team, so I earnestly ask for your prayers for us as a team in that process.  We're hoping to finish our evaluations after Easter, then move into the plan-making process.
   
• For the development of a significant ministry of mercy in 2003.  We are seeing that in each church plant we are up and going with Sunday schools that are getting the gospel message to a wide group of children at risk.  Now we want to take another step deeper into their lives, meeting their needs at the physical level.  There are many possible ways to go, but we need wisdom from the Lord to show us which one.  This remains a real need for prayer.  Pray that God would lead us.  Pray specifically for 3 missionary deacons to join our team who can help us develop these ministries of mercy.

Thank you for standing with us in prayer and lifting up these things to the throne of grace.  Let us know how we can be praying for you as well.  We love hearing from you.

The Lord bless you and keep you,

Mark for all

Mark and Lori Berry  Apartado 1529  Lima 100, Peru  mberry@mtwla.org  011-511-435-6637