Dear Faithful Prayers,

Hope you all have had a good summer and enjoyed time with your families, traveling or just the change of pace that summer brings. Its fun to again be communicating with you after a month or so off to bring you up to date on the work here, and to keep tracking with you through prayer.

We're still in the midst of a MTW Peru field restructure and leadership change, which I believe I mentioned to you last time we corresponded. That has been super stretching as we've had to pull back from active ministries in the San Pablo church network of cell churches as we begin to reorient as a team towards a church planting ministry here in Lima that reaches beyond one local church's structure to a freer, more broadly connected ministry.

As a new team leader Mark would first ask you to pray for him, that God would help him depend on Him more deeply, learn to hear His voice more clearly and repent constantly and deeply, relying on the gospel of grace in all circumstances.

Mark is also taking on a new role as a member of the newly formed Peru Leadership Team (PLT), made up of Charlie Davidson, Keith Powlison, Craig Gahagen, Bill Yarbrough and Mark. They will have the responsibility of overseeing and coordinating MTW's ministries in Peru. Its an important and exciting time for our field, and the PLT has a good bit of work ahead as they seek to servant-lead as a team, so pray for Mark and this new leadership team in their new responsibilities.

Pray for our teammates Sean Galton and Julie Murphy as they pray about extending for another year. They need to decide in the weeks ahead as their two year terms come to a close. They have been tremendous teammates and valuables assets to the team, so we would be delighted for them to stay, but want with them the Lord's will above all.

Along these lines, please pray for Andrew Halbert, who arrives to the field October 3 for a two year term. Pray also for the Matthews family who arrives December 28 to the field as career missionaries. They are finishing up language school in November. And finally, give thanks for Jeremy and Amanda Ross, who were just approved by MTW to come as two year missionary apprentices.

Pray for Mark as he preaches this Sunday at Huaycan. He will also be baptizing our youngest daughter Abigail, along with several babies in this congregation. It is their church's 10th anniversary, so its a special privilege and opportunity. Pray that Christ and his gospel shine forth in power and clarity.

As a team, we are entering into the foundation laying stage of our ministry. Since you only build the foundation once, we are taking our time to do it right. Pray for us earnestly that we might lay a good foundation.

Specifically, we are devoting ourselves to three things for the next several months: prayer, networking and research. We are seeking to understand both the needs of our city, Lima, and the movement of God in it. We have already had a number of opportunities to meet with pastors from at least two presbyterian denominations, and Mark hopes to begin lining up interviews with many others as he networks in the evangelical church community and we seek to prayerfully discern what the Lord is already doing here in Lima. We have on the table a number of opportunities to partner with churches to start planting churches with them and doing leadership training, but we want to wait and make this investment in prayer and seeking the Lord's face, more deeply understanding our city and what God is uniquely calling us to before we jump right into activity.

On the mercy ministry front, we likewise have begun a process to begin to discover both city needs and how God is at work through other ministries to meet those needs. We are networking specifically right now with people engaged in street child ministry, as this is an area we feel God has called us to address as a team. Later, we hope to expand our research and networking to discover the needs in prisons, hospitals, with prostitutes and the handicapped, and the panorama of other areas God expects his Kingdom to break into.

Pray specifically for an opportunity in Huaycan, where Mark is preaching Sunday, to help the church there work with street kids in their area. They've expressed this desire to us and are working as a session on a project to present to our team on how we might partner with them to reach street kids in Huaycan. They also have asked us to help them plant a church.

Please pray for us as a team as we pray, network and research. Pray we would come to understand and love our city more, and pray that God himself would lay the foundation for this team and himself lead us into the purposes he has for us as a church planting, leadership training, mercy extending team of missionaries.

Pray that God would raise up Peruvian leaders for us to work with, as we are committed to undertake ministry opportunities only when we can put a team in place to do that ministry that includes a national worker/leader in training, who can carry the work forward after we as missionaries move on.

Pray also for new missionaries. Specifically pray for career missionaries to lead us in administration, health ministry and economic development ministry.

Please give thanks for the conversion of our oldest, Emmett, a month or so ago. He asked Lori to pray with him as he came to understand his need for forgiveness in order to be right with God and be able to go to heaven when he died. It has been a real joy seeing him grow, seeing changes in him spiritually, in attitudes, etc. Praise the Lord with us, and keep praying for our three girls, that God would convert them in his time (Anna, Taylor and Abigail).

By the way, we just got new prayer cards in that are way more up to date. We sent them out with our most recent snail mail prayer letter. If for some reason you didn't get one and would like one, just send me an email and I'll get one mailed to you.

Thank you for upholding these needs before the throne of grace. You help us move mountains through your prayers. Thank you and keep up the good work, as we seek to do the same here on our end.

May the Lord richly bless you,

In Christ,

Mark and Lori

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