January 2017 Update

The walkway between our apartment here in the jungle and our main guest house we lovingly call “Jungle Bunks” or JB for short … is a continually changing pathway … though you would not be aware of those changes unless one awakened you through one of your senses. Some of the changes happen oh, so slowly … these changes might develop as termites attack and create homes hidden deeply in some crevasse of the wooden walkway. Slowly, but surely, they eat away at the strength of the walkway structure … eventually causing some portion, in weakness, to fail.

Other changes happen rapidly as the water rises five, six, seven feet bringing the lake ever closer to your path. A sudden jump of an iguana from his invisible perch in a tree into the dark waters scares the bajeebers out of you. Your heart beats a bit faster, and you grin at what seemed like danger … thankful he didn’t land on the walkway.

And some changes come to you gently as you smell the delightful perfume of flowers that you can’t spot with your eyes but know for sure they are there … not far from you … hidden by the denseness of the jungle around you. Their scent refreshes and causes you to look for them and smell for them again the next time you traverse that walkway.

The illustration of life presented daily to us on this walk through the jungle is profound … even as it is ever changing. Often it is the unseen that awakens our senses … and sends us in directions that are needed. Sin can be subtle … eating away at the structures of our lives … our marriages, our homes, our communities. A structural piece giving way awakens us to the enemy within. A sudden, large splash awakens us to dangers that could easily destroy a ministry, or it simply reminds us of truth … hidden from us … but needing to be applied as we pursue a direction with our family, our team. The perfume reminds that though often hidden, our lives are used by a great and capable God to awaken delight in those passing by … causing them to seek the source of such a delectable smell.

We are reminded again and again that life is all about God. The termites, iguanas, flowers all remind us that life is given that we might seek the Creator and know him. And so we use the gifts given to us to awaken in ourselves and others awe in understanding him. If he can use a termite trail, a splash, an essence wafting through the air to pursue our hearts, then he can use each of us in the lives of others through the means he has given to us.

From February 18 to 25 we will have a medical surgical team here in Pucallpa working in one of the local hospitals. They will interact with medical staff, patients, families of the patients, one another, and a host of missionaries. You can ask … ask our creative God … to work through them and in them during this short week to pursue his kingdom here in Pucallpa. Ask that his kingdom would come and that his will would be done through these 9 men and women who are coming to share the resource of their lives with folks who need to see Jesus … folks who would also love to see medical healing in their lives! Pray with us! God is able … in him alone we hope!

Thankful for each of you and your partnership in this ministry here in Peru.

Peace … Dan, for the small Porch clan in Peru!