Peru Needs Help!
Missionaries Darrell and Betsy Elliott are living and working with the people high in the Andes Mountains and have a desire to help strengthen some of the existing churches in the small towns and villages scattered throughout this region. There are several churches that have growing congregations but they have only small huts in which to hold their services. Our plan is to provide a tabernacle structure set on concrete footings with a metal roof large enough to hold several hundred people. Each local congregation will then build their own brick walls and supply the windows and doors, etc. The cost of each tabernacle project is $6,500. We need sponsors to help pay for these tabernacles and teams willing to help travel to the Andes Mountains and help construct the building. We also need evangelism teams as well.
Thank you for the interest in helping us. Below are some statistics. The people we are helping are now living in tents and under tarps and will be for the next several months. They will not be able to begin rebuilding their lives until the rainy season is over in April. Most of these people not only lost their homes but their fields and only source of income for the entire year. In the beginning, many of these people received some help but now their only help is coming from us and it is only enough food for a few days as 8-10 people are living in each tent. For now we are doing our best to target 7 communities representing about 1,000-1,500 families or about 8-10,000 people. We are limited and simply are not able to do much more than that with only 2 vehicles. Yesterday, we passed out food to about 800-1,000 people in Pinipampa. We took the nearest pastor with us. He preached to them and prayed for them in Quechua and the leaders of that community asked him to return next week and have a service for the people. Today we passed out food to 175 families in Zurite representing about 1,500 people. This is a town know for rejecting the Gospel and running off an Evangelistic Campaign with rocks and sticks. They were very open to our message and invited us to return. I believe we might be able to begin meetings in that town as well. We will return to Zurite tomorrow to help an additional 214 families representing about 1,900 people. The Lord has helped our money and food stretch but it is never really enough with so many people. It is almost impossible to ship things in and the best way we can help them is to buy rice and beans in bulk and distribute it to them with the help of local pastors and churches who know the people and where they are. AGWM has set us up an account for Peru relief 29 42 42 (46).
7000 homes gone
11000 homes damaged and structurally unsound
80,000 homeless (lost crops, income, homes etc.)
8 dead
9 injured
4 missing
9 bridges destroyed
2 areas inaccessible but receiving some help by helicopter.
A NOTE FROM THE ELLIOTTS
