Our hearts are overflowing as we just returned home yesterday from a ten-day trip to Antofagasta with five young ladies from our church. It was great to spend two Lord’s Days with the believers there, to enjoy time with the Flinck family, and to get to show the ministry opportunities and needs to the girls.

Our goals were two-fold: serve like Jesus and see how Jesus is building his church around the world. The consensus that we and the Flincks came to was that we met those goals. We had opportunity to spend many hours with the believers from Antofagasta in their homes, in services, and in other times of fellowship. We also were able to travel five hours north to Iquique and view two churches and a crisis pregnancy ministry there.

The lessons we learned along with the girls were that Christian fellowship is just that—it is based in Jesus Christ, not language, age, interests, or nationality. We remarked at how close we grew to our Chilean brothers and sisters in such a short time and how much we missed them. We remembered that we have a church fellowship at home and we were challenged to put the same effort into growing our spiritual community with them as well. We were challenged to think about the extraordinary sacrifice of missionaries leaving everything for Jesus’ sake and the gospel and were also challenged by the ordinariness of it: Jesus demands no less of every one of his followers. I was reminded of John Fawcett’s words, written in 1782, but just as true in 2016:

Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love;
the fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above.
When we asunder part, it gives us inward pain;
but we shall still be joined in heart, and hope to meet again.

We encourage you to check out the many pictures we posted on Facebook at our page, “Perrys to Chile.” The next week brings more travel, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida for GMSA’s annual meeting. The following week Mark will attend a pastors’ conference at Peniel Bible Camp, and the next week, we will be serving at family camp there. On the weekends we will be ministering in churches in Ohio. We covet your prayers.

• June 20–23: GMSA annual meeting, Fort Lauderdale, FL
• June 26: Westerville Bible Church, Westerville, OH
• June 27–29: Pastors’ Conference, Peniel Bible Camp, Chesterville, OH
• July 3: Bible Community Church, Mentor, OH
• July 4–9: Family Camp, Peniel Bible Camp, Chesterville, OH
• July 11–16: Junior Camp 1, Peniel Bible Camp, Chesterville, OH
• July 17: Faith Bible Church, Bellevue, OH

We thoroughly enjoyed serving and observing Jesus’ church in northern Chile over the past two weeks with five young ladies from Westerville Bible Church.

 Thank God with us:

• for two new churches partnering with us.
• for a busy, productive, yet safe trip to Antofagasta.
• for many opportunities to serve over the coming summer months.

Pray to God with us:

• for God’s continued provision of teammates in prayer and finances.
• for God’s grace through a busy summer of ministry.
• for God’s wisdom in determining next steps.

This is our June 2016 email update. You can sign up to receive our updates in your inbox here. You can download a printable PDF here.