Chris Gardner prayer letter

Dear Pastors and Praying Friends,

What a crazy past couple of months we have had. On February the 4th the Lord gave us the privilege of coming back to Peru. Packing up is always fun and can bring out the best in a person! After tons of work, Andria finally got everything ready to go. We had 2 extra bags that we knew we were going to have to pay for. In the past that would have meant a total of $250. After arriving at Delta I found out that if we wanted to carry the extra 2 bags it was going to cost me $600. My diabetes supplies were scattered throughout all of the bags so I had no choice but to pay for the extra bags. What a blessing!

Upon arriving in Peru we had to stay in Lima for a few days to get our paperwork taken care of. We have our residence papers, so it should have been an easy renewal payment and then out of there. Of course things didn’t go as planned. Peru has decided to change their laws without telling the residents anything. You can no longer be out of the country for more than 6 months. If you are, you lose your paperwork. So to make a long story short they allowed my wife and me to keep our papers but they took the kids papers away. Because Andria and I had been here in November, it saved ours. This problem is going to cost us right at $5000 to fix. Pray that the Lord will provide for this need. My wife and I are going to try and become dual citizens which would take away all of these issues. This is going to take a while to happen but hopefully we can make it happen.

After a week we had spent all of our money on hotels and food that we planned on using to buy tickets back to Arequipa. One of the members of our church happened to be in Lima doing some business and told us that if we wouldn’t mind cramping up together with his family we could drive back to Arequipa. We ended up 6 people driving back to Arequipa in a very small Peugeot car. It is a 14 hour drive and with the kids and no car seats you can imagine what that is like! After arriving in Arequipa I got sick. I normally do not get sick but was in horrible shape for at least 1 week. I started taking some antibiotics to kill the bug and got better after about 4 days. Then at about midnight one night, I noticed spots on my body. I had swollen all over and was in major pain. I went to the doctor to find out I was having an allergic reaction to the antibiotic. I had to take some other medicine to take that away.

While doing all of this I was preaching 4 times on Sunday, doing a small group on Tuesday night at the house and then preaching on Wednesday night. Thank the Lord that things seem to be better right now. I am sorry I haven’t written a letter in a while but as you can tell things have been a little crazy. The church is doing great right now. We have 3 services on Sun. morning right now with close to 450 people attending. God has been so good to us. This month we have had quite a few financial problems but when our statements came in, it was the first month in over a half a year that the Bible College has reached its budget. It is amazing how in difficult financial times the people of God come together to show that his work is more important that our own plans. Thank you for being faithful in your giving.

We are looking forward to being in the swing of things again and watching God work in incredible ways through his church. May God continue to bless you in all that you do.

Yours for Souls,

Chris, Andria, Jacob, Hannah & Andrew