Mission Stories
What's Happening In
Peru
Volume 1, Issue 6
October 2007
Mike and Danell Bukta
The
People of Trujillo That Need HELP!
We
have now been living in Trujillo, Peru for 2 and half
years. Trujillo is a city of about 1,000.000 people
which 80% of them live in poverty. We are a part of
a team called Project New Hope and our mission is to
bring hope to the hopeless. How do we do that? We have
started working in seven barrios (neighborhoods) and
have seven families that work there. They have children’s
programs on Saturdays and throughout the week they are
working with the women, men and youth. Project New Hope
is not a relief program, it exists to assist with community
development.
Each year, Mike oversees 10 to 15 short term mission
teams that come down from different churches in the
United States. These teams help with the project. Mike
coordinates these trips and oversees what they will
be doing once they arrive in Trujillo.
One of the tools we use to bring people to Christ is
called the Peace Treaty. The Peace Treaty consists of
four lessons and it talks about how to have peace with
God. About 90% of the people that go through the Peace
Treaty give their lives to Jesus. In December, 2007,
Mike and Danell will start working in a part of Trujillo
called, Huanchaco. We will be starting small home groups
and going through the Peace Treaty and Character First
(this program teaches 49 characters that we need in
our lives). Our team will also be using Character First
throughout the city. In Huanchaco we will first be working
with businessowners and after we build a team we will
work with the poor people in Huanchaco.
Danell is in charge of our sponsoring program, Hope
4 Kids International. We currently have 140 kids in
this program; 80 are school-aged kids and are going
to school. Since we don’t want to be a relief
program we encourage all the families to participate
in programs and help out in their barrio. A lot of the
individuals that are in this program are coming to Christ.
This project is currently underway in all the barrios.
There are a total of 10 field workers living in these
barrios and 2 supervisors that oversee the work.
In addition, we have a program that focuses on youth
education. This year we will be sending 65 youth to
school and by next year these youth will have a chance
to earn a scholarship to continue their education at
a University or an institute of higher-learning. Another
goal for next year is to start a mentoring program with
the youth that live in the barrios. This is a huge focus
for us because the average level of education for people
living in the barrios is 3rd grade. All of the youth
currently participating in this program were not previously
attending school even though they wanted to. Most of
them had to drop out to get a job and help raise their
brothers and sisters. These same youth are now receiving
jobs through Project New Hope. Since the youth are the
future of Trujillo, we want to provide them every opportunity
to become great leaders.
Our project has begun working with the professionals
of Trujillo to help mentor these youth. Next year, we
will be starting a youth club. This club will focus
on teaching and provide social events. Once we build
up a team our goal is to build up leaders to take over
the youth club.
Que Pina /
Ya fue
This is an expression that is used
here in Trujillo when something Goofy happens.
Here are some of our “Que Pina / Ya fue...
We received an electric bill underneath the door of
our apartment. We thought it was kind of expensive but
we had not paid for three months. So we went and paid
the bill. We didn’t think anything of it until
our landlord came to collect rent. She said this is
your portion of the electric bill. “We already
paid it!” we expressed. We showed her the bill,
luckily we kept it. She looked at us and said, “you
paid for the whole apartment complex!” This is
definitely a ‘Ya Fue’ moment! Thank God
we have an honest landlord because she reimbursed us.
Danell was trying to tell the teacher some of the ingredients
that are used in making pancakes. Well she was trying
to say flour which is HARINA (remember the “h”
is silent in Spanish), instead she said ORINA which
means pee in Spanish. The teacher could not stop laughing
and then of course she told us that these would be really
special pancakes! QUE PINA!
Skylar was trying to say Peruana instead she said Piranha!
Ya fue!
Thank you for your faithful support
and prayers as we labor For the Lord among Hispanics
in Trujillo, Peru!
Mike and Danell Bukta
Prayer Request
