Gardners in Peru

There are a few things that God didn’t teach me until I arrived in Peru and got messy with the ministry. First, and I had to learn this the hard way, God’s time is NOT my time. No matter how much a tried to push and pull for things to happen, they wouldn’t happen until God was ready to let it happen. Second, my ways are not always God’s ways and viceversa. This has been made evident in the following situation because, this would have never been in my manual for “the best way things could happen”.
My brother and his wife (Chris and Andria Gardner) have found out that the child they are expecting will be born with a cleft lip and a cleft palate. This has been a whirlwind of news for us. Although the medicine here in Peru is great for the most part, they are still lacking in plastic surgery for cleft lips and palates. The children that are born here with cleft lips have to wait until a group of doctors arrives once per year to operate on just a select few children in the entire city.
I truly believe Chris and Andria are doing what is best for their family. They will be returning to the U.S. for the birth of their fourth child. Very shortly after the baby is born, they will have to do surgery to close the palate so the baby can eat. There will be at least 3 or 4 surgeries the baby will have to go through to get him back to normal. The baby will probably have to go through surgeries until he is 20 years old.
These are a few reasons why I believe this is a great opportunity to see God’s glory shine:

• In our weakness he is made strong
  I believe God will use the life of this baby, and all his situations to bring glory to His name. I believe we will never know the extent of God’s use of this child’s life until we reach heaven.
• It stretches all of us
  The uncomfortable thing about God, is that he wants us to live beyond ourselves. He wants us to live beyond what we think we can do. I don’t necessarily believe that “God will never give us more than we can handle”. I believe he does give us more than we can handle so we can depend on him.
  Chris will be returning to the U.S. to take care of his family and raise support for the ministry here. That means that all of us here will be stretched to fill the gap that he will leave behind. There is a new church, a Bible college, a bunch of groups and a few missionaries that will have to depend on God to pull all of this off.
• God wants it this way
  There has never been a time in our lives, or in history, where God was taken by surprise by the series of events that have taken place. He knows what he is doing and he has given us the promises of Romans 8:28, 31 and 35-39. He wants to stretch us, he wants us to suffer for His name’s sake. He is God, He wants glory and we gladly submit to His will.

Chris and the family will be leaving on October the 8th for the United States. I will leave you with a few pictures to see baby Gardner. As you look at these pictures, remember to pray for us as we take on this next big step in our lives.

Four years ago today, I was blessed beyond all measure with the perfect woman that God had for me. I know many think that we are still kids, but man, we were really kids back then. I was 20 and Katie was 19 that day!

The past four years of my life have been amazing! We have had great days and bad days. Happy days and sad days. Bright days and dark days. But the most amazing thing about it all is that we have been there beside each other along the whole way. I have never deserved her love or her care, but she has been there. I thank God for a woman that is willing to follow me away from her family and friends, away from her culture and language to another country far away to serve God with me. I am so privileged to have her as my bride.

When my dad asked me why I wanted to marry her, I said “Because we can glorify God more together than we can apart”. Looking back on the past four years of what God has done in our lives through the joys and pains, I can truly say that Katie has made me a better man and we have been able to glorify our Savior much more together than we could apart. I thank God for Katie, and I thank God for having mercy on me in giving me Katie.

We are headed into a new stage in life. Chloe will be here soon and, as everyone under the sun has told me, it will change our lives more than we could ever imagine. I’m so excited about it, because we will be together through the whole process.

Thank you Katie for your love, friendship and support. I couldn’t be who I am without you.
I love you!

I wanted to thank each of you for praying for today’s services. We had a great time this morning and the place was packed! We didn’t reach our goal, but we still had the biggest Sunday that we have had so far. Our goal for today was 300, but we reached 166 people today.
I know we were a little over half of what our goal was, but God still gave great victories. And the best part of it all was that eight people raised their hands for decisions to accept Christ as their personal Savior! It is very exciting to see that God allowed us to see people start a new life and a new relationship with him.
be praying that these people will not fall through the cracks but will be followed up with discipleship and visitation.
I feel very privileged to be a part of this church. God has shown me so much and I have grown from all the things we are doing there. I ask you to continue to pray for Omega. Greater things are yet to come, greater things are still to be done in this city! We want to see the name of Christ lifted up and glorified through Omega.
I will be sure to post some pictures up very soon.

Thank you all for praying!