Daniel and Amparo are a wonderful couple that God blessed to have a part in bringing to Christ many years ago. Daniel’s mother was one of our first members of Hunter Baptist Church back in the early 90′s. It took a very long time for Daniel to come around and accept Christ as his personal Savior. He finally did accept Christ at a youth meeting where he was waiting for his girlfriend (which is now his wife). Amparo also came to christ many years ago and they have been serving in ministry together for many years. Most recently they have been serving in the country of Uruguay for the past three years.
After a lot of prayer they felt the need to return to Peru and work here and this is where the story gets interesting.
Nobody knew what we were about to face when my brother announced they were expecting. But, God has everything mapped out and knows what’s going on! God was leading Daniel and his family back from Uruguay for the “unknown”. The doors have been opened for Daniel to come be a part of Omega and work as a paid co-pastor. He will definitely help lighten the burden of Chris’ absence while in the U.S. Please continue to pray for the following people that are going to be taking charge of the church while Chris is gone:
Edgar Galdos
He is also on staff at the church as a pastor.
Daniel Lopez
I’ve already told you enough about Daniel.
David Gardner
I will be working as the music pastor and also the youth pastor. I’m sure there will be plenty of other things I need to fill in with.
Jeremy Hall
Jeremy is doing great with his spanish and will be able to help in so many ways. He is one of the hardest workers I’ve ever met.

Please pray for each of these people as we are taking on this new challenge. Thank you for the time you have already invested in praying and giving, but the game isn’t over, we still need you. Keep praying, keep going, keep giving.

• 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.

• Unity among our team
• Safe travel for the Faith Baptist team
• For the Holy Spirit to work in the lives of workers and spectators
• Wisdom for counselors

Please pray for this event! We know God can and will change lives if we just give ourselves to His service. I will post pictures up soon

This month has definitely been an extremely busy one. We have had many events and groups. We have also had a huge change in our life. It has been good to see how God has provided in all of the spiritual and physical needs during this month. It is truly amazing to be able to share your own stories of God’s provision.

Chloe Elizabeth Jean Gardner
Praise God that He gave us such a beautiful daughter on July 20th at 2:20am. She weighed six pounds 4 ounces and was born completely healthy. I am so thankful for our beautiful and healthy daughter. Katie started having labor pains on the evening of the 17th and by midnight of the 20th there was little progress in her labor. The Doctor finally decided that we should do a C-Section and go ahead and get it all over with.
Be praying for Katie as she recovers from surgery and is getting used to being a mother. She will be returning to language school very soon and finish the last part of that. Thank you all for your prayers for Katie and the baby. As I stated in other prayer letters, her health situation wasn’t the best and the pregnancy was a high risk pregnancy. We are so thankful he has been so good to us.

12th Annual Youth Conference
This month we had the opportunity of hosting and organizing the 12th annual youth conference here in Arequipa. Many of the churches banded together and contributed their support for the conference. Some churches were in charge of decoration, others of food, lodging, reception, etc. It was a great thing to see how great an event can be when people join together as a team. Our guest speaker was Pastor Jeff Bartell from First Baptist Church of New Philadelphia, OH. It was a truly great time and very biblical preaching. We had people all the way from Chile, Argentina and Bolivia attend this conference.
Please pray for the Pastors Conference that will be held in October. It will be a very similar event, but we will be seeing mostly pastors and church leaders coming from all around the country and continent to be helped and encouraged.

Thank you so much for your prayers for our family and ministry. It is our privilege to represent you and God’s kingdom here in Peru.

For His Glory,
David, Katie and Chloe Gardner
Missionaries in Peru
Macedonia World Baptist Missions

Thank you all for your continued prayer and support while we are here in Peru.
God is continuing to do a work in Arequipa with all of the ministries we are involved in.
Medical Clinic
Once again, we had the opportunity to host a group from Pensacola Christian College here in Arequipa. We held a medical clinic at Omega Baptist Church’s facilities. It was a great time and we were able to see plenty of people with so many needs.
We started on a Monday morning and ended on Friday evening. With a group of 30 volunteers from the U.S., and plenty more translators, counselors and helpers from Peru, we were able to give medical attention to 1800 people. Between the medical attention and receiving their prescriptions, we sent them to counseling where we had the opportunity of sharing the Gospel with them. We thank God that there were almost 700 professions of faith during the week.
I want to ask you to pray that we will be able to send workers from the different churches in Arequipa to meet with these people and follow up with the ones that made professions of faith. We are excited that God allowed us to share the Gospel with so many. But it is our desire to see these people that did accept Christ, receive discipleship and grow into mature Christians. We will be handing out their information to different pastors in the city and hopefully we will see some long lasting fruit from this wonderful event.
Youth Ministry
I wanted to ask you to pray for the youth ministry at Omega Baptist Church. It has become one of the most fruitful and fastest growing ministries in the church. I thank God that He is allowing me to head the ministry up, but feel a great responsibility to help these young people reach spiritual maturity. We are studying through the book of Romans right now and God is blessing tremendously. Please pray for a few things with us:
Spiritual growth
Unity
Growth in numbers (We want to see 100 in attendance by April of 2011)
Chloe’s Arrival
Our daughter, Chloe, will come into this world at any time now! The due date is around the 14th of July. Please pray that the delivery will go well and that the doctors will have the necessary wisdom to handle everything correctly.
Also pray that our support will continue to come in, as I am sure that many expenses will increase once she is here to consume formula and the many diapers that are required!

For His Glory,
David and Katie Gardner
Missionaries to Peru
Macedonia World Baptist Missions

this is the second baptism in the church, but the first baptism in the church building. Everyone was excited to see a young man get saved, discipled and baptized all through the church. I can’t tell you how excited I am to just be a small part of what God is doing. I really am humbled and amazed at all that He is doing through us.
Here is the video. Enjoy!

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 know it doesn’t sound like that awesome of a deal, but paying for a car every month is unheard of here. With anyone else I would have had to pay cash up front for the whole thing, which I could not do. I’m just excited that God has provided something for the three of us to ride in once Chloe arrives.

I just need everyone’s help with the following: A Name! What should I name it? Rico Suave? Grover? Antonio Banderas? Blue Steel?
Send in your comments and we will take a vote on it and see which ones we like or which ones are voted for the most. If I only get one comment, I’m naming it something really stupid, so help!

Thank you all for praying!