Peru 2025

The 2025 Peru Mission Trip is finished. By God's grace, we accomplished what we set out to do. Some of the key Bible passages that motivated our mission include the following:

James 1:27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

James 2:26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

Psalm 23:1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

John 13:34–35 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

Here's the team just before we drove off to the airport (looking very fresh and rested I might add):

The nation of Peru has become a very special place to our church. We've met so many faithful brothers and sisters in Christ there. We are also overwhelmed by the natural beauty of the Peruvian landscape, especially in Arequipa where the presence of Chachani, El Misti, and Pichu Pichu ever dominates the view and seems to direct your attention to the Creator of such massive things.

Pastor Efrain, his wife Dorcas, and his daughter Steffany were our main guides, as they have been now for over a decade. Efrain is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Arequipa, where I had the privilege of preaching last Sunday (July 27). We have a special (eternal) bond with this family. And their sweet church family welcomed us with open arms. They are all comrades in the gospel.

Efrain is also the pastor of a church plant in the outskirts of town called Calvary Chapel El Mirador. I preached there Sunday night, and the whole team labored in this community to reach and serve children.

Also in this pic is our bus driver Harry (who appears to be holding Tim's head in his arm—lol). Harry is just simply the best! He is not just someone we hire to move us around. We get him every year, and he is an active part of our team. He helps us with our skit, crafts, music, and everything we do to reach children with the love of Christ.

Efrain and Dorcas' other daughter Neide is also in this pic. She recently finished her studies in psychology and helps people with her skills. We were able to see her for while the evening this picture was taken in their home. The dogs are named Starsky, Hutch, and Zack and, yes, they are wearing clothing. It's winter in Arequipa.

Our team did a great, great job. Tim Pugh's main focus is on taking video and pics. Shelby constantly makes connections with people and shows them Christ's love. Anna and Riley did the same, and also did a fantastic job with our music ministry. The girls also did such a great job with our craft and photo ministry. Tim Lewis is beloved in Arequipa. I think they are petitioning to give him sainthood status. Joe and Cindy Chesser (both on their first trip to Peru) reached out to the kids and made deep connections with them, too, but they really thrived during the skit. Joe played the role of Jesus and Cindy played the role of John, as we portrayed the story of Jesus multiplying the bread and fish to feed thousands.

Each time we finished the skit (which we performed five times in different orphanages, schools, and a community), Joe and Cindy stayed in costume to take photos with each child. We made sure they knew Joe wasn't the real Jesus, even though none of them seemed to make that mistake. Some of the kids did think he was a young Robert Plant after a rough night of partying though! :)

A special thanks goes out to Sandra Muir, who once again wrote the skit for us. Her talent and presence was felt every time we performed it.

On these trips, we take cameras that can print a little photo immediately, and each kid received their own special photo. Through the years, this has proven to be one of the best ways to show love to a child. It's not about the photo itself, it's that people love them enough to want them to have such a keepsake.

Here's the team serving over 60 neighborhood kids who came out in El Mirador to meet with us. Our team hiked around the community inviting the kids to come. Then we all sang songs, listened to the skit and gospel, enjoyed some games, and savored a snack. It was a sweet time to meet new faces and reconnect with some we've met in years past. I am always amazed at what God does through our little Alabama team when we go out on this concrete pad and these precious kids come trailing down to hang out.

In addition to the skit, everywhere we went, we had a craft for the children. This craft was the brainchild of Riley Dibenedetto, and the kids just loved it. Each child was given a piece of paper in the shape of a fish and then hundreds of colorful pieces of tissue paper was laid out before them. All it took from there was a bit of glue and a spark of creativity, and we saw some of the most beautiful paper fish in the world. All the kids, young and old, wherever we went, loved this craft, and we were glad we could give them something to help solidify the gospel message they had just heard through the skit.

This year, we are not going to show as many pictures because we are becoming more aware of the need to protect the children. We just want you to know that God was working in amazing ways! We put in five straight days of labor (Friday through Tuesday, which don't include our travel days), and though we are all still pretty exhausted, we had an amazing trip.

During our time we worked again with David and Kristi Clemmer and their ministry Live Simply 4 Peru visiting families in need and showing the love of Christ. We also spent an evening T and Heidi Brack (believe it or not!) who were leading a mission trip from their church in Gastonia. That was a fantastic reunion!

I want to again thank our team: Each one played a special role on this trip and served faithfully. I am amazed at the generosity and kindness I saw played out each day in the name of Christ. I am so grateful to God for what he did within each of us, to help us grow in our trust and love for him, and to spark within us a deeper desire to serve faithfully at home.

We also want to thank the people of Rock Mountain Lakes Baptist Church. Again and again and again! We were only able to do this because of your support and prayers. The Peru ministry if OUR ministry, those who go and those who send. I told as many people as I could in Peru that we were sent there by our church, and our church sends their love. Every financial gift we presented, we told the directors and leaders that this was from our church family in Alabama. God used you to make this happen! Praise the Lord for the body of Christ.

Robert Plant