God is Working in Pucallpa!
Please pray for...
More missionaries to come and join us in our work
The Holy Spirit to move in the hearts of the families we serve and bring them to faith in Him
Wisdom and protection for our staff as we expand our ministry focus
Continued protection and health, knowing that while the threat of COVID-19 will eventually retreat, recovery from its impact will be more long term
Prayer requests updated 6/2020
Lighthouse Family Center serves children and families in an impoverished jungle community outside of Pucallpa. Our goal is to strengthen families of the children that attend our different academic, sports, or discipleship programs, with priority given to families in need of restoration.
We offer trauma-informed care, Bible teaching, discipleship for new believers, marriage and family counseling, and other support. Abuse and trauma in families is common in Pucallpa, and our goal is to prevent this and help families break out of negative cycles and move toward healthy relationships. And our prayer is that as these families are strengthened, they will then reach out to others in the community who need help.
The center recently sheltered, mentored, and discipled a single mother and her three children from Guatemala who had been through trauma and desperately needed help to settle into their new life in Peru. We began a program to invite local women in to hear the Bible and learn to sew, giving them income earning potential. The father in one of our families has made great strides in recovery from alcoholism and abusive behavior and has been attending church. God is at work here in visible and invisible ways.
Objectives for the coming year include more community engagement that will help us identify families in need, a focus on holistic care through family camps and couples retreats, and reaching men in the community through carpentry and welding workshops. The needs are great here but we are hopeful for continued restoration and healing through the only true Light!
Our campus houses orphaned and abandoned children in family-style homes with loving, attentive house parents. In most cases, the kids have been through difficult and painful circumstances before coming to us, and we count it a privilege to give them a safe place to live and recover from their traumatic pasts.
Greetings in the name of Jesus from the ministries of Kids Alive Peru!
It’s been my joy in this first year of my new role as Country Director to catch amazing glimpses of all that God is doing through and because of your support. Your partnership and your gifts are helping to plant hope in the lives of at-risk children, and we rejoice that this is not simply a hope for escaping poverty or abuse – you are planting the living hope (1 Pet. 1:3) in their lives that means an eternity with the One who loves them!
In the past year, God has laid it on our hearts to be more fully involved in protecting children from the kinds of abuse that are often accepted, or at least overlooked, in Peru. We are accomplishing our goals by a combination of careful training of our staff, collaboration with other ministries who share our vision and will help us increase our impact, and working with local churches to reach out to their communities with the life-giving message that children are precious.
But swimming against an entrenched culture of silence and indifference can be hazardous, and our staff and others have experienced threats, isolation and loss of relationships because of their commitment. Choosing to follow Christ and to commit to life in a kingdom-centered culture often puts us at odds with the surrounding community. Please pray that we will stand strong for children even in the face of this adversity.
Peruvian authorities are increasingly determined to reintegrate children into their biological families, a welcome and much-needed effort. We are on board! But without the costly and time-consuming investigations that determine whether and when the family is a safe and healthy place for the child, we risk multiplying the trauma that fractured the family in the first place.
We are meeting this challenge through the formation of therapeutic teams of psychologists and social workers (and in some cases, attorneys), who will do the necessary work to ensure healthy transitions for our residential kids. We are also coming alongside families to strengthen relationships and parenting skills so that reintegrated children can grow up in healthy environments.
In all our ministries, whether in the city, the jungle, or the mountains, we remain dedicated to planting living hope for children who, without your compassion, have little earthly or eternal hope for the future. Thank you for partnering with us in this great task!
Dan Anderson
Country Director
Peru