If this is of God, it will work anywhere, anytime and with anyone.

“I am going to Huanta, Peru,” I said to an important friend in government while in Washington D.C. some years ago. “Going where?” he asked surprised. “To Huanta, up in the Andes Mountains .”

Two days later he came to me saying, “That place does not exist; I have looked it up in the World Atlas.”

I explained to him that Huanta is a small town smack in the middle of the Andes Mts., only 45 minutes from Ayacucho, where there is an airport. This region of the world is famous because the battle for the independence of all South America was fought here. It is also the place where the Shining Path Movement (Sendero Luminoso) was born; and in the eighties and nineties more than 70,000 people were killed by Communist terrorists. Now it is the biggest drug trafficking area of S. America. Also a Harvard anthropologist found a cave in Huanta where the oldest man of the new world lived.

“Why should you go to such a wretched place when you are doing a fine ministry in the diplomatic community, with the U.S. government, the Central Asian Republics, Russia, North Africa and all of Latin America,” my friend asked me puzzled.

I tried to give him a Biblical answer; “You don’t need a Washington or a Rome in order to do God’s revolution. If it is of God, it will work just as well anywhere, anytime and with anyone. Jesus did His revolution in a tiny country that was half desert. Besides, giant killers are born in small towns like David and Jesus in Bethlehem and Saul, in Tarsus. It is God with them that made the difference. God is glorified in weakness! Even Cincinnati, the great savior of Rome, was a peasant. In the U.S., I am just one more candle among so many light bulbs and high-power reflectors of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus. But in Huanta I will be a candle in thick darkness.”

Then my friend, one of 12 powerful men whom God has generously given me, said, “Go then. But never forget that no matter what kind of mess you might find yourself to be in, I am just a phone call away.”

With a friend like that, I felt like a little dog barking at Great Danes. To me life is relationship. If you have a friend, you have something; if you don’t, you have nothing. The Great Commandment is all about relationships. These friends are not only the ones who helped me to get clearance to high places like the Kremlin, the White House, the “Air force One planes” of several countries – but also to many presidential palaces and residences. They have also put me continually on the short list of actual world leaders.

As I write this letter, I have on my desk letters written on impressive stationeries, with gold embossed seals: the great seal of the United States, one from the White House and one from the Senate and one from the US Embassy in Lima. There is also a handwritten letter from an Oscar-nominated actress with whom Ruthie and I are involved in mentoring, an invitation to a fancy wedding in Connecticut, invitations to conferences – and a letter signed by world famous Dutch man who is in Jail for killing Jennifer Flores in Lima and is suspected of killing Natalie Holloway in Aruba. Mr. Joran Vander Sloot, acknowledged having received from us an alpaca blanket for his cold nights in the maximum security prison in Lima [see below]. You don’t have to be in Washington in order to minister to people in high places and low places…to minister to people of high profile or low profile.

All of this is to say to you “Thank you for helping me to: [see pictures below]

• to put a blanket on the cold shoulders of a prisoner
• to put smiles on the faces of some hungry children – victims of the recent floods
• to teach to sing those who lost everything in the flooding
• to provide water and food for desperate mothers after the disaster
• to distribute blankets up in the highlands for children dying of the cold
• to make it easy for me to share a word from the Lord to the national leaders of the country in Lima
• to preach Jesus, the Light of the world
• to help the sick, the orphan, the widow, the poor and the lost
• to see God’s faithful answers to you prayers.

To His Name and for his glory

Gerry and Ruthie Gutierrez
Casilla # 1 Huanta-Peru.
Phone: 011-516-632-2169