This letter can be read over the Internet at the following URL.

http://www.mtwsa.net/people/ggutierrez-pl/mar04/
Link to the Prayer Letter

- March 10, 2004

This letter can be read over the Internet at the following URL.

http://www.mtwsa.net/people/ggutierrez-pl/jan04-2/
Link to the Prayer Letter

- February 3, 2004

This letter can be read over the Internet at the following URL.

http://www.mtwsa.net/people/ggutierrez-pl/jan04/
Link to the Prayer Letter

- January 29, 2004

This letter can be read over the Internet at the following URL.

http://www.mtwsa.net/people/ggutierrez-pl/june03pn/
Link to the Prayer Letter

- June 24, 2003

This letter can be read over the Internet at the following URL.

http://www.mtwsa.net/people/ggutierrez-pl/03apr/
Link to the Prayer Letter

- April 15, 2003

This letter can be read over the Internet at the following URL.

http://www.mtwsa.net/people/ggutierrez-pl/02nov/
Link to the Prayer Letter

- December 23, 2002

For all those times that I have kept you in the dark with no communications at all... here is another!! I hope you find this letter as much a blessing as I do, to see the unfolding of God's will in the life of our orphans.

Again, representing you in His service in Huanta.

Gerry

P.S. I will have eye surgery in Delaware on September 30, after the MTW Latin Conference in Orlando. I will take advantage to see other Medical Doctors as well. Ruthie is also in need of a small surgery on a hernia. We always need your prayers. Remember to pray for us whenever you see a squirrel. I always feel like one.

The Project Nehemiah letter can be read over the Internet at the following URL.

http://www.mtwsa.net/people/ggutierrez-pl/nehemiah02I.htm
Link to the Prayer Letter

- September 6, 2002

Ruthie is a much better writer than I... as you can see. The latest news on this letter is that last week Ruthie and Jessica went back to Jassica's parents and led them to the Lord to her mother, father and sister.

Gerry Gutierrez

PS. I have developed a problem in my left eye. It is something called teridioum?...it is affecting my vision and I will need surgery soon. Please pray!!!

Rurhie's letter can be read over the Internet at the following URL.

http://www.mtwsa.net/people/ggutierrez-pl/ruthie.htm
Link to the Prayer Letter

- September 2, 2002

Huanta, May 4, 2002

From Gerry, Ruthie, Ben and Caleb

This letter can be read over the Internet at the following URL.

http://www.mtwsa.net/people/ggutierrez-pl/may02.htm
Link to the Prayer Letter

- Sunday, May 5, 2002

I thought that you may want to know what our Lord is doing in our lives and how he is timing our steps.

As always,
Gerry
----------------------
February 2002

Dear Friends,

The time for our departure has arrived and we feel the need to update you. Our home ministry assignment in the U.S. started out almost like a jail term. Later it became a "walk through the valley of the shadow of death" for all the members of our family - but especially for Ruthie, whose years of stomach pains and other aches finally culminated in an operation that removed 2 feet of large intestine, due to severe, acute diverticulosis.

It has been a furlough of doctor visits, tests, labs, hospitals, medical centers and surgery in three different states. During the last few months, I have felt like a lion in a cage, pacing back and forth, longing for the "wild, wild mission field". But recently, by God's grace, my "cage" has become a nice "green house".

Many of you have represented our Lord Jesus wonderfully in our lives and have allowed Him to be visible to meet our needs that only He could meet through you. You have kept your covenant with us unilaterally, so much like our Lord. We came to minister the Word to you, but often left having been ministered to by you. Our Lord has enriched our lives through fellowship with "old friends" and through the gift of "new friends, who also love the Lord.

We give special thanks to dear Dr. Keith Bucklen, a true prince in the Kingdom, through whose hands the Lord has performed surgery for the third time in six years for us. May our Lord bless him and be gracious to him for helping my Ruthie back to health again.

As soon as our needs were known, an army of the "home front" scrambled and was mobilized, and now we are "ready to roll" once more to represent you in the Andes Mountains of Peru. Though we are not "green house" material, we have felt the need to have our roots nourished and revitalized. Now we feel like life is back in our bones. Our leaves are green and shiny. It is time to be transplanted back to Peru to be "kissed by the sun" and to wither a little for the King and His Kingdom.

We go with a strong sense of blessings from the body of believers as well as with confidence in those who are in leadership over us. God has raised up a prophet of "Grace" among us in our time such as Paul Kooistra, whose love for the Lord is evident and reassuring. The Church at large will do good to listen to his message, which is a ray of hope for many congregations, where other voices are drowning the gentle voice of the Holy Spirit. I can go to war with this man any time. In fact, I am a foot soldier of grace. May our Lord use us together to shake up the world of our time for His glory.

As for me and my family... we want to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified. We want to lift up Jesus... for He will draw men unto Himself. (John 13: 32) Pray that we may know Him more and more. Pray that we might have no agenda for our lives but His agenda, His will. May our Lord be pleased to accept the balance of our lives to this commitment to lift His Name.

Please pray and praise for my old-time mentor and steadfast, faithful friend, Doug Coe, who will be aging a year's worth this week as He works for the 50th National Prayer Breakfast. Doug and I are unfolding God's plan for Peru with great excitement. Please praise and pray also for my new and young mentors, such as my own son, Nathaniel, my son-in-law, Matthew, and our orphans, Wilber, Ruben and Maruja, from whose lives and words I feed as though on pure honey. They are the future of the ministry.

Pray that we may make our Lord Jesus visible to those around us. In Jesus, the Kingdom of God came near men. But in the last times we bear the Kingdom of God which is within us. "But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man..." (Galatians 1: 15,16).

The Lord has kept me from seeing some of you, but my longing is to see you the very first thing when we return here again. Till then and in His care.

Gerry Gutierrez
Psalm 119: 63

- Tuesday, February 5, 2002

Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002

This letter is sent to the supporters of the Project Nehemiah Orphans. I thought that you may enjoy reading about the progress in the lives of the orphans. Ruthie is doing great. I am like a lion in a cage, pasing back and forth impatiently ready to go back to Peru on February after the National Prayer Breakfast. Please pray for this event in the light of Sep.11 especially for Doug Coe and the Prayer Breakfast Committee.

Thank you for your prayers for Ruthie and for our family and the ministry.

In His name and service;

Gerry

-------------------------------

January 15, 2002
Delaware

Dear Praying Friends of Project Nehemiah,

"He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and He will reward him for what he has done." Proverbs 19:17 Jesus Himself has said, "Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name, welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me."

May these words encourage you as you take part in the support of the orphans of the Project Nehemiah Home. On thing I do know is that the Lord pays back - and with great interest.

Please join me as we celebrate our first graduate of higher education. Lucila has graduated from the Bethany Bible Institute (BA) and is now preparing to go as a missionary to a city high in the Andes Mountains for one year. Mariela will help her in Huancavelica for three months. Afterwards, Lucila expects to go back to Bethany for one more year to get her diploma as teacher.

The school year ended in December, and it is good news that each one of the orphans has passed the school year in great shape. It has been a great help to have Professor Marco Antonio Moya tutoring the kids in their toughest courses, Math and Algebra. He is a brilliant young teacher, who has contributed to the children's education tremendously.

We also have a new high school graduate, and that is Freddy Figueroa. At the present time he is attending a pre-university academy in preparation for the admission test. He is eager to study in the University, and Marco Antonio is helping him in math.

Freddy Figueroa was one of the most difficult boys in the Orphanage, but one day he came to the mentoring group and openly confessed his sins and rebellious nature and vowed to change, with God's help. The miracle is two years old now, and we are increasingly confident of a great future for Freddy.

Our chairman of the Nehemiah Board (Walter Kurth), tells me that giving is decreasing significantly. As the children grow older, their needs are greater. The rooms where they've slept since childhood are less adequate for their needs as teenagers as they require desks and shelves for their studies and have need for some sort of closet rather than just steamer trunks for their clothes. I am concerned for these and for other needs that I perceive.

I understand very well that there is "donors fatigue" everywhere, especially after Sep. 11th and the WTC incident. May our Lord give us grace "to finish the race, to fight the good fight and to keep the faith". I personally do not know who gives and how much you give. As you know, we do not charge rent for our home nor we receive salary from Project Nehemiah; so everything that you give goes directly to the children's needs. But when Walter Kurth and Vern Ungar are concerned for the lack of funds...I am twice as concerned.

May "He who began the good work in us, carry it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus," inspiring us to finish our work in the lives of the children of Project Nehemiah.

We are eager to join the children in February 2002. Ruthie has had successful surgery for severe diverticulosis and she is recuperating well.

Representing you in His Name,

Gerry Gutierrez

- Friday, January 18, 2002

With the recent act of terrorism sending the U.S. into grief and shock, Americans can all the more readily sympathize with people around the world who are victims of terrorist violence and its aftermath. Covenant Seminary graduate Gerry Gutierrez (M.Div.'82) and his wife Ruth decided five years ago to devote their lives to serving Peruvian children who are orphaned by this type of violence, giving them a home and hope in Christ.

According to the U.S. Department of State, in the 1980s a Peruvian terrorist group called Sendero Luminoso or the Shining Path became one of the most ruthless terrorist groups in the Western Hemisphere. Approximately 30,000 people have died since this group took up arms in the 1980s. The group sought to destroy the existing Peruvian institutions and replace them with a communist peasant revolutionary regime.

Gerry greets a rural Peruvian family whom he and other have helped with clothing and housing over the years. "We're here to reflect the love of the Lord in the mountains," Gerry says.

In recent years the Shining Path's strength has been vastly diminished, but the fallout from their activities is still felt. Some of the most painful reminders of this terrorist activity are the children left without parents in rural areas of Peru. It is these children that Gerry and Ruth Gutierrez returned to Peru in 1996 to serve. For the previous nine years they served in Washington D.C. among the diplomatic community. Gerry was Director of International Relations for Mission to the World and helped coordinate the Presidential Prayer Breakfast Movement in Central Asia, Russia, North Africa, and Latin America. He also helped from afar to form Project Nehemiah, a ministry which provides aid to children orphaned by political terrorism, the same ministry with which the Gutierrezes now serve in Peru.

Upon returning to Peru and making a home in Huanta, a town high in the Andes, 350 miles from Lima, Gerry and Ruth's family began to grow. In addition to their six biological children, the Gutierrezes adopted 20 orphans. "We're committed to them for life," Gerry says.

The Gutierrezes' 20 adopted children are now all teenagers, which Gerry says with a smile would give any parent gray hair. Recently he wrote, "Not long ago in the back yard of our house, I was surrounded by a small group of little children who timidly called me 'Uncle Gerry.' Now that same group still calls me 'Uncle Gerry' but the voices of the older boys are now deep and assertive. They are tall and good looking and the girls have grown into lovely young ladies."

He went on to explain how six of these children are now going on to college-level education. "Rejoice with us, for these six young people are not only surviving life but they dare to dream and see their dreams come true."

Gerry is extending the same persistent love to these children that he has received from the Lord and His people. Gerry was taken by this persistent love when he was a college student in Peru serving as the General Secretary of the Student Revolutionary Front. During this time he was invited by a high school student to speak to the graduating class in his hometown. It did not take him much time to decide on a topic to address. "I had no second thought but to accept that opportunity to propagate my Marxist conviction and persuade those future university students to join the cause of the Revolutionary Front," Gerry says. Gerry was not prepared for what transpired after his talk. A student who heard his presentation invited him home for lunch and shared his love and the reality of Jesus Christ in his life. Gerry describes this as the first link in a long chain of Christian witnesses. These witnesses led Gerry to a period of spiritual crisis. As Gerry wrestled, he faced these words from Proverbs 3:7, "Be not wise in thine own eyes; fear the Lord and depart from evil" (KJV). Trusting that the Lord would be with him, he walked away from his former way of life, asking for forgiveness and beginning anew in Christ.

Gerry with his biological and adopted children - plus some friends

Gerry was attracted to Communism as a young man in part because of its emphasis upon justice for the poor. In walking away from this ideology, his new faith did not lead him to disregard the poor and the needy, but gave him a new context for caring for the oppressed in society. Over the years the Lord has also brought Gerry into contact with the rich and powerful both in Peru and around the world to serve as a messenger of reconciliation in Christ. "Even though I work, at times, among the powerful of the land, my mind is always with the poor," Gerry says. "But my heart is with the lost - they are in both camps. So I have been called to be a messenger of reconciliation, between God and man, between rich and poor, between nation and nation."

In addition to the children for whom Gerry and Ruth care, Gerry also has started a mentoring program with other children in the area and leads the mayor's prayer breakfast group. In all of these ministries Gerry seeks to point his countrymen to Jesus—whether he is speaking to a little child or the minister of education. "The Lord said if you lift me up, I will draw people to myself," Gerry says. "We need to lift Jesus up - not ourselves. We are like lampposts, but Jesus is the light."

Gerry realizes that the needs he faces daily in Peru are overwhelming. There are more needy children than Ruth and he can reach out to. But he is willing to do the portion of the work to which he has been called. "Mother Theresa said, 'We do not have to solve the problems of the world - we just have to do what is right in front of us," Gerry quotes. "We need to learn to love one person the right way, then we can love everyone the right way."

Gerry and Ruth rejoice in the opportunity they have had in recent years to fulfill a long-time desire to return to ministry in Peru. "We are extremely grateful to the Lord for giving us the opportunity of a lifetime to minister in our own Jerusalem - for which we prayed for over 20 years," Gerry says. "Everything we have done in life up to this point, dims in comparison to what we have done over the past four years."

To learn more about the Gutierrezes and Project Nehemiah log on to:
www.mtwsa.net/people/ggutierrez.htm. [Note: This material is farther down this web page.]

- Tuesday, January 8, 2002

These pictures can be seen over the Internet at the following URL.

http://www.mtwsa.net/people/ggutierrez-pl/coregroup.htm
Link to the Prayer Letter

- Wednesday, August 8, 2001

Milton is dead and I refuse to mourn for him, the city of Huanta weeps for Milton its beloved mayor, but I weep for Huanta

This letter including pictures can be read over the Internet at the following URL.

http://www.mtwsa.net/people/ggutierrez-pl/milton.htm
Link to the Prayer Letter

- Wednesday, August 8, 2001

This letter can be read over the Internet at the following URL.

http://www.mtwsa.net/people/ggutierrez-pl/willy.htm
Link to the Prayer Letter

- Wednesday, August 8, 2001