The McEuen Family

Cross Cultural Witnesses to Peru Jirn San Jos 230, Urb San Carlos Huancayo, Per opencircleperu@gmail.com http://opencircleperu.weebly.com July and August 2012 As I type this, there are six teenage boys (representing five different schools) sitting at the dining room table playing Risk (a board game). They are part of the youth group that meets at the house Sunday afternoons. All of these boys go to the Methodist Church (some more often than others), but often we have boys and girls who are not regulars on Sunday mornings. The goal is that they are comfortable here and that they grow in their faith in Jesus Christ. That is a large part of what Ash does here in Peru. A lot of people dont like teenagers. They are rebellious. They lack self control. They are full of hormones. Maybe that is why a lot of times they are overlooked. A lot of people go to the mission field to work with children. That makes sense because they are cute and moldable. Other people come to work with young adults and adults. That makes sense, too, because they have become more or less stable. They ask good questions and want to learn more about God. But teenagers? Yikes! Everything is boring. They don`t want to listen. And when they do listen, they decide to do the exact opposite because, of course, they think they know everything. Why would anyone want to work with them? Ash would. For some reason he likes this age group. In addition to the youth at the church, he also teaches at the local Methodist school (seventh and eighth grade Christian education classes) and has about 140 students. In addition to those he has in the classroom, he indirectly works and builds relationships with the other 600 plus students in third through eleventh grade (when they graduate from high school). He enjoys the challenge of the age (in addition to the cultural and language challenges). He enjoys the successes. He has stories about simple apologies and requests for prayers that he would love to share, but out of respect to the teens, he won`t here. It`s a tough age. They get used and ignored and judged a lot. Ash doesn`t want to add to any self-image problems or to embarrass them in any way. It is a challenge. The culture and expectations of the Peruvian classroom is very different than the culture and expectations of North American classrooms. There is a lot to learn. Every teacher has a set of files in their brains that they can pull from at a moment`s notice to deal with discipline problems to change the lesson midstream, and so on. Ash has a lot of these files, but most of them are in English and in the North American

Page 2 culture. He is still developing the files (and translating others) to use in the classrooms here. At the beginning of August, Ash took a group of ten teenagers from the church to the jungle (about five hours by bus) to meet up with another 30 teenagers from the region. He was in charge of a district camp for teenagers. It was the first time he`d been camp director. With changes, adaptations, and a lot of flexibility, it was a success and many are asking him, When is the next campamento? Of course, he`s a bit biased, but of all the groups that were there, the kids from Huancayo were the most willing to step forward and serve. More and more parents at church and at the school are approaching Ash to talk to him about their kids. To talk about behavior. To talk about parenting. They would like him to talk with their teens to try to understand what they are going through. One mother even asked him, A group of us moms are talking. If I got a meeting together at our house, will you come and talk to us about being a Christian parent? Ash loves his ministry and (most of) the challenges that come along with it. The boys at the table are laughing en carcajadas (that is to say, almost rolling on the floor) because of the game. Others would tell them to be quiet. For Ash, it is music to his ears. May you be blessed in all you do and may the teenagers around you be a blessing to you!

Ash, Audra, Kia, Ayli, Todd y Soraya Cross Cultural Witnesses to Per

The pictures: Ash doing a children`s moment a the Methodist church in Huancayo, Audra with two other great missionaries (from Brazil and Peru/Spain), Todd graduating in his violin class, Soraya dancing in some confetti, Ayli with kids from Shankivironi (in the jungle), and Kia holding a precious baby while his mother was in a class.