Happy Fall, here’s a summer newsletter! We hope you enjoy this belated update. Your support was absolutely instrumental this past summer! The Lord allowed us to serve in many different capacities, and we are grateful for the opportunity to share some of them with you all.
Anthony attended his annual training in June with the National Guard as well as his monthly drill throughout the summer. As a chaplain candidate, he was able to lead worship, share many “Word of the Day” devotionals, counsel soldiers and more. Additionally, Anthony resumed classes in August with the Baptist Missionary Association Theological Seminary for his chaplain candidacy.
Anthony’s other preaching opportunities during the summer included filling in at the pulpit of a local church in Cove and preaching at our church, Faith Baptist Church (FMBC) in Mena, as part of his regular preaching rotation alongside the pastor and another church member.
In June, we were blessed to lead at two different church camps. Adrienne led the Blue Crew with her sister-in-law, Julianna, at the annual kids’ camp put on by FMBC and Little Hope Baptist Church in Board Camp, Ark. Several kids approached Adrienne, asking great questions and wanting to learn how to study their Bibles better. One girl from the Blue Crew even felt led to share her testimony with the whole camp!
The following week, we led the Green Beans at a camp for the Hispanic youth of the BMA (this year it was held in Wynne). We got to build relationships with kids and leaders alike, and were privileged to have many opportunities to answer questions and have life chats. Overall, both camps were a fun and growth-filled experience for both us and the kids.
At the end of July, FMBC sent a team back to Felipe Carillo Puerto, Campeche, Mexico, for the church plant’s organizational service. We were there, as the mother church of the church plant, and had the privilege of voting for the plant to become “Primera Iglesia Bautista,” an officially established church! In addition to this service, our team cooked a Southern breakfast for the church, Anthony taught at the mission in Chilam Balam, and the Garcia family taught classes to the men, women and youth (where Adrienne shared her testimony completely in Spanish for the first time for both the women and the youth!).
Llamas, alpacas and loros (parrots) — oh my! Our big finale to the summer was our two-week-long exploratory trip to the region of Madre de Dios, Peru! We will share the most impactful events of the trip in this newsletter, but if you would like to hear more stories, please don’t hesitate to email or call us anytime.
We led a Volunteer Student Mission trip to Peru last year, where we learned about this particular area and the many indigenous groups living there with little to no access to the Gospel. The purpose of our exploratory trip this year was to visit that area in person and learn as much as we could firsthand about the nearest cities and these indigenous communities. As many of you know, we feel called to long-term missions and are burdened for those who can’t access the gospel or a local church, even if they wanted to. This was a great opportunity to explore a potential future ministry location for us.
We began our cross-country road trip in Lima on the coast, driving through the desert, over the Andes Mountains, and down into the jungle, very close to the borders of Bolivia and Brazil. We visited the capital city of Madre de Dios, Puerto Maldonado, to assess the presence of the gospel there. We were shocked to discover that the jungle city was actually quite large (population: 185,478 in 2022) and had numerous churches. These churches, however, did not have the gospel as we believe it (there were many Mormon, Jehovah’s Witness, Catholic and hyper-charismatic churches). Even these churches are much different than they are in the States. As far as evangelical churches go, we found two Baptist churches in the city. We visited both and found them to be decently solid, based on our limited experience with them.
When we left the city to venture out, we found that the smaller rural communities outside the city often lack permanent churches of any kind (though some Catholic churches occasionally travel to the indigenous communities to provide a mass service). We visited a community called Infierno (literally meaning “Hell”) and learned from the locals there about how these different indigenous groups function. Only people with ethnic origins in a specific indigenous group of any given community may live permanently in that community (or marry into it). However, one may gain permission from the community president (elected every two years) to live temporarily in the community (as long as you don’t own land). Very helpful to know!
We were told about another indigenous community, like Infierno, and set out on another day to find it. We drove a considerable distance out of the city and then began down a jungle trail. After over an hour, we reached a riverbank. Across the muddy waters, we could see a few long, wooden boats and a couple of columns of smoke from fires. Through the trees, we caught glimpses of houses. The only way to access this indigenous community was to cross the river—and only they had boats! We called across, trying to get their attention, and they began to call back, trying to figure out who we were and what we wanted. At one point, they even told us there were no boats (though we could clearly see at least four)! After praying and staying put, one man and his young son eventually came across and offered to ferry us across for a few soles (Peruvian currency). We met the community’s president and sat in their meeting place to chat with him. After a while, he invited us to visit the rest of the town. We walked down the main path, followed by a small crowd of young children, until we arrived at a porch where many people were gathered. We were allowed to teach a Bible story there, so one of our group leaders shared the story of Nicodemus. When he finished, they told us to come back even earlier the next day so they could have more time to hear stories! Most unfortunately, we would not be able to return because we had to begin our long drive back across Peru. As we walked back down to the riverbank, a woman followed us. When we stopped to check on her, she was crying. Through her tears, she begged us to come back and stay. She told us about how no one is willing to stay and teach them the Word of God. We wanted to just drop everything, string up a hammock and stay right then and there! Instead, we prayed with her and for her community and piled into the boat with heavy hearts.
As heartbreaking as it is, this is exactly why we feel called to go. It’s why we eagerly await Anthony’s graduation from seminary and fulfillment of his military commitment. We want to be the ones who stay. We desire to bring the Word, raise up leaders, plant churches and grow the Kingdom — whatever it takes and whatever it looks like. Where we live now, if someone desires to know God, they can walk a few blocks to a church, grab a Bible in their native language, and meet members of the local body who can explain what they’re reading. This is not the case for the community we visited in Peru. That lady could not learn about God, even though that’s what she so desperately wanted.
The harvest is indeed plentiful, but the laborers are very few. Please join us in prayer for the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. We cannot go now, but He can send others before us. Pray for pastor Nelson and pastor Huber as they faithfully lead their congregations on the other side of Peru. Pray for more Peruvian leaders to be raised up to reach their own nation. Pray for Christians everywhere to faithfully make disciples wherever God has them. Finally, pray for us as God continues to prepare us for our future while actively using us in the present.
Our next steps are to continue visiting Peru annually until we can relocate there, unless the Lord leads us elsewhere. We are also researching two different schools that we would like to attend: one for cultural and language acquisition and one specifically for Spanish. Pray for us to determine when we can attend these two schools and what the associated costs will be.
We want to leave you all with this: no matter where God has us or where He sends us, we want our whole lives to be spent on knowing Him and making Him known. Would you join us in this mission through prayer and disciple-making?
We have had multiple people ask about financially supporting us. If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation to support our work, you can make a check out to BMA Global (put “Anthony & Adrienne Kennedy Work Fund” in the memo line) and mail it to BMA Global, P.O. Box 878, Conway, AR 72033.
To contact us, our mailing address is 4143 HWY 8 W, Mena, AR 71953. Our email is kennedyfamilymissions@gmail.com.
