Jose Garate is a preacher, but not just any preacher; he is a "River Preacher".
Jose's ministry is along the Ucayali River, which is a major river in the rainforest of Peru that merges into the Amazon River. Jose lives on the outskirts of Pucallpa, which is a growing city in Peru along the Ucayali River.
The Lord is really blessing Jose's ministries. He has started three churches on the rivers and they are all at different stages of growth. Nuevo Paris is the oldest and standing on its own, he only visits occasionaly. Milagros, is in the mid stages and he has leaders being trained in Pucallpa at a Bible College. Capinsay is the newest one and they are in the process of gathering materials to build a church. Please pray for them; the river is rising fast and they are currently meeting in the soccer field. They won't be able to meet once the river floods Capinsay. The brothers at Nuevo Paris already have to go to church via canoe, their community is already flooded, this happens yearly, so they are used to it.
Jose's ministry goal is to start one new church every two years along the rivers. The first church he started is in a river community called "Nuevo Paris."(New Paris) Nuevo Paris is a community of about 35 families that live along one of the branches of the Ucayali River. It takes about 4 hours to get there from Pucallpa via a water taxi, which is pretty much a large canoe with a motor.
The way Jose started this church was by going house to house, which is no easy task in the rainy season. He first had to get the OK from the local leader, who, praise God, just happened to be a Christian. Jose went to each home in a canoe because of the high water in the rainy season, speaking to the people about the Lord and some accepted Jesus like this even before the church started. As soon as Jose had enough people who were interested they began holding church service at the local leader's home weekly. Within 3 months, as more people began attending, they could no longer all fit in this home, and plans to construct a church building began.
With the help of local people and a little financial help from Calvary Chapel Murrieta, the church was up and functioning. One local donated the land, and another donated the trees. They have 2 services a week, on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. They now have about 50 people who attend.
I had the great privilege of helping Jose baptize about 15 of these church members in the summer of 2002. A few were Christians, that had been churchless and had never been baptized, but most were new believers that had come to know the Lord by Jose's ministry. The baptism was done in the Ucayali River and was quite a site to behold. We had to take all of the people to a place along the river that had a sandy beach.
After Jose gave some last minute reminders of what baptism is, and some procedural instructions, we entered the water and began. We were in the wide river with the beautiful blue skies above us and the green vegetation of the rainforest around us and a Spirit filled group in front of us singing worship songs. I was waiting for the Lords voice any moment.
Albert Smith