Vincente’s village is located at the mouth of a tributary that has several villages spread out upstream. One of them is an Asheninka community seven hours away and unreachable by the Evangelista. Vincente’s desire was to go to the village and share the gospel just like we had done in his village back in 2004.

Young indigenous churches already are beginning their own outreach efforts to other villages. This February, the fourth Shipibo Christian youth camp to be held upriver in the past two years took place, totally organized, funded and run by Shipibos.

Looking back over the past 10 years, it is wonderful to see how God has directed this partnership that started with Hershey coming alongside the Pucallpa church and has now become a strong multicultural cord of three strands made up of Shipibos, Pucallpinos and Americans working together.

For the past 10 years, Hershey Free Church has partnered with the Evangelical Missionary Church of Pucallpa (EMCP), Peru, in a joint vision to  evangelize the Shipibo and several other tribes along the Ucayali River, a tributary of the Amazon River.

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Hershey Free Church has long been supporting Patty Shenk and Butch and Shirley Hammond as missionaries. With their retirement from full-time missions at the end of 2011, we would like to recognize them for their service.