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Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Visitors - Witnessing - Group/Cong

Hi all,

Apologises for taking so long to update our blog.
We hope you all are well, we miss you all very much. We thank you all for you lovely comments and loving support.

Here are some photos, we will post more soon, hopefully a bit quicker next time, hehehe

 New friends that passed through 'Tarapoto' - they are serving in 'Pacasmayo' which is a city on the Coast of Peru, they have been serving in Peru for 9 years now with 2 girls, one 14 and the other 18. As you can see in the picture they are loving live serving where the need is greater as a family :D



 Sneaky shot of Sarah and Rachy arriving at the field service group.


 Ralph and I in the ministry - was nice to go out witno with another Aussie, this couple are a great encouragement for both Sarah and I



 Sorry for the bad photo - This sister was visiting us to help out our congregation for a couple of weeks. We got chatting and found out that she found the truth in Cuzco, and funny enough one of my Aunties helped her come into the truth, and that Aunty came into the truth through my Grandma that got sent from Gilead from Australia to Cuzco, and now this sister is serving where the need is greater.



 The above and below photo was taken of a group/congregation called "Tabalosos" it is about 1 hour away, this is their Kingdom hall, it is actually a sisters home that she has opened up to the group/congregation, this sister now lives next door in a much smaller room with family. Such a self sacrificing spirit and a huge spirit of hospitality.

Now why do i keep saying group/congregation??? Well because when we took this photo a couple of weeks ago it was only a group that was growing very fast, they had around 25 publishers but there was an attendance of 70 to the meeting when we visited.
They only moved into this new kingdom hall within the last year, and when they first moved in, the first two rows of seats where empty. Now they are standing out the door.
An elder just got sent to help the group with his family and with that it was announced as a new congregation. But with an attendance of 70 at the meetings and only 2 ministerial servants, and 1 elder, there is a huge need in this buzzing new congregation.
To finish up, here is Sarah at our new found spot to chill out when we need a moment to relax :)

Thank you all for your loving support, we will post some new photos as soon as possible.

Big hug,
Joshua & Sarah Rado

Monday, January 19, 2015

PiOnEERS with SMILES & hUMbLE HEaRTs to bE fOUNd

g'Day Maties, nuestros amigos, dear friends,

Hope you are doing well, thank you all for your beautiful emails and comments, it is very encouraging to us.
So it's been almost 2 months since we have gotten back from visiting the land down under (Australia). Heres a bit of an update of want has been happening in "La Banda de Shilcayo" - Peruvian Jungle.

Rachel (Sarah's sister) has been doing an amazing job getting through the challenges of the mighty JUNGLE hahaha, Jehovah has blessed her with 11 studies in her first couple of months. When you see people thrusting for the truth here, the challenges are nothing. Seeing her trust in Jehovah has boosted our zeal.

The SMILING PIONEERS :D
We also enjoyed our Pioneer Meeting with the elders with a total of 22 regular pioneers in attendance. It is beautiful to have so many pioneers, it's a shame we don't get to spend much time with each other in the ministry - why?? because we all have so many studies we don't have much time left to go with others to there studies hahahaha - but we make arrangements to enjoy each others company as much as possible :)

Let us tell you all about one of the new students of the bible, Jimmy. I had mentioned him in the last blog post, he is the one at the top of a mountain hahaha. Well happily we have found a bit of an easier way of getting to his house, still involves a bit of a climb but its better than the alternative. Well we have been regularly studying with Jimmy every week on Sunday mornings, and in the process his wife and daughter have joined in and have showed a lot of interest in the study, following along in there own copy of the brochure.
Now some of you might be wondering about the two young boys that where studying and came to a few meetings, Perdo and Ricardo, well now one of our younger pioneers around 15 years of age is studying with both of them, one on Wednesday mornings and the other Friday mornings, and they continue to progress. Interesting there was another young boy that lives in there neighbourhood named Diego, he is the granddaughter of a sister in our congregation but his mum and dad are not witnesses, well Diego is 8 years old and had heard about Perdo and Ricardo studying and wanted a study of his own, so one day he decided to go visit his Grandma and go to the meeting with her, he enjoyed the meeting and he told his Grandma that he wanted to study the bible with a brother, so after the meeting they approached me and asked if I would be willing to study with him, well of course I said YES hehehe, we have now been studying for a few weeks every Thursday and Friday morning and he his loving it, his father is also showing interest and encouraging Diego to continue to study and prepare for the study.

Children wanting to see the literature and videos
The witnessing stand has also been drawing humble hearted ones out, one day this lady with her two sons approached Sarah and asked for the Watchtower and Awake but also wanted the 'Good News" brochure and Bible Teach book, Sarah was about to offer her a free home bible study when she asked Sarah if she could visit her to study the bible, hahaha, and before Sarah could ask for the address the lady was writing it down, as well as her phone number and said to just call and she will be there. Well we have been studying with her for a few weeks and she has been loving the things she has been learning and has expressed a keen interest in coming to the meetings.

On a bit of a side note, Sarah and I have been here for over a year know and have been studying with quite a few different ones on a regular bases, but we had been feeling that they didn't understand us and where just being polite, so we where expecting to come back from our trip and find that we had lost some studies, but that was not the case, all our studies from before our trip where so happy we where back and during the study they would mention all the things they had learned from previous studies, that has been a very very big encouragement to us, as we thought we weren't  being understood but with Jehovah's help these humble ones have soaked up bible truths and it's a privilege that Jehovah has given us the opportunity to see their progress in their own personal relationship with him.

Well we will leave it there for now, we have so many more beautiful experiences but we will leave it there until next time. Hear are some photos :D

We send our warm love to you all :)
Joshua and Sarah Rado






Tuesday, December 23, 2014

weIgHt lOse - and SeTTeLing

Hello our dear friends :)
We are starting to get back into things again, we forgot how hot it gets here, but its good for me so I can lose all that weight I put on back in Australia, to much GALAKTOMPOUREKO made by Mumma Raymond (Sarah's Mum) and homemade CINNAMON ROLLS by Jen (my sister). Worth every plate hehehe

We are just amazed about the territory, so much interest. Sarah has smashed into it starting new studies left, right and centre hahaha.
I found a new study... but I had to find it at the highest and steepest part of the territory of course, but this young man, who's name is Jimmy, is such a humble and just loves to learn more about the bible. His eyes just lit up when he learnt from the bible that God's name is Jehovah and not Jesus.
Anyways, would love to tell you all many more beautiful experiences but time just gets away. So we have attached some photos to tell the stories for us.

We miss you all our dear friends and family. We thank you all for your loving support and look forward to hearing from you all.

Warm Christian Love,
Joshua and Sarah Rado



We helped Rachel's (Sarah's sister) housemate move... so this is house moving in the jungle with motorcar's hahaha

Witnessing stand at the entrance of the market. Aways have an amazing experience when we do the stand. Nearly everyday the stand is running there is at least one bible study started.



Saturday morning group under the tree.


YEah thats SAFE.....


Our new C.O and his wife. Amazing couple and very encouraging to us. Had the privilege of having them other for pancakes and fruit salad after the Tuesday night meeting.


Our pioneer meeting with the C.O. there a haPPy bunch :D


The sisters... both loving the BEST LIFE EVER :D





So this is where I found Jimmy... see those little people all the way down there??? yep thats where we had to walk up from hahaha - AVENTURA (adventure)

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Back in PERU

Hello our dear friends,
We have now arrived back in Peru after a trip back home to Australia and visiting our dear friends in the Cypress 'Cong' in LA. We had a beautiful time, we enjoyed an amazing International Convention in Melbourne. We broke the records of the Etihad Stadium with over 70,000 in attendance, with 7,000 delegates and many missionaries from all over the world. The experiences where amazing, very encouraging to both Sarah and I, one missionary mentioned that after 25 years of special full-time service the some of the hardest things to cope with is the hot weather and culture shock but said the the blessing far out way the blessings, that was very encouraging for us because we are not even missionaries and are very new to this new/best way of life but showed us that we are the only ones and there endurance pushes us to keep giving our best.
Well there where many more encouraging moments, our dear Cranbourne Cong with beautiful brothers and sisters that encouraged us and built us up with there beautiful comments and inviting us to have dinner with them. Sarah and I would like to say thank you to you all for your beautiful love toward us, it has given us a HUGE boost. Some of these ones are the 'Cranbourne Oldies' hehehe, the Santa Cruz's, Sis Tony, Sis Joan, Sis Josie and Sis June, they are just some that give there very best to Jehovah though they suffer from many illnesses such as cancer, chronic pain, and much much more, but they always find time to preach the word, if there not able to leave there house they peach to ones that come there, one of these dear sisters actually has return visits that come to her house to talk to her about the bible. These ones encourage us dearly through the life experience and there genuine love and care they have for us. We pray and think of them often and there strength gives us strength to continue doing the best we can from Jehovah.

We enjoyed our time with our family back in Australia very much, they showed so much support for what we are doing, they have been and continue to be very self-sacrificing in there support and encouragement to us. It is very hard for them to have us so far away, they miss not having us around, miss our touch, miss our time together, but Jehovah has seen there sacrifice and whole hearted support to us and he has blessed them in many ways that makes us so very happy. Lots of love to you all :)

Sarah and I would like to say thank you the Cotton family and the Indes family from Cypress Cong in LA. They took us in as though we are family and we where so touched by there love and care toward us. We could never thank them enough. The Cypress Cong took us in and we always feel at home when we visit. The international brotherhood in amazing, it was lovely to talk to ones that have very real hardships but they continue to put Jehovah first and keep moving forward. We always enjoy reading the year books for the amazing experiences of our dear brothers and sisters around the world, but this little trip we did taught me something, that if we just look around the kingdom hall we find year book type of experiences everywhere, we saw this in Australia and in LA. I think thats why this trip was such a huge boost. I would love to give you all details but for one, I would be writing forever, and two, we do not want to embarrass anyone. We love you all and we say thank you for sticking strong to Jehovah not matter what your circumstances.

Well through our trip we shared some photos of our life in Peru and we thought we would post these so that anyone that missed them and wanted to see them could have a chance, we will put a little description on each one.

Love to you all,
Joshua & Sarah


So this is our territory:


Our home:

This is a congregation that is about 2 hours drive from us and have been building there Kingdom Hall with the money they have, they have been building it for over 5 years now and they are mostly farmers in a poor community, so after each harvest they donate as much as they can to the construction of there Kingdom Hall. There generosity is so very encouraging.


Taking the witno stands around:


The hilly terrain of our territory:


These are some amazing kids, they are all 12 years of age or under except one girl who is 14, all are baptised besides the little boy, 1 of the girls is a auxiliary pioneer, 3 of them are regular pioneers and the older boy in the picture has a young brother that is 8 years of age and also a regular pioneer with is own 5 bible studies. These two boys have just finished the language school for a native language in the area with there parents. Very inspirational

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Past Year Summed Up

Hello our dear friends,
I have to apologise that we have not update our blog in such a long time. These last few months have been very busy. But heres is a bit of a sum up of the past year.

We have now been serving in La Banda de Shilcayo congregation in Tarapoto, Peru, for a year now and it has been an absolute blessing. Jehovah has shown us that this is the best life for us and we are loving seeing his guidance and support in all that we are doing. Through out this past year we have had the privilege of having 25 bible studies between Sarah and I. 6 of our studies are attending the meeting and that puts us on a spiritual high. We have the amazing privilege of being able to come back to Australia for the International Assembly in Melbourne. We also got to visit our dear Mark and Naomi in bethel Australia for a few days and that was a beautiful experience.

I will relate one of our beautiful experiences that Jehovah has given us. We went out witnessing one morning and I worked with a young brother in our congregation, and we where talking away and I asked him if he had any studies or return visits, his reply was, "I had one study but I have none at the moment." So i asked why that was the case, he didn't really know what to say, but it seemed that he just needed a bit of encouragement. Well I prayed for Jehovah to help him get the confidence to start a return visit. Sure enough the next door he did he found a teenager around his age that was very interested in the bible, they conversed and found out they where in the same school, the young brother showed him the bible teach book and confidently asked the householder if he would like a bible study - he accepted. And they arranged to do the study in a weeks time. As we left the house the teenage boy stopped us and said that his grandma wanted to talk to us, now I thought she was going to tell us off, but it was the opposite. She said that she has been very sick suffering with diabetes and she had been praying for someone to come and teach her about the bible and show her hope, in her pray she also asked God for someone to come and help her grandson as he is a sweet kid but she is worried that the bad in the world would corrupt him. She invited us into her home and we talked for some time with her and showed her the bible teach book and how the study works, well she pretty much asked for a bible study. So we arranged a time to come back the following week, and invited her and her grandson to the meeting.
That week at the meeting I was running around and a brother approached me around half way through the meeting and said someone is asking for me outside - sure enough it was this dear grandma with her grandson. They came in and loved the meeting - the following study we showed her how the watchtower is done and she had in prepared for the following meeting. What I loved about this little experience was how it affected that dear young brother, he always was at meetings with his mum and would rarely give answers and didn't really show a whole lot of interest in the meetings - but when he saw his study come to the meeting that day, he was on a high, he ran around getting him a bible and song book, showing his young study all the brothers and the young friends he had in the congregation, he was so happy. Since then they have been regularly having a study and the young brother is having more participation in the meetings.
Jehovah is surely speeding up the work and it is so amazing how he encourages us all to keep going in this wicked system.

 Well that was just one of the beautiful experience we have enjoyed this year - we will try to update the blog post a bit more regularly. But at the moment we are in Melbourne, Australia, for the International Assembly -  we are so excited to have an assembly in english and be able to understand all of it hahahahaha, even more so that it is an International - hope to catch up with some of you there.
We shall be heading back to Peru in the middle of November, shall try to keep you all posted. We would like to thank all of you for your loving support that encourages us to keep doing what we can in Jehovah's service. We say thank you to our family that has given us so much encouragement and support.
We shall post photos on Google+.

May Jehovah continue to be with you all.
Joshua & Sarah Rado

Monday, April 28, 2014

Tarapoto UPDATE - Experience

Hi all,

Hope everyone is doing well.

It has been a busy month for us here. After our Cuzco trip we got back into our ministry in La Banda de Shilcayo congregation.
Our studies are going well and have been giving us a huge boost of joy every time we do them. On of our study's is a mum with 2 young girls, ages 7 & 10. The 10 year old had a horrible accident when she was a baby.. which left her with serious burns that reached her lungs.. poor thing and poor mum. She is such a happy girl though, you would never realise that she is just running on half a lung (literally). Sarah studies with her and has been using the new brochure for kids and the children's activities from the website and she loves it. The 7 year old loves it too. Now to give you an idea where this call is... Its on a map that is on the edge of our territory.. which you have to cross a river to get to... and it is on top of a hill (Sarah calls it a mountain) that if it rains becomes a mud slide... our shoes get so heavy from the mud hahaha. On a hot day it is torture... but when we are CLIMBING up the "mountain" the two little girls come running to us and give us a huge hug and that fills our heart with joy.
Anyways, the mum just recently got told by the doctors that at any moment her beautiful girl might pass away because her lung is failing... wow, that was a very emotional study when she told us this. Really sad, but the amazing and most faith strengthen thing was that the mum just kept saying that she has 100% confidence in Jehovah to help her. Her faith is so strong and whenever she gets a moment she reads the BT book and her bible... She says, "When everything gets to much, and i can not think straight, I do a pray to Jehovah and as soon as I finish... I feel better" .... the daughter (10 year old) has so much faith in Jehovah as well and does her pray to Jehovah every night asking Jehovah to help her family, her mum, her sister and even us. Touched our heart so much to hear that :)
So much more to say, we will leave that for next time :)

We had an amazing memorial attendance in our congregation with a total of 305 at the kingdom hall and Chazuta (a group thats part of our cong with 12 publishers) had 91 in attendance and in another group part of our cong 2 hours away had around 30, so all in all we had around 420... Amazing.

We also had the beautiful privilege of being invited to the Graduation of the Couple School in Lima. That was so faith building and really encouraged us both. The talks and experiences that we heard really has given us strength to keep going in our full-time service to Jehovah. We also got some needed shopping done while in Lima :)

Just the other week I did a public talk in a beautiful little group of 20 publishers about 1 hour away. Can you believe that 10 of them are regular pioneers??!! and of those 10 pioneers 2 of them are 12 YEARS OF AGE and another 14 years of age.... One of them is a young boy that is 12 and has already been to his pioneer school. Theres a 11 year old thats a regular auxiliary pioneer as well... i think there are more as well. But what an example... and they all have great goals... We so humbled by there amazing job that they are doing. We have a photo of some of them below.
And thats not uncommon because even in our congregations there are 13 year olds that have been regular pioneers for a couple years. Girls and Boys. Very encouraging.

Well theres a lot more to say but we will leave it there for today.
Sarah and I send our love to all and hope to hear from you.

Here are some photos:


We had the privilege of visiting a giving a talk in the Lamas congregation... That very night a special pioneer couple just arrived there... They have been assigned there to help out in the native language "Quechua"


Here are our faithful married couples from the Couple School in Peru


This was a lovely lunch a sister did for just some of the pioneers in our Congregation... there are 4 special pioneers in this photo... it is truly a well of spiritual experience


Here are those faithful young brother and sisters from that group, so amazing, our future special pioneers hehehe


Memorial, we set up a tv and chairs outside so we could fit as many as we could.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

its been TOO long.. our apologise :(

Hello all,

We apologise that we haven't put up a post in a while, been busy as over here.
So here is a bit of an update of a few things that have been happening over here.
In the next blog we will put up some new photos :)

So in the past month we traveled to Lima to finish (for now) the paperwork for Sarah to become a Peruvian Resident.. and we are happy to say with Jehovahs help and my mums translating Sarah now is a Peruvian Resident which helps us to serve Jehovah here even more as it means we do not have to leave the country and we can work if need be. Also a major bonus is tourism stuff and other things become either free or really cheap :D :D how Jehovah blesses hehehe

So with that done we did a little trip to CUZCO, Sarah absolutely feel in LOVE with Cuzco.
We visited my Papa (grandfather) who is faithful serving Jehovah there at the age of 89.. by himself for the most part but for the past year or so he has had the company of two of my cousins from Australia, Patrica and Michael, who are support the kingdom work in Cuzco and have been living with Papa. We got to spend some good quality time with them and in the ministry with them and met there congregation. We had a lovely time. In there congregation they have a couple who just recently graduated from Gilead :) They are a very inspiring couple. There from the UK.
The ministry in Cuzco is amazing as well... in the city centre its a bit tuff but when you get to the outskirts your talking about 20 studies per pioneer MINIMUM... Sarah was like, "I want to serve here!!" hahaha i think that has something to do with the weather in Cuzco... because Cuzco is a fresher climate.. not to hot... and Tarapoto is always hot... and if any of you know Sarah ... well... safe to say the heat doesn't FIT with Sarah...
My dear wife is doing such a great job putting up with the climate here.. makes me want to do more and encourages me very much. She always tries to stay positive and gives it her best even when everything goes up in the air.. at the moment the water issue has been very annoying hahaha
The water here has a mind of its own.. it turns off whenever it wants... usually at midday until 5pm which is the time when its the hottest and you just want a shower hahaha... we fill up a bucket so that we have some water during that period hehehe.
We always try to work around our challenges and look at the positive :) for example if you every knock on our door around midday in the heat of the day you will find us sitting on our bed... in front of a fan going full blast.. watching a movie or a TV series... sipping on an icy homemade banana,maca,chocolate smoothy and a delicious lunch hahaha and we just chill like that for a good 2 hours hehehe
Then when the heat goes down a bit we head back out in the ministry :) We are enjoying it here and we truly feel the same as that sister on the website video... It truly is the best way of life.

Well I have blab on quite a bit know so I will leave it at that.
We will do a new post soon with some photos.

We miss you all very much and please let us know how you guys are going :) thank you all those for your emails and comments... they have encouraged us greatly.

Love to you all
Josh and Sarah Rado