Travels in March 2026

Dear friends and family, 

 Our goal with this letter is to give you a quick glimpse at our schedule and update you on current prayer requests. We are writing from Atlanta as we prepare to leave our friends and supporters here. Tomorrow we head further North and East, planning on being in Bluff City, Tennessee this weekend. From there we will be swinging in a circle through North Carolina and then up to Maryland. Along the way we will see friends from many parts of our life. We are grateful our trip has gone well so far. 

We had a great weekend at First Baptist Atlanta, renewing friendships and speaking in Sunday School and at their Adventures in Missions Luncheon. This road trip will bring us back to Chicago in March, but it won't be the end all our trips. Joy has plans to attend a women in ministry conference in Capernwray England, and Bill is hoping to visit family in Minnesota. April is wedding time! Our son Cullen will be marrying a wonderful young Christian woman April 18. With family gathering alongside friends, we anticipate a wonderful time of laughter and fun during this celebration. 

 Here is a peek at our upcoming schedule: 

Feb 20 Leave Atlanta and head toward Tennessee 

Feb 21-23 Bluff City, Tennessee 

Feb 24-26 JAARS, Waxhaw, NC 

Feb 27-March 8 Forcey Bible Church, Silver Springs, MD 

March 14-15 Uniontown Bible Church, Unionbridge, MD 

How can you be praying for us? We praise the Lord that even this week we had two people reach out to us with the intention of coming alongside and supporting our ministry financially. But we are still looking for partners to join our team, both in prayer and financially. Moody Aviation has the goal of training missionary pilots. Part of this goal is to make the training affordable so they are not saddled with college debt leading to a delay or inability to get to the mission field. One way they do this is by asking their training staff to stay on support from their sending mission organizations. In order for us to BEGIN our ministry in Spokane, WA we must raise our support up to 80% of our monthly quota. The difference between the cost of living in Peru and the USA is significant and thus we lack committed partners to give either monthly or yearly. If you feel led to join us we have included the link to our Wycliffe page that has a button to join in supporting the ministry God has called us to. 

Our absolute favorite part of furlough is spending time with so many of our friends and family, plus the opportunity to eat good food :) Check out our slideshow abovefor some fun pictures from the past two weeks. We look forward to seeing some of you soon. 

Serving together, Bill and Joy

A New Year!!!

Dear friends and family,

Greetings this New Year, 2023, from rainy season Peru. We pray that God will direct your path and make them straight in this coming year. As we start this New Year, we look back at some of the highlights of 2022. This past year saw our completion of 25 years serving with Wycliffe Bible translators, the aviation program seeing a full year of operation with the the new aircraft N9691Z, and the first high school ministry trip since COVID. As a family we celebrated Camilla's 15th birthday (a big deal in Latin American culture), the wedding of Joy's brother and our 28th wedding anniversary. This last celebration took place in Paris, a trip we postponed twice due to COVID. We also faced a few challenges this past year, including Joy's multiple trips to the US for medical scans, roadblocks in getting her flight medical approved and political and social upheaval here in Peru. Our biggest praise is that God granted us another year of clean scans for Joy. 

Our Christmas was spent in the country of Colombia with old friends and our boys were able to join us during their Christmas break. We'll post some pictures below.

Our roles and ministries here in Peru are back into the swing of things after the start of the new year. School is back in session and the aviation program is busy. Bill and Camilla have one more week left in the first semester and then will have a new schedule for the rest of the year. Joy's role in aviation will change slightly as she gives back the job of program manager now that her boss has returned from furlough. She will continue working as the flight coordinator, finance (flight billing and receipting), and safety manager. In 3 months, Mission Safety International will come for an external audit so she will be focused on making sure that the aviation team is ready.

Our biggest and best news is that we are coming on a short home assignment starting in the beginning of May. William graduates from Wheaton the first weekend, and we want to take advantage by planning our trip at that time. We plan on being in Chicago for the month of May. June will see our big circle trip, swinging through Atlanta-Tennessee-Maryland-Pennsylvania. In July we will base out of Chicago again before heading back to Peru for the beginning of the school year in August. It will be a whirlwind three and a half month trip. As plans begin to firm up, we will provide updates and information about where we will be. Our goal this furlough is to make a concerted effort to spend as much time as possible with all our friends, family and churches this furlough. We can't wait to see you all.

Continue praying for us as we have  full schedule ahead of us and as we make plans for this upcoming summer.

In Christ,

Bill and Joy Carrera

For the first time in several furloughs we will also be looking to increase our monthly support to cover the additional expenses of Joy's travel to the US every 3 months and reaching our annual insurance out of pocket costs for Joy's ongoing cancer treatment and monitoring. We would ask you to join us in praying for additional partners to our team to cover this increased need at this stage in our lives.

Below is our latest family picture, a slide show of some of our time in Colombia, and the student body at SAM Academy.

A Busy Summer (but not all work) June 2023

 Dear friends and family,

Greetings from Pucallpa, Peru where the weather has been sunny but not blazing hot for the past few weeks. We have had a few "frios" where a cold front has moved through the area and we run for our long-sleeved clothes because it's in the low 70s.


Last letter we asked for prayer for William as he was setting up an internship and needed housing. In answer to these prayers, William was able to find housing that met his needs. He is learning about commutes and has two new roommates. Fellow missionaries in North Carolina are gifting William a car that was used by their daughter while she was in college. As a family they want to bless another missionary kid with a college car! Cullen is hard at work filming and producing videos at Lake Geneva Youth Camp. His latest production can be viewed here.

Joy's scans in May came back clean, and she continues to be able to take the medications without severe side effects. We praise God for his continued blessing on Joy and her health. Continue praying for healing of her neuropathy and for the consistent muscle cramps she experiences. Her next set of scans will be in the first week of August.

To that effect, we are traveling as a family to Chicago for those scans. Most importantly, we will finally celebrate our 25TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY! We are setting aside ten days to travel while Camilla attends teen camp before Joy's scans. When we return, the boys will be done working, and we can have a few days of everyone together again.

Since the beginning of June, Joy has once again added the interim program manager of SAMAIR to her list of responsibilities. This includes a supervisory role of the team, managing team dynamics, extra zoom meetings with both SAM Peru leaders and JAARS aviation program managers from around the world, as well as making decisions regarding operations and spending. She also continues scheduling the flights, billing and receiving of flight income and maintains her position as safety manager for the team. After her next scans in August, she will once again look into submitting paperwork to the FAA to regain her flight medical. Pray for this process as it will involve extra costs and the willingness of her doctors and the FAA to efficiently process this information.


Bill is working this summer on class prep as well as light maintenance at the school. If anyone knows how to replace floorboards they can give him a call. Lots of painting, replacing mosquito screens, and moving around whiteboards and bulletin boards are in his future. Praise God, the school looks to be set for teachers in the fall and we should have about the same number of students. The school recently had a promotional video produced. It is available for viewing here.

Please be in prayer with us for these things:
(1) Safety and God's protection for both of our sons as they work this summer.
(2) That we are able to arrange to pick up the car and figure out all the paperwork involved.
(3) Clean scans for Joy at the beginning of August.

Last but not least, we wanted to highlight some of the ministry opportunities our daughter Camilla has been involved with in the past months. In May, her high school went by river to a small Shipibo community where they painted the school building and ran a day program for the kids. A few weeks later, she participated in an evangelistic event in a local neighborhood where 74 kids made decisions for Christ. She also helped out at a local Peruvian school during "English" week leading worship and interacting with students while they practiced their English with a native speaker. Take a look at some of the photos below.

As always, thank you for your prayers and support for our ministry as we bring God's truth of love and redemption to the people groups here in the jungles of Peru.

In Christ,

Joy
Here are a few photos showing what Camilla has been doing the past few months.

Spring News 2022

 

Christ has risen!

 

Spring is always a favorite time of year as we celebrate the reason we are serving our Lord in Peru: the hope of eternal salvation that springs from the truth of Christ's death for all, knowing that because of His resurrection, we have new life in Him. I Cor 15

As we are reminded why we are here, we count it a privilege to serve in our respective fields. Aviation has continued with a tight flight schedule this spring, but we are looking forward to increasing the number of people we can serve and fly in the upcoming months. The spring months for teachers are always busy as they come through the "home stretch." Bill continues to look for ways to keep his students engaged while knowing that their minds are already focused on all of the end of the school social events. Next year SAM Academy already knows that it is losing three of its long-term teachers: elementary, high school Bible/history, and Spanish teachers. Pray for us during the recruiting process as we try and fill these positions for next semester: 

Besides our normal weekday ministries, we are also involved in other ministries to encourage both Peruvian nationals and the missionary community. One of these events was an evening of worship that Bill, playing the keyboard, and Camilla, playing the guitar, participated in. They practiced for many hours and in the end, the service was a meaningful time of praise and adoration.  We were also encouraged during a week-long South America Mission and TEAM Peru missionary conference, which focused on unity. This is the first time in almost three years we were able to gather from all the different ministry locations around the country to celebrate what God is doing and to spur each other to live in a community. (see photos below)

We also wanted to give you an update on our church's second construction phase. Our local church, Mil Palmeras, has been asked to move off the SAM property where it has been renting for many years. We are trusting God for funds to put in bathrooms, an office, and storage facilities so that we can meet more regularly at our new property site. Please watch this video for an update on that project. 

Lastly, we need to brag on our youngest daughter Camilla. Next week we will be celebrating a big 15-year-old party, Latin American style with a modified "quinceañera". We are proud of her kind and cheerful spirit, her desire to minister to children through helping in the church's nursery and the Peruvian outreach "Granito de Amor" that is restarting its ministry to kids, and her gifts and talents in music. She is not only a diligent student but her writing has recently been recognized as she won honorable mention in a young writer contest for the Baltimore Science Fiction Society. Here is another example of a story she wrote a while back about our non-traditional Easter hunt celebration. Cascarones 

In two weeks, Joy returns to Chicago for another PET scan. We continue to thank God that the medication seems to be effective in keeping her cancer in remission at this time. Some of the side effects of nausea have subsided. Continue to pray that the neuropathy in her feet (caused by the first immunotherapy treatment in 2019) would completely heal and that the muscle cramps she currently experiences would subside.

We have some SPECIFIC PRAYER requests and NEEDS for this summer: 
1. William has an internship lined up in downtown Wheaton but is in need of housing in that area since at this point he does not have a car to commute from his grandparents in Chicago.
2. Regardless of the housing, we are looking to purchase a small used car for William to serve as his first car. We are aware that this is extremely challenging for almost everyone purchasing a used car in the US at this time and is complicated by us living overseas. Fortunately, we believe in a God of the impossible.
3. Pray for Cullen as he volunteers at Lake Geneva Youth Camp this summer as their videographer for the many weeks of camp. He also knows that he is in need of a vehicle for his last few years of college at Taylor University.
4. Pray for Joy's upcoming scans at the beginning of May and her visit with our sons and family in Chicago.
5. Pray for new teachers for SAM Academy for next year; both for the logistics of the ones we are hoping to recruit as well as for those we don't know about yet.

As always we appreciate your prayers and support. We simply could not be here without them.

In Christ,

Bill and Joy Carrera

Bill and Camilla taking part in the missionary worship service.

The 2022 SAM-TEAM Conference saw missionaries from all over Peru gather to worship, study Romans 12, and encourage each other.

Cascarones

“No-no-no! Iz-”

Too late. Her hand came down. The shell broke. Confetti rained everywhere. Paper 

bits ran down my shirt and arms, sticking to my sweaty hair. Izzy had won. She laughed and ran away, not bothering to help me up. 

Most Easter egg hunts are normal. Parents hide the eggs, the kids go find them, eat the candy, and you go home. Hooray! But that is not how I grew up doing it.

Unless you're the Brewsters, my family starts to save eggs a month before Easter. (If you are a Brewster, you collect months and months worth of eggs.) When you use an egg, instead of cracking it normally, you get a knife and crack a hole in the top.  The raw egg comes out and you save the shell. Once you have enough, you dye them.

After the eggs have dried they are stuffed with confetti. Finally, with tissue paper and glue you cover the hole. “Guys, I need you to dye and color the eggs today, okay?” Aunt Megan asked us the day before the Easter egg hunt. Only my girlfriends helped. The boys weren’t helping… as usual. The eggs were brown so they didn’t dye. Instead, our fingertips were the ones getting all the color.

“Hey, look!” I exclaimed. I examined my fingers and showed my friends. “If you leave your hands in the water it dyes your fingers.” Soon everyone had their hands deep in the bowels.

“That's awesome!” Ella said, taking her deep blue hands out of the dye. “It looks like I have frostbite!” 

I said with a laugh, “You're turning into a smurf.” By the end of the day, everyone had different colored fingers. 

I race down the side porch, the plastic bag slapped against my arm. My eyes scanned the grass looking for the eggs.

Early that day, all the dads at the event had hidden the eggs. Knowing this, I didn’t have to look very hard. The first egg I saw was a yellow one hidden in the lemon trees. That was easy. I ran across the grassy field looking and searching. In the tall grass is where I found the jackpot.

“We were so tired of hiding them,” Uncle Joe explained to me later. “So we just took all the extras and put them into a pile.” And that’s exactly what I found. Being nice, I make sure to leave some for the next person to find.

No one exactly shouts “it’s time to fight.” It just kinda starts. Once the first egg is smashed you know it's time for fun. Grabbing an egg, I quickly ran and smashed it on someone's head. They shout something. But I wasn't paying attention. I have a new target.

Everyone is free game, no one is out. The one rule is you have to crush the egg in your hands and sprinkle the confetti on their head… but even that rule is broken. My chance to get Uncle Joe had arrived. He had his back turned. I quietly sprint towards him. I leap. Yelling, I smashed the egg on his head. I only had time for a small victory. Soon he was after me. I ran forward, dodging around people and trees. But he was gaining on me. Almost on me. I saw a hand reach out. I screamed. I took a sharp turn. Leaving him behind.

“Oh, man! I missed,” He shouts. He fell as his feet slipped in the wet grass.

“Ha-ha!” I turned around to laugh at him. 

I can’t explain what happened, but before I knew it I was on the ground. The trees 

blocked the sun out of my eyes, I knew I was finished. Down, I lost. My breath was hot and I pant wildly. The wet grass filled my nose, along with the smell of sweat and dirt. I scrunch my nose. Soon a man comes into my view. Uncle Joe is standing over me with a smug grin. My head falls on the grass. I groaned, but a smile crept up on my lips. Laughing, he grabs an egg out of his plastic bag, taking time to enjoy his moment of victory. He smashed the egg on my head, rubbing the colored paper bits into my sweaty hair. He walked away, almost skipping in his slow swagger. I lay there defeated. But a full smile comes, reaching the corners of my eyes. Laughing and panting widely, I got up, brushed the itchy wet grass off my back, and I went off to hunt the next person. 

June 2021 School is done...

 

Don't know who is prouder,
Dad the Principal
or the Graduate!

Greetings from Peru. We hope the start to your summer has been a good one. For the month of May, we were able to have our sons with us for a few weeks, and while it was sad to see them leave, we are so thankful for the time together. They both found jobs at a Christian camp for the summer, which was an answer to prayer. 

With graduation a few weeks ago, the academic part of the school year came to a close. The 8th-grade graduation (8 students) and the high school graduation (5 students) took place on different nights due to COVID restrictions. Camilla was excited to march with her friends, and she proudly insists she is now a high schooler. The list of projects the school staff put off during the months we were not in person has now become our priority. Mosquito screens need repair, books have to be organized, and classrooms need to be cleaned and painted. Bill has also started working on outlines for classes. We anticipate returning to in-person instruction and are planning accordingly. 

Next week Joy begins her new role as interim program director for the aviation department while her boss goes on a four-month furlough. She will be picking up additional accounting tasks this summer as well. The flight schedule is getting busy as we have the privilege of helping our partner mission organizations get back to normal. For the first time in a year, we will be flying young indigenous leaders and their families back to Bible school. The Shawi Bible conference canceled last year has also been rescheduled. We continue with an increased number of medical emergency flights. Pray for us as we negotiate payment from the national health services for over three months of flights that need to be paid for. Lastly continue to pray that the FAA would grant Joy her flight medical. The oncologist consultant has been sitting on her file since March. Pray that this individual would feel compelled to review her file and rule favorably in this case.

Everyone enjoyed a boat ride with friends.

Camilla plans on sleeping, riding her motorcycle (she recently figured out third gear), and spending as much time laughing with the few friends who are not traveling this summer. She now has a bird, a dog, and a cat, although the dog is mostly Bill's dog. She is going to be the leader of worship at school chapels next year and has collected piles of music to look through.

We have a trip to Chicago scheduled for the end of July for Joy's medical scans and are looking forward to seeing family for the short two weeks we will be there. The boys will be ending their time at camp, and we should be able to see them as well. William is moving into an apartment at Wheaton College and we might be shopping for kitchen supplies and giving some impromptu cooking lessons.

Prayer Requests:
(1) Continued safety and protection during the emergency flights SAMAIR is doing.
(2) Pray that Joy's scans in the first week of August would be clear and that the doctors would be able to give a good report.
(3) We praise God for his protection from COVID during our time here in Peru.
(4) Pray for ministries to resume to normal this fall including aviation, churches, and in-person school.

In Christ,
Bill, Joy, and Camilla

Nov 2020..possible Return to Peru?

 

We have return tickets to Peru! Read below to see how God has done some amazing miracles on our behalf to allow us to return and don't forget to check out the items to pray for.

Dear Friends and Family, When we last updated you at the end of August, we had just been through a tough month filled with ups and downs. Cancer-free scans were the good news, but closed international borders to Peru was the bad news. God in His wisdom, then took us on a two-month journey showing us things about His character, about ourselves, and how we should respond in times of uncertainty. For the first two weeks in September, we thoroughly enjoyed our time in Spokane Washington. Our time was spent seeing how Moody still trains missionary pilots and mechanics, sharing in chapels, attending classes, and eating meals in the evenings with both staff and students. We had the privilege of spending time with a student Bill had taught on the mission field in elementary school who is now at Moody. We got a vision for how Joy could be a valuable instructor and mentor to both male and female students in the program and how Bill's educational background could be used in the student services department. The doors are open for us to work there in the future whenever God leads us from our current ministry. While we do not feel this is right for us at the moment, please pray for us as we consider His will for us at Moody in the future. As we left, God gave us the privilege of spending a day and a half exploring Yellowstone National Park. (See pictures above.) Here are the fall miracles God worked for us. Miracle #1: Joy was able to reduce her use of gabapentin throughout the month and by the time we returned to Chicago she was completely off this medication that causes drowsiness and would prohibit her from obtaining an aviation medical. While there is still some discomfort primarily in the evenings, this has been easily managed with over the counter pain medicine. Miracle #2: While at Moody, we were given the contact information for a company that specifically helps pilots regain their FAA medicals. The owner is a Christian, and we hired this company to represent our case before the FAA. Once Joy's doctors send reports of Joy's surgery and treatments of this past year to them, they will submit a legal document representing her when she finishes her medical exam with a designated FAA medical examiner next week. Miracle #3: At the end of September, we drove to the JAARS center in Waxhaw, NC. The plan was to attend a two-week refresher ground school for all JAARS supervisor pilots. But since the country of Peru still was not allowing flights from the US, we approached the head of training at JAARS and asked if there was any way he could facilitate the flight training immediately following the ground school. There was an instructor (more like 3 who shared the load) and an aircraft available for this required training. After two weeks of instrument training, left seat, and right seat flying, Joy completed all the training necessary to requalify for a full five year JAARS recurrent training event.  Miracle #4 Peru officially began allowing flights from the US starting November 1st. We returned to Chicago and this past week we able to fit in dental work for both of us, Joy's three-month CT scans (ONCE AGAIN SHOWING NO CANCER), an upper esophageal scope for Bill, AND PURCHASED TICKETS for Monday, November 16 to return to Peru.   Here is how you can pray for us in the next 7 days:   1. Pray for Joy's FAA medical exam Tuesday the 10th. After the exam, the FAA review board will need to deliberate based on this exam along with the report from Pilot Medical Solutions on her behalf. 2. Pray for one more treatment (BOTOX) on Bill's esophagus Thursday the 12th. 3. Pray that we will be able to get COVID tests here in the Chicago area which is difficult due to demand. The timing has to work perfectly due to government mandates to arrive with results within 72 hours of receiving the results. 4. Pray for us as we leave our boys in the US at college. Pray that God would continue to bless them this semester and for their plans for the holidays as they will not be traveling to Peru. 5. Pray for us as a family as we return after so long. Our expectations are high, but we know we will be returning to a difficult situation. 6. Lastly and most importantly pray for Bill and me as we work on our spiritual life and family life after this difficult year. We are entering a new season and trust that God will be glorified in our lives. 7 days to go! Pray for us on November 16 and 17 as we finally get all the way home. In Christ, Bill and Joy Carrera