January newsletter

We hope each of you had wonderful Christmas and New Year's celebrations. We were so excited to be home with friends and family in New York celebrating a white Christmas! We could barely convince Mark to come in out of the snow, he had such a great time playing in it. Yet, to our great surprise, now that we are back in 70 degree weather here in Arequipa, Mark has resumed his complaints about being cold!

Well, we are about to see if he continues feeling cold in Lima where we will be at sea level rather than an altitude of 7,500 ft. here in Arequipa. Yes, we are planning on moving to Lima on Feb. 10-11. Please pray for us as we pack...it is a rather difficult task with two little kids underfoot. Pray for our children: for the first time Mark is old enough to understand what is happening and miss people and places...he is already sad about this move. Pray for safety for us and our things during the move. Pray that Steve will quickly feel competent in his new job. Pray that God will help us find a new church home in Lima. And join us in thanking God for providing housing for us in Lima already! Our mission has graciously agreed to allow us to stay in a furnished apartment until we leave for our time in the States (July 2011 – Jan. 2012), which means we don't have to pack, unpack, and repack in July!

Please also pray for REAP South during this time. We will be handing our job over to Candy Bruce, who will live here in Arequipa for the next two years. However, she is in the States until the end of March, so the rest of the team will have to pick up the slack until then unless Steve has time on the side to help out.

Finally, we would like to thank you for your prayers for Steve's language exam. We were excited to learn that he reached the level required of him at this time. Please continue to pray for us to make Peruvian friends as this is the best way for him to improve his language skills.

The photo below is of the first baptism by Valleydale Baptist Church in Atico. We praise God for what He is doing in this area.

November newsletter

Wow! Another month seems to have flown by already! We hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving! We had a rather quiet Thanksgiving celebration at home...we were going to have some people over but in the end it didn't work out. Nevertheless, we took time to reflect on God's goodness and faithfulness to us over the past year and our hearts were encouraged by our great God.

Steve's trip to Patambuco in November went well. He felt a little awkward leading a trip to a place he had never been, especially since we had received conflicting reports about how to get there and what to expect when we got there. Thankfully, the trip went well and they found a place to stay when they arrived. They were housed in a two story building: one open room upstairs (climb a ladder to get there) and another open room downstairs. The “bathroom” (it was a “squatty potty”) was located two doors down the hill. Given the circumstances, it is a good thing the team was all men and I didn't go along with the children!

The team had no idea that there was an evangelical church in the area, so they were very encouraged when they found three people by the side of the road on Sunday morning and learned that they were part of the local Baptist church! They are hoping to partner with this church and help them grow and reach out to their community.

Meanwhile, back in Arequipa Miriam was dealing with sick children (thankfully, nothing serious). And just to make things more exciting she went out to water the grass and left the keys inside the house on the off-chance that the door might slam behind them leaving them stuck outside...and it did. Praise God both children were outside as well! And praise God the owners of our house live nearby and they found a spare set of keys!

Right now we are very excitedly looking forward to our next trip – to the United States! Ok, we are not really looking forward to the “traveling with two small children” part, but we are looking forward to spending Christmas with family...most of whom we have not seen in over 3 years!

Family Stuff

Ok, here is the promised family post. First some pictures: Mark was helping me water the front yard...

...while Sarah was busy playing in the dirt...and eating it, I might add. Yes, Mark is our "clean" child and Sarah is our "dirty" child. Mark refused to eat his 1st birthday cake with his hands; Sarah gets mad if I don't let her eat with her hands and rub it all in her hair!

Sarah seems to be on the verge of walking; she will "let go" she just won't "step out" yet. Of course since she is able to crawl pretty well she is not as motivated to walk as Mark was (he never really crawled and walked before 1 yr.). I feel like just recently I have reached a turning point in motherhood since Mark and Sarah are finally starting to play together. Mark has an extremely difficult time doing anything by himself so it is rather freeing to have him entertained by someone else. We have a tiny little pantry and they will both crawl in there and play together.

Mark seems to have taught himself the Alphabet Song. Ok, I know that is not really possible, but I'm pretty sure we have only sung it to him a few times. I have been working on the alphabet with him, just not the song, and all of a sudden he is able to sing it through perfectly...ok, almost perfectly...instead of saying J,K he says K, K. Unfortunately for him they are currently working on the vowels in Spanish at his school. Not sure how he deals with the fact that they insist that the letter I makes a long E sound, etc., etc.

Sarah is "talking" a lot these days, but, unfortunately for us, we have not learned her language yet...we're a little slow. ;) She picked up a credit card the other day and was acting like it was a cell phone and saying something reasonably close to "hello". And she knows to wave bye-bye to people when they say "chao". The other day Steve blew me a kiss as he walked out the door and I couldn't see him, but I blew him one back...the kissing noises continued, so I continued blowing him kisses...until I realized he was long gone and it was Sarah making the kissing noises! :)

Oh, one last "funny" from Mark. When Steve was gone I was in charge of reading our daily verses from Proverbs. So I read them and explained them a little bit just like Steve does. At least I thought I did it just the way he does it...apparently I did not, since Mark proceeded to tell me I had "missed something". What did I miss? Well, "Daddy normally talks a lot." :) Thankfully he didn't ask for a more detailed explanation the next day when I read about the adulterous woman. :)

October Newsletter

October was a very stressful month for us with six teams and Steve traveling on top of our other responsibilities; so thanks for praying for us! The medical team that went to Oyolo had a great trip and reported quite a few professions of faith from the patients they were able to see. They were also very encouraged by the help they received from a “local” pastor (he lives and works 4 hours away) and the fact that the pastor was willing to continue helping with the work in Oyolo even after the team left! Sadly, the church that has “adopted” this area is only able to come about once a year due to their own financial situation. Imagine if your own church only had someone come and lead it once a year! That is why we encourage our REAP churches to partner with other churches to help provide continuity in the work.

Valleydale Baptist Church has been one of our most faithful churches. They have sent four teams to their area this year. But they realize that even four teams is not enough when you are working with new believers who know nothing about the Bible. So they have just recently worked out an agreement with a local pastor who will move to their area and work there on a temporary basis until a church is well established.

The vision trip Steve led to Andaray went well and it looks like the church will be “adopting” this area. Andaray is a village of about 800 people. There is one Catholic church and the priest only goes there for baptisms and weddings. There is supposedly an evangelical church in a town several hours away but they were unable to find the pastor or the church during their time there.

Steve will be leading a trip to Patambuco in November and once again Miriam and the kids will remain in Arequipa. Mark was a bit more weepy than normal during Steve's last trip, but we praise God that in general everyone did fine (although we heard rumors that Steve cried himself to sleep... :).

September newsletter

Everyone except Steve was over the flu-like sickness by the time we celebrated Sarah's first birthday on September 5^th...so everyone but Steve got to enjoy the pound cake with strawberries and whipped cream! Sarah is such a precious little girl and we are extremely blessed to have her as our daughter!

Our trip to Lima went well, though poor little Sarah got sick again...ear and throat infection. Because of how exhausting this cycle of travel/sickness has been, Miriam and the kids have decided not to travel with Steve and the church teams for awhile. Steve will be taking two more vision trips this year (trips in which a church visits an area for the first time and prayerfully decides whether or not to “adopt” the area). From October 22-29 Steve will be traveling with a church team to Andaray. Then November 12-19 he will be taking another vision trip to Patambuco.

Please continue to pray for our decision regarding our future. We will not be returning to our current team (REAP South) after our time in the United States next year (July 2011 – January 2012). Please pray that God will make it very clear to us what the next step in our lives should be.

Thank you for praying about our housing situation here in Arequipa. We praise God that the owners of our current residence have agreed to extend our contract through the end of June.

We also praise God that it appears that all of our translator needs for the month of October are taken care of. October has turned out to be our busiest month yet, with six teams coming, one of which has requested seven translators!

By the way, if anyone ever reads this blog, don't miss the previous post on Sarah's b-day....

Happy Birthday, Sarah!

Ok, so I am a month late wishing her a happy birthday...she turned one on Sept. 5th. But, better late than never...so here are my favorite photos from her birthday:

and the photo shoot gets a bit long...

Brotherly Love:

And, the birthday cake:

Unlike Mark at his first birthday, Sarah has no problem with getting "dirty":

We praise God for the precious daughter He has given us. She is not walking quite yet, but is getting more balance by the day. Recently we bought her a pair of shoes and she is now constantly "asking" for us to put her shoes and hat on her...too cute!! She makes her wants known, but she is not really talking yet at all. We have been shocked recently that she also has been "asking" to sit on her little potty and has done her business on it several times! No photos there.

August Newsletter

Most of the month of August we have spent away from our home in Arequipa. First we took a trip to Chivay in order to help deliver clothing, blankets and food items to the poor and elderly. We spent quite a bit of time visiting at an asylum for abandoned elderly people. The living quarters are two large rooms (one for the five men and one for the one woman currently living there) with beds and a small shelf next to each bed for clothing. The rooms are solid concrete and there is no heat (Chivay is around 10,000 ft. so it gets pretty cold in the winter). The director told us that the son of the previous owner of the land is trying to run them off the property by physically threatening them and since the son is in politics, the mayor of the town doesn't want to defend the asylum. Please pray for this situation as it comes to mind.

Sarah got a throat infection during our time in Chivay and she had just recovered when we traveled to Lampa. We were in Lampa for 11 days, translating for a team from Beulah B.C. Most of our time there was spent in training and encouraging the leadership of a newly formed Baptist church there in Lampa. Miriam also got to become famous on the local radio station! Our team was able to help the local pastor fund a daily radio program and twice we were able to be guests on the show. Crowds gathered outside of the radio station … probably to get a glimpse of who was butchering their language! :) While we were in Lampa we also got to tour the Catholic church. Parts of it look like something belonging in an Indian Jones movie: first, because the church was built over some catacombs, and second, because there is a huge vault with dozens of skeletons hanging on the wall in one section of the church. The following picture is of us in the catacombs.

We have just returned home … and everyone but Steve has been or currently is sick with flu-like symptoms. :(