New News
Our March 2011 Newsletter is hot off the press. I am trying to post it here but am experiencing technical difficulties. So keep an eye out in your mail boxes. If you aren’t receiving our newsletters you can read them here or send us you e-mail and we will send them to you.
Just a little honesty
It gets so hard sometimes not having anyone who can truly understand what you life is like. I don’t say that from a missionary viewpoint – that is just a general statement. Nobody knows exactly what it is like to be in someone else’s shoes. Jesus, being our creator and perfect high priest, knows what it is like but at times, like all of us, I can be ignorant of that fact. I would love to say that everything here is perfect, rosy, and saintly – but that would be a lie. We struggle just like you to keep our eyes fixed on the author of our lives, to love those difficult to love, to be content in all circumstances. Being in a different culture (specifically in a third-world country) adds new stress and pressures that normally we would not be subjected to. God is always at work in us and around us. That is true no matter where we are, but he has his work cut out for him working in our hearts right now. There are many people we love here, many parts of the culture we have made apart of our lives, but there are still many things that drive us crazy and on those days when all the frustrating things snowball . . . . .it just seems like too much. We know that God is bigger than any “snowball” but when you are scared, wet and cold from being clobbered it is hard to count it all joy.
Catching up and catching our breath
I knew it had been a while since my last post but I had no idea a month had gone by! Let me catch you up on the happenings in Pucallpa.
Christian went back to Arequipa for two more weeks of language school and returned home on Feb. 25. I don’t know how much better his Spanish is – but the confidence with which he returned made it all worth while. Gabriel turned 14 on the 26th of February. His amazing dad put together a great Junk Yard Wars birthday party less than 12 hours after flying home. They two very talented and creative teams designed and constructed coconut launchers. Despite a few close calls with coconuts launching straight up or backwards everyone stayed healthy and safe and had a great time. I cannot beleive that Gabriel is 14. He is one of the most amazing people I know.
We then had a very busy week of school (for the kids and me) and of SAM Center work for Christian. But then it arrived – SPRING BREAK!!!!! It is funny. Never before in our life had we taken vacations. Time off of work for Christian meant time working on the car or the house and the kids and I took time off from homeschooling whenever it fit our schedule. I have never fully understood the need for vacation until moving here. I look forward to the time away to not have to answer the phone, the door, questions in the classroom. We left Friday night and met up with our friends the Dillons in Lima. We spent a great week relaxing and hanging out as a family with them. We returned last night. I was wonderful and God used the time to refresh us. In the morning we plunge back into the last three weeks of the 3rd quarter. Then we are to have a week off for the SAM Peru field conference.
Today at church we began a new season. We began a church wide discipleship program. We know meet at tables in small groups and will continue to do so indefinitely. We have seen a new crop of leaders spring up in training over the past year and are now continuing the vision to train all within the church. We are so excited to see the growth in peoples lives. I have to say I am challenged by what I see before us and am excited to see how God will use intensive, interactive study of his word change more lives inPucallpa. In a few weeks Mil Palmeras will celebrate its 6th anniversary. We are so blessed, and we hope you are too, to be apart of what God is doing here.