Getting in touch with my inner gypsy

Growing up we moved a lot. Actually, that could qualify as the understatement of the year. We moved so much that people joked they wrote our address in pencil in their address books. (Which I think they were serious about so I guess that doesn't really qualify as a joke...) Anyway, we moved across town and cross country. I never really knew where to tell people I was from so I would answer "I was born in Amarillo, TX" and let the rest just kind of go unspoken. Sometimes people would ask why we moved so much and I thought it was fun to tell them we were in the witness protection program. The real reason is that my parents are gypsies, as in travellers. They like to move around try on new houses and new cities. Which if you think about it, is the perfect childhood for a missionary.

Which brings me to today. We are moving. When we got to Peru we were under the impression that the apartments available were really expensive. While we got a great deal on the place we've been living we have discovered there are less expensive places close to where we live. Since we are living on a tight budget and want to be good stewards we have decided to move. Please pray for us this weekend that all the loose ends get tied up quickly and nobody gets hurt in the process of moving from a 2nd floor apartment to a 3rd floor apartment. (thankfully there is no furniture to move) We will live there until our next gypsy dance takes us up to Piura

In other gypsy news it's looking more and more like we will be able to go to America next month. I found an amazing deal on tickets. Some friends are having a fund raiser for us and a few others have made direct donations! If you could see my face it looks kind of like this :^D God is good and I'm excited  

And now I will leave you with a few pictures of my boys that I finally took off the camera. I took these when my Grandma was here

Timothy with his monkey

When there is a fountain nearby a boy must touch it

Or run in it

The giraffe posed for us too

Timothy was the one who was asking to see the girraffe's and he wouldn't pose for the picture

But he posed for this one

look in the lenses you can see victor, me and my grandma

What do we do?

Sometimes when I read missionary blogs I think. "so what do they do that makes them a missionary other than live in another country" I'm pretty sure other people think that about us. And while we will have a very different focus once we move north I wanted to share this list Jose made of his weekly, bi-weekly and monthly activities. So you can get a taste of our missionary life

With the men

Make video for intense in Spanish to show to la casa del padre
Signing men up for intense
Plan weekly man church Peru service
Plan weekly teachings and schedules for men's network and continue to recruit men


Keep track of books and curriculum to distribute to men
Meet with men's cell leaders weekly to strategize to bring men to next level
Keep track of progress of men ready to be commissioned in September
Plan monthly men's breakfast
Plan year schedule for conferences, retreats and events for the men


Personal growth in Spanish
Attend class on Tuesday and Friday all morning for the focus on the family courses in Spanish
This semester it is Christian counseling, the blessing of the father,
preparation for marriage, potential principle


Oversee the worship team
We meet every other week spiritual cover the team
Oversee the group weekly to be accountable to practices and songs and next level in training another team
Sunday morning make sure team is on stage and ready


Armor bearers
Weekly coordinate with victor who helps me on Sunday for armor bearers
Help train and recruit and use the men who are not serving as lead to help with ushers.
Make sure we have order of service and any final changes clear


Transportation and sound
Every week we coordinate to transport the church to the convention center
for the services.


Arrive early Sunday with team pick up all items and load on trucks and
transport and repeat after service


Continue to recruit and train men to recruit so we have 3 transport teams
before we leave in September
Also make sure all sound is coordinated for the various activities at the church every week


Weekly stay with the boys on Monday and Wednesday and Saturday to help
Kathryn do school with them and spend time with them, use those days to
extensively read, study, pray and take the kids to the park or out so they
can play


Meetings
Conference call with pastor on Wednesdays
Upper Elder meeting with pastor Guillermo on Thursday morning


These happen either weekly or every two weeks
Cell meetings with worship team
Cell meeting with men's leaders
Cell meeting transportation team
Cell meeting with armor bearers
Mentor my wife weekly and date night
Mentor victor weekly
Spend at least one good hour talking to my dad weekly over lunch or project


Once a month we help a single mom with her poor house in the mountains.
We have been helping her rewire her house, help make it secure, fix and
install some fans, buy toys for her, bring her food and
supplies. She takes care of 8 children in a poor part of town and it's our
family outreach while we are in Lima.

He's a busy guy isn't he?
My list is much shorter.

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday I work on School with the boys
Those days I also try to do Spanish lessons and clean my house
Wednesday I attend "women who pray" the women's bible study La Casa Del Padre does
Monday nights Jose and I have date night - a word on this. We are blessed to have Victor and Jose's dad here to help us by watching the boys when we need a babysitter. Without them we would never get to go out. We learned a couple years ago that as hard as we run in ministry we need that weekly date to reconnect. It has been a great thing in our lives and I can't say enough good things about it.
Every other week I help a lady from church with her english. When we get back from the states I am hoping to start english classes once a week

So now you know what we do here.

Language Studies

About 5 1/2 years ago Jose and I really started talking about our desire to spread the gospel in another country. He felt called to Peru because he knew first hand the need there. I had personal reasons for not really thinking Peru was the right fit. (God eventually changed my heart obviously) Jose said I want to move there in 5 years. I thought "yeah ok, that sounds good" because the way things looked 5 years was really far away and yet I thought we would still be living in Texas preparing to go "someday".

2 years ago the call to Peru became more urgent for both of us. We planned our trip to visit and decide if this was really God or as Jose says "bad chinese food" (causing hallucinations) I started using a computer program we had that was supposed to teach Spanish. I learned the colors I didn't know and maybe a few fruit names. Aside from that it was not the most helpful software. We visited Peru for almost 2 weeks in September (2009) 5 years of marriage to Jose with his spanish speaking family helped some. I was able to understand quite a bit of what was said to me. So I got a little bit cocky. I thought "Spanish will be easy for me to learn". Jose's dad got me the Rosetta Stone program and I started using it some. I admit between the cockiness and the feeling that all I was learning on the program was what to call a man, woman, boy and girl I didn't stick to it well.

6 months ago we moved to Peru. I found out that non stop spanish wherever I go is hard to follow. Also I get a headache when I'm inundated with it. I think from all the translating in my head. I have started trying to do Rosetta stone more often. I do great and usually get 100% on my tests at the end of each lesson. Of course I'm still just learning observations. For instance I can tell you "Ellos Cocinan" (they or the men are cooking) or "Ellas Cocinan" (the women are cooking) Go me! But then I get into a situation where I'm trying to talk to someone they ask me how I'm doing to which I respond "bien" then they ask how my children are doing and again I respond "bien". Most people smile and move on but then there is the occasional person who believes their job is to force me to speak nothing but spanish pronounced correctly and in detail. That person would respond "bien, bien, bien. Nothing but bien!?! DAH!" To which I would love to respond "If you asked me those questions in english my response would have been "good" not "bien" so I don't really see what I'm doing wrong here. That is not exactly a get deep into conversation question to ask. Unless of course I were an oversharer. Then instead of "Bien" I could have responded. "Bueno, Timoteo tiene esta erupción extraña en el trasero y yo creo que es de nuestro detergente para la ropa, pero realmente no puedo entender por qué sería sólo en su parte inferior" (Which means -Well, Timothy has this weird rash on his behind and I think it's from our laundry detergent but I really can't figure out why it would only be on his bottom.) But the problem is it would take me a good hour to figure out exactly how to say that unless I had my translating program on me and then I would say pretty much exactly what I typed above even though it's most likely slightly off or incorrect.
But instead of all that I usually just try to avoid people like that and speak the little spanish I'm comfortable with so far. I know for fact that I attach the wrong genders to items and I pretty much hate the fact that in spanish everything has a gender.

On the other hand there are the people who get excited when I speak spanish to them. That is a little embarrassing really. I feel kind of like a dog doing a trick with them. They are all "oh look she's doing a trick isn't that cute?" When what I really want is to not draw attention to myself anymore than I already do. 

After all I look like this... 

 

                                                         

                                                                           Notice the pasty white-ness



In a sea of this

 

So it's really not hard for me to stand out. 

Important things I've learned from being a mother of boys

Some days I walk around my house thinking I do nothing but break up fights, talk children down from their current crises, pick up laundry, wash laundry, fold laundry, put laundry away, wipe up messes, wipe off noses, fix broken things, sweep...the list could go on and on and probably put you to sleep. So let me just say that I feel like mom/housewife duties take up so much of my time and energy that when it comes time for me to blog my brain feels like mush. But today as I was wiping off the toilet seat in my own bathroom I thought "there are some things I have learned about life since I had my boys" so *lucky you* I'm going to share them here
* a little boy not putting the toilet seat down after he pees is better than him not lifting it in the first place (see my paragraph above for the reason...yes, gross)
* sometimes boys have to check to make sure they still have...the thing that makes them a boy if~you~know~what~I~mean even if they just checked 5 minutes ago
* kids can have the exact same toy and still fight about them. "he is looking at my toy" is a very valid reason to be upset when you are 5
* children wait for the exact most embarrassing moment to say inappropriate things
* the favorite "hugger" will become invisible and disappear at bed time, mommy will be the only one who can find it
* as a parent sometimes all you want is a little peace and quiet but when you get it you will be worried because your kids are *never* that quiet unless they are doing something wrong
* if a child is inconsolable and/or getting upset a lot over nothing they need sleep no matter how old they are or how long they have not been taking naps
* girls are not the only ones with high pitched screams
* as a parent you will do, say and think things you would have never dreamed of doing, saying or thinking before you had children
* no matter how often you wash your kids hands they will get dirty again (I know what charles shultz was thinking of when he created "pigpen")
* there is no rhyme or reason to what makes something a favorite for a child. They can become attached to the strangest things for the strangest reasons and you just have to work with it.
* kids can cause you to feel every emotion there is in a single day
* pretty much nothing compares to the feeling of your little boy climbing in your lap or giving you a hug
* every one says that being a parent is worth it in spite of all the stuff kids put you through and it is, but it's hard to really understand what that means until you are there

In the middle

A few days ago my five year old Logan, was scared out of his wits by a dog. He was so scared that he attached himself to Jose's leg for the rest of the day. Anytime he heard a dog barking he would start crying (it makes no difference to him that any dog would have to get in through our front gate ~which requires a key or someone buzzing him in~ climb 2 flights of stairs and use a key which has to be turned twice in the lock to open the door to get to him) He was so scared that last night he woke up 3 times because he thought the dog was in the house and he finally ended up sleeping in between Jose and I so he could feel protected (and frankly, as parents we only have so much energy to explain to our children why they shouldn't be afraid in the middle of the night) He was scared enough to completely change his opinion of dogs from a single interaction even though the dog did not touch him.

This same child woke up Sunday morning got himself and his brother a drink and a snack, came back to my room and asked when we would be leaving for church. When I went to set out his clothes for the morning he put them on himself (without being told) While I was fixing my hair he came into the bathroom and asked where the brush was. I showed him and he said "I can fix my hair today. I'm big enough" He certainly is big enough, he comes up to the middle of my chest.

In less than 3 months he will be 6. I never saw 5-6 as a huge transition; nothing like 1-2 or 3-4 those are huge transitions. No, I always pictured a kind of gradual uphill from 5-11 or so; then when puberty hits all bets are off. Now I'm seeing these little hurdles that my 5 year old is trying to jump on his own combined with the throwbacks to babyhood. For instance the "hugger," blue dinosaur who follows us wherever we go. He's been in and out of favor so many times I'm glad he's just a toy or I would worry for his feelings. But then Logan says something like "when we go back to the states we should (fill in the blank)" and I think How many 5 year olds refer to the U.S. as "the states"?

He's not quite a big boy yet, but he's definitely not a little boy either. I guess he's a middle boy.

Awake

Our church here in Lima is participating in Awake 21 a worldwide multi church fasting campaign. If you would like more information or to join in go to http://www.awake21.org/

Most churches begin the year with a fast of some sort. At least the churches I've been a part of for most of my life. There was a time when I saw church wide fasts as a sort of ritual with no real power. But the past several years I have changed my mind. I've learned that there is a beautiful unity that comes from fasting as a church. Psalm 133:1 says "Behold! How good and how pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity." Unity is a beautiful thing and it's an important thing. If as men and women of God we can bring ourselves together with the same purpose. We can accomplish great things.
 As I write that I'm reminded of a passage of scripture in Genesis where the people are united and they begin to talk about becoming great, so they decide to build a tower that reaches into the heavens. We often quote that verse (Genesis 11:6) that nothing they purpose to do will be impossible because they are united. I've heard people say that God confused the people's language because he did not want them to be working together. But that is not the point at all. The whole problem with their unity in this story is found in verse 4 they say "Come lets build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. In that way we will make ourselves famous..." The reasoning behind their unity is wrong. They wanted to make themselves famous. (I guess you could say they got their wish. The tower of babel was never completed but the fact that we know about it now makes it seem pretty famous to me.)
So why is it important for Christians to have unity? the answer can be found in John 17:20-24
 “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am. Then they can see all the glory you gave me because you loved me even before the world began!

So I set out to blog about fasting and ended up talking about unity. Maybe someone needed to see this. Whatever it is, if you are like I used to be and don't see the point of fasting as a church, I hope this will help you reconsider. I have seen God move in my life in powerful ways through fasting as a church.

Prayer Needs

This week we have been enjoying a visit from my Grandma Doris. We have done tons of touristy things with her that we had not had a chance to do. I really love Lima. There are times I forget how wonderful this city is but it's fun to see it with a first timer. And I have decided I need to live by the ocean. I absolutely love listening to the ocean and feeling the sea breeze. I always feel so mellow and content by the ocean.

If you are on the blog right now you may notice that I made some changes to the tabs on top. I added a prayer needs tab. I will keep that updated as things change so if you are ever in the mood to pray for us and want to know what we need prayer for you know where to look. At the moment most of our needs are financial. Maybe that is a chronic thing for missionaries. idk? I will post what I said there here so at least right now you don't have to click the tab (unless you really want to)

A few have asked what we need people to pray for so I thought it would be good to post a list of the things we are praying for right now so you can pray with us. As things change I will change our list.


As always thank you so much for praying for and with us!

~ Total financial support
~ 5 Tickets to the U.S. 4 of them leaving by February 20th
~Protection and provision for Victor while he is traveling to the north of Peru for a youth conference the end of February
~ Protection for our family
~ A camera with HD video for filming updates
~ A second computer
~ Visas for all of us
~ Healing for Kathryn (fatigue, dizziness, headaches) and Victor (gout and osteoarthritis)
~ Strengthening of our team
~ Funds to travel to Piura once a month
~ A home in Piura by September
~ Land for the orphanage
~ 40 men from La Casa Del Padre commissioned while we are here
~ 20 men from Peru to Intense in April
~ Kathryn's spanish
~ a fan for victor

Carmella

This Morning we went to visit Carmella! Because of the generosity of some friends we were able to get her a rug, 2 fans (one for her room one for the room she watches kids in) some supplies for fixing her wiring, some lights and a tub full of things like food, toiletries and a toy for each of her boys. She was ecstatic! My kids played with hers for a little while which was awesome because of the language barrier. I was so proud of Logan! He was excited about giving the kids their toys so he did that and watched them play with their new stuff.



There is so much more we can do and would love to do to minister to her. But it was such a blessing to us to be able to meet and help this precious woman. Thank you to those of you who gave into this project!