Baby steps.

Yesterday, August 25th was the one year anniversary of our arrival in Lima. It's hard to believe it's been a year. Sometimes it feels like it's been longer and sometimes it feels like it has been only a couple months. The past year has been a time of stretching and growing. Trial and error, and tons of learning.


Last night Jose and I went for a walk and we were talking about our move to Piura in less than a month. In Lima we have been renting a furnished apartment so when we get to Piura we will just have the stuff in our suitcases. Houses here don't come with any kitchen appliances so we will have to get a stove, fridge, along with a washing machine and furniture. So we were discussing what the priorities are considering we are not millionaires. It reminded me of our first week in Lima when we were thinking we would buy everything here. We were looking at big refrigerators, etc... and thinking like americans. That we need the biggest of everything we can find. Here most of the refrigerators are about as tall as me (5' 2") or shorter. The ovens and washing machines are also much smaller. If you want to get U.S. sizes you have to pay a lot more.


This time around we were talking about things like "we only need a small fridge because we mostly use it to keep water, meat and dairy cold, and I don't have to have an oven that lights automatically unless we can get it for a great price." There was a lot more to our conversation and honestly the logistics of furnishing a house on faith can make your head spin. But the conversation we had made me think. A year and a half ago we were giving everything away but we still weren't as selfless as we thought we were. We thought we could live the american dream as missionaries. We expected to live in an American house with american amenities. But reality hit us hard and we had choices to make. We had to choose to give up the nice big apartment for a much, much smaller one. We had to learn to prioritize.


In Piura we saw some amazing houses. But we knew that even if we could afford them they wouldn't be the best use of God's money. So we told the realtor our price that we could pay and asked her to only show us the ones we could afford. She only had one. It was ok. The neighborhood was not as nice and there was only one bathroom on each floor (2 total). It had no closets and was quite frankly nothing like what we thought we wanted. I knew that I'm the one Jose was thinking of as he looked at the house so I told him. "I know this sounds crazy but I think this house can work". It was actually about $100 below our minimum price and I was thinking we could at least live there until the baby came. He looked at me skeptically and said let's think about it.


The next day we found out about a house through a friend. It was one of those "I know a guy who knows a guy" kind of things so we didn't have a lot of details. It took us 2 days to go through all the people to even find out more about the house and then get to see it. We saw it our last day in Piura. It was perfect! There is a small yard, a garden area and 4 bedrooms which is really important to us. There are even 4 bathrooms! Plus, it's on the low end of our budget. And it's ours. The landlord had one other person interested in it but in the end God worked it out so we got it. When we found out about the house I told Jose "I wonder if God had this house all along and was just waiting for us to be content wherever we go."


Whatever it was God had a plan and we are so happy to be a part of it. He is still doing a work in us and we still have a ton of learning to do. But when I think of who we were and who we are now I'm amazed at the grace of God.


As a side note if you have not read the book Radical by David Platt I highly recommend it. Especially if you are interested in missions it is a great book.

If I could live anywhere it would be the beach

This is what I'm loving right now. 

So I thought it was the best way to start this blog.

Jose's cousin, and uncle blessed us by lending us their car

and beach house for a couple days.

It is winter and so there were literally 3 people at the beach with us. 

Locals who were not there to play.

   

 But we played and we froze 

we collected a ton of seashells 

walked up and down the beach 

and watched crabs roll balls of dirt

It was lovely and peaceful. 

kind of like this 

I really love the beach. If Jose and I ever retire I want to live there. If we don't I'm believing my mansion in heaven is built beside the crystal sea. (yes I think there is a beach in heaven. God made a lot of them on earth so he must love them at least as much as I do)  

It was a nice break from the rest of our trip because, well, house hunting is stressful.

Especially when you have a very specific list of needs and most of the houses you see work for half of them.

There is also the fact that Peru has a slower time table. "we need to have something by monday" doesn't mean anything here. We might as well talk like the grown ups on charlie brown. 

My favorite so far was a realtor who wanted to show us a 2 bedroom house that was about $1000 more than we want to pay because it has a big yard. Jose told her no several times and finally spelled out that we need enough room for 5 (well 6 soon) people.

Tomorrow we are looking at a few more houses then making a decision. If we don't find the perfect thing we have at least found a good temporary place. So please keep us in prayer for that.

Another prayer request is for me and the baby. We had a chance to see the dr here in Piura. 

He is an old family friend and I'm really happy to have such a great dr to work with here.

During my exam he did an ultrasound and found that I don't have very much amniotic fluid. 

It's something that can fix it itself and there are a few things we are doing to help. 

I am drinking a ton of water, not lifting heavy things and trying to rest. (hahahahahaha, rest is not easy when you are a mom, wife and missionary who is moving in a month.) Like I said I'm trying.

After I found out I waited a few days to tell other people because Jose and I wanted to just pray. We did and we have peace that this baby is going to live. We are still asking everyone to pray that my body will produce the amniotic fluid, and that we would be able to do everything we need to in the next month while mommy is on light duty. We won't hear anything else about the baby until next month so for now no news is good news.

Lots of prayer requests this week/month.

Thank you so much for lifting us up in prayer!

I will leave you with this

a boat driving down the street. 

I wish I had a boat car...not really

Moving, changing, growing

he bites the inside of his lip. Jose and I both do this so it's hard to make him stop 

One of the wonderful and sometimes annoying things about living in Peru is the pace of life.

                                                                                                                       If you try to go to the store before 9am or after 9pm you will be disappointed. There are no midnight ice cream runs here. Not that, we've needed one or anything.

At least a couple times a month there is some national holiday that is celebrated mostly by the entire city shutting down and going to our neighbors house for a party. 

Those are the kind of days we really love. On a day like that you have no choice but to spend time as a family and relax. 

We have this awesome park we like to go to

It has this huge tube slide that is built on a hill. We call it the huge slide park.

a real smile!

When we go there I make the boys pose for pictures at first because I have this great plan that I'm going to make a photo book for each year of their life. They are 5 and 6 and I just had this idea. So I guess they will just have to try to imagine what their lives were like before

phony smile

Throwing sand and loving it!

He likes to pose and comes up with a bunch of his own 

I love just spending time with our little family of 4 since in 6 months we will have another member

This picture was taken last week when I was 13 weeks pregnant. I should really take a new one... 

For anyone that wonders. I'm doing great while experiencing normal pregnancy symptoms. The main one being that I would be perfectly happy to stay in bed all the time. I'm that tired. Morning sickness comes and goes and usually comes back just when I think I'm over it. 

We are all really excited about the baby. Logan wants it to sleep in his room. Even though he doesn't like sharing a room with Timothy. Obviously he's not spent a lot of time around babies ;)

A couple things we would love ya'll to pray for us about. Next week we will all be travelling to Piura to look for a house. This house will be our home and the base for our church until we reach about 100 members. Because of that we need something with a big living room for church services and somewhat of a separation from the sleeping areas so we can still have a little privacy if we need it. I have a very specific list of what I would love to have in a home and we are praying we find the perfect place for next to nothing
Also since this is our last month in Lima and we are leaving right after La Casa Del Padre's conference, we have a lot going on this month. So we could really use your prayers for wisdom and efficiency this month. We need to get everything done and all still like each other at the end.
Thank you so much for praying!

2 Corinthians 1:11
And you are helping us by praying for us. Then many people will give thanks because God has graciously answered so many prayers for us.