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.