What do we do?

When I wasn’t a missionary I often wondered what missionaries spent all their time doing. I had mental images of people dressed in Khaki in the middle of the jungle with tribes of people who had only scraps of fabric tied on with string and body paint as their clothing. I imagined those people using hand motions to share the gospel and then going home to their mud huts at the end of the day. Maybe that was just my imagination but I think I probably saw a movie or read books with those types of images to put the idea in my head. 

Now that I’m an actual missionary I know that there are probably missionaries whose lives look more like that but that’s not really much like my life. (except maybe using hand motions to share the gospel…but I do that no matter what I’m talking about or who I’m talking to.) Anyway, I wanted to share a look into what we do here as missionaries. 

The first aspect and most time intensive part of our work here is church planters and pastors. We have a 3 1/2 year old church that we planted in the main city of Piura and just last week we officially opened the doors of our second stand alone church plant in a smaller town about an hour away called Chulucanas. Over the last few years we worked with a couple from the first church plant so that they can direct the new church plant with supervision from us with the goal that one day once we have gotten the church well established they will be able to be the pastors of that church. Because both churches are relatively young our work just in the church entails pretty much every thing a church staff does. We have been able to grow our team little by little so that we have more laborers helping with things like worship team, the childrens ministry and even things like cleaning the church. But if something breaks Jose is still usually going to be the person going to the hardware store. ;) We also offer free family counseling to the community which is something that we spend a lot of time doing day to day.

One of our recent "Man Church" services 

The second part of what we do is actually something that was birthed once we came here. We really had no idea how pervasive sexual child abuse was here until we actually lived here for awhile. 1 in 3 kids in Peru is sexually abused and usually by a family member or close family friend.  Now that we know what a horrible problem it is we have made it our mission to go into every school that we can in the region to teach the kids about grooming for sexual abuse and how to avoid it and what to do if someone tries to touch them inappropriately. We were connected with an organization that writes materials for children age 3-10 that helps illustrate those things in an age appropriate way and also teaches about values and things like self-esteem. 

Jose with a group of kids from one of the schools we worked with last year.

Another thing we do is about once a month sometimes more often we go into the community to serve. We do lots of different things but some of my favorite have been feeding the homeless and people in hospitals or who had to work on Christmas eve, taking gift baskets filled with stuff for mom and baby to the maternity ward at the regional hospital, and handing out cold water or “bodoques" (a popsicle like treat that is very popular here) to people on the street as they passed.   

some of our team who sacrificed their Christmas Eve to hand out food 

Our fourth aspect is called our training center.  This is a relatively new concept here of combining physical exercise, healthy eating habits, spiritual teachings, focused thinking, and doing it with friends. We call it “Vida Saludable” or Well balanced lifestyle.  What we discovered is that we are reaching a certain group of people that has been left abandoned: the elderly.   This has been a huge undertaking to help bring a healthy lifestyle to a third of the population of our region.  

one of our first "Training center" workshops

The final aspect of our ministry is still in the beginning stages. We always planned to build an orphanage and we are currently in the process of getting that started. Having a son with special needs opened our eyes to the amount of kids here who are like him and need help. But because of the lack of resources most orphanages can’t take them. Most of this part is still in the dreaming stages but we need you to prayers and financial support as we enter into this stage of the ministry.  

Joy in the morning

3 years ago at this time I was sitting in a hospital bed trying to force my body to lactate so my milk would come in to nourish my baby who I thought was fighting for his life one floor below me. Jose walked in with a look on his face that is permanently emblazoned on my brain. He didn't have to say anything, I knew. I remember throwing the pump away from me like it was to blame and saying no over and over again in hopes that maybe something would change. Holding onto Jose for dear life while we cried together. At that moment and for many months afterward I thought I would never recover. I remember my great grandmother who had lost 2 husbands and a few of her children saying that losing a child was harder than a spouse because nobody expects to lose a child. We expect our children to outlive us, anything else doesn't make sense.

I miss him. I wish I knew what kind of personality he would have had. Would he have been a clown like his brothers and sister? Would he have been an introvert like me. Would he love pickles like his dad? Would he have had green eyes like me and Tim or brown like everyone else? Would Thomas the train be his obsession at this age or would he have broken the trend and been into cars? What would his voice sound like?

They say that time heals all wounds and I guess in a sense that could be true. The gaping wound does heal. The bleeding stops. The constant pain of missing someone becomes less and less constant. But theres still a scar, a part of me that will never be the same. I will probably always get an ache in my heart when people ask how many children I have. But it is getting ever so much easier.

This year I was able to do something special in memory of Caleb that eased the pain of not having him here to celebrate his life. A few months ago I had a thought that I miss having birthday parties for Caleb. I'm not even that much of a birthday party person in general but when you can't do it you miss it. So I decided to have a birthday party for newborn babies in the hospital. We gathered diapers, baby wipes, clothes, blankets, baby wash etc... for the babies and hand lotion and chocolates for the moms. We wrapped up all the items in a box and delivered them by hand.

As we started to load up the van it began to rain. If you are new to this story let me explain what this meant to me. I have always felt like the rain is little love song from God to me. When we came to Piura I heard it had not rained in years. I was sad to think I would not get to experience the rain anymore. The night that Caleb was born it rained. After Caleb died it rained. And every night for the next month (and a little longer) it rained. It never rains very much but for the past 3 years it has rained a little bit here and there. Usually on days that I really need that extra touch from God to help me carry on. It rained for about 2 hours on the day we delivered gifts to the hospital.

most of the team and the head nurse for maternity/neonatal unit and the nurse in charge of the neonatal unit.

I didn't expect to hold a baby but all the moms insisted we hold their babies. It was a very happy/sad moment for me

all of our team (minus Jose who had to wait downstairs with Zoe) and the head nurse

God worked in so many ways behind the scenes to make this an amazing day. I cried many times but mostly they were happy tears knowing how much God loves me and that he has not forgotten me in my darkest days. Everyone involved was so excited about what we were doing and everyone we encountered was amazed. We decided to make this an annual event to honor Caleb's memory. Next year we hope to at least triple the amount of gift baskets so that every woman in the maternity unit can receive one. (We had no idea how many women would be there and we guessed about 10 and there were at least 35!) 

Psalm 30:5b says "Weeping may last for a night but joy comes in the morning". My weeping lasted much longer than a night. But joy has come in very unexpected ways. 

life and times

Life has had many twists and turns the last few months.

Last Month we were able to have an important part of getting our visas done.

Hopefully at the end of June we will be able to go back to Lima and have them finalized.

Please pray that everything goes smoothly and we can get that out of the way!

Once that is done we will be able to get all the church paperwork taken care of 

which will help us in many ways. 

One of them being that we will be able to receive the land for the orphanage!

This is kind of what life feels like right now. 

A lot of pieces have come together but we are still waiting on the missing ones. 

 Our church is growing really quickly and is mostly full of new believers. We have outgrown our home already which is about 6 months sooner than we expected. Right now we are praying for a larger place to host our church and the provision for it

About half of the members of Powerhouse Peru

The next few months we have a lot of exciting things going on.

In June we have a vision campaign. We will be going into a neighborhood near us and providing free eye exams and glasses to 100 people that need them. 

In August we have a team from La Casa Del Padre in Lima and they will be helping us build houses.

The daughter of one of our members lost everything including one of her children in a fire a few months ago. We are trying to collect some items for her family and help them build a new home and fill it with some of the things they need. We will also be building a few other houses that weekend.

Every servolution outreach so far has been amazing! 

We always look forward to the next one with anticipation

In September we will be having our first ever Saving the Family conference. 

This is a huge undertaking and to be honest a little overwhelming. 

A team from Powerhouse Church in Katy will be coming to help us and we are so looking forward to the "family reunion" that will be, along with seeing what God does that week. 

We are really excited about some of the doors God has opened and people that will be speaking. 

Once we have everything finalized I will give some more details.  

If you are interested in coming with the team from Katy please let us know. 

We would love to have you!

In other news I turned 30 last month. It was a wonderful day. 

We started it in Lima and I was surprised with a breakfast party 

then we ended it by coming home to Piura and my ladies group surprised me with another party!

I can honestly say that is the first time I've had 2 parties in my honor in one day 

I want to offer my thanks to all of you that have supported us in this venture. 

We know God brought us here and the harvest was ready for us. 

It is hard work but we love it, and we couldn't do this without you. 

Every prayer and every dollar sent is hugely important to us. 

We love you guys!

what we have been up to

So yesterday I had this blog all written out. I had even published it and announced it to facebook and twitter. Then because I am amazing, I deleted it never to be seen again, in a way that is both frustrating and entirely too complicated to explain. So I'm back with a new and completely different blog post. Because once I write something down it's out of my head never to return, unless I read it. Aren't you glad you know that now? I feel better just having written it down. ;)

The last 2 weeks have been a whirlwind of packing, moving things, sleeping on the bus, getting to our new town and home, trying to figure out exactly what the most important things to buy are with our limited resources, buying 4 mattresses and strapping them to the top of a car roughly the size of a prius. Going to the car shipping place every day for several days in hopes that ours had arrived. Going to Starbucks more times in one week than I ever have in a year just so we can check our internet stuff, putting the kids to bed and going out with Jose for a hot chocolate just so we can breath and flirt with each other. Practically living at the mall where all the things we need are sold so we can check and check and check the prices of the stuff we need. Watching our boys exult in the joys of having a yard after a year of living in an apartment and almost 3 years of living places where we had no yard. (We have decided to call Timothy dirty harry, because his hair is all over the place and he has developed a dust cloud similar to charlie browns pal, pigpen.)

You can add into the list Jose working with a printer so we can get flyer's made up for inviting people to church, a Dr's appointment, and all the other things I'm forgetting that Jose will remember and that is what our last 2 weeks have been. Just typing that makes me tired. I think I need a nap now. ;)

God has blessed us tremendously and we have been able to get quite a few of the things we needed. We now have a table and chairs, mattresses, a fridge, and washing machine. We also got a double burner to cook on until we can manage to get an oven. For the curious, the things we are still praying for are as follows.

*bed frames
*a living room set
*an oven
*a bigger bed for me and Jose
*rugs
*chairs for our church services
*a lectern or podium of some sort for Jose to preach from
*a set of pots and pans
*a trampoline for the boys and the kids that come to church

Obviously there are more things that we need or could use but these are our priorities over the next few months. It's really amazing how much stuff you need to make a house a home. But with or without "stuff" we are blessed to be where we are. This house is exactly what we prayed for. Everyday I walk around and thank God for everything he has done for us and blessing us with the amazing people that pray for us and support us financially. You are all a blessing to us and we really do think of you as a part of our family. Thank you so much!