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.  

March Update

I keep wanting to sit down and write a nice update on all the great things that are happening (because they are. Really) But I'm having trouble getting it all down. Life is kind of kicking my butt right now. (can missionaries say that?) And everything I try to start gets overwhelming about halfway in. I think Zoe realized this about me because she decided to be potty trained and just started telling me she had to go and that was pretty much it. That's the only explanation I can come up with because I honestly did not want to deal with it right now. Or maybe ever.

Anyway, the boys started school this month because the school year here runs March-December. Logan is doing great mostly because he's social and works better with other kids his age doing the same thing as him. The only part that is hard is homework. I thought homeschooling was tough (it was) trying to help a 4th grader do homework in Spanish is ridiculous. I could probably easily help with the homework in english but naming the tools used in a chemistry lab is a little out of my depth. Every day he asks for help and I end up telling him to ask dad when he gets home.

Timothy on the other hand has been struggling with every aspect of school but he's finally getting in the groove. Autism and sensory integration issues are not very well known here. So we are trying to teach his teacher about it while also trying to help Tim with Spanish, cursive, and anything the teacher sends home for him to work on. Thankfully we found a great tutor who doesn't speak any english but is extremely patient and seems to like working with Tim. Timothy can understand her because it's one on one with no distractions and she speaks very slowly. Every day is a new test of my creativity to help him get through different challenges. We have learned he works best with some kind of reward looming in the near future to help him push through the hard parts.  That and lots of squishing, pillow/tickle fights or wrestling are what get us through the days.  




Zoe had her second birthday. I threw my first big party in awhile for her. She adores princesses and it was all pink and princess themed just for her. She loved it even though she only kept her tutu and tiara on long enough to take one picture. I did my best to just be a part of the party so I didn't get very many pictures. But it was a lot of fun and many people who love her were there to celebrate my sassy & sweet little 2 year old. She is constantly surprising us with how much she catches. She loves to sing and dance and draw on things with magic markers. She speaks her own version of spanglish and she imitates people perfectly. She often likes to run through all the names she knows. Repeating "awella" (Manuela) her hands down favorite person in the world. Having a daughter has been an adventure and a challenge but I wouldn't trade her. She lives up to the "life" part of her name for sure.  

For the last couple weeks we have had a lot of rain. Peru isn't used to rain...at all. When I have said it rained I was referring to Peru's version which is basically a light sprinkle. The kind of thing where back home everyone would be asking "is it raining?" Because you could stand outside in it for 10 minutes and still be completely dry. But the last couple weeks it's been good, solid, flood the streets raining a little every day. Because of that we've had a few setbacks, the church and our house flooded. The roof at the church caved in and even the school Logan goes to closed for a day because they had some rain related issues. It's amazing how much damage can be done when you aren't prepared.

God has been doing some really exciting things in the midst of all of this.                                    In coming here we had a few goals.                     One of them was to plant churchES.                 We've been in Piura for 4 years now and have been steadily growing that whole time. This Sunday we will have our grand opening at Powerhouse Chulucanas.                                     The second official church plant of Powerhouse Peru.                                                                       We have a great couple that have been working with us and learning a lot about ministry.           They will run the location and we will go every so often to make sure things are running smoothly.                                                              

This has been a huge undertaking along with everything else going on.                                      But we are so excited to see what happens.  Chulucanas is about an hour East of us here in Piura. It's a beautiful little city that's kind of in the mountains. The famous black and white pottery from Peru originated there.                       The location we found is right in the center of town.                                                                    About one block from the "Plaza de Armas" it's actually about 3 times as big as our Piura location so we are hopeful it will be filled with people seeking a relationship with Jesus.                    Starting tomorrow night we will have our own version of "The glory and the fire" put on by our awesome Powerhouse Peru people!

  

Thank you all for praying for us and to those of you who send us notes of encouragement on Facebook or email or whatsapp or by carrier pigeon.

 However they come they mean a lot to us when the days are hard. 

Thank you also to everyone who supports us financially. 

Your sacrifices help us to continue the work and often come in right at the moment we need it the most. 

We thank God for you and we thank you for you! 

Love from Peru! 

The Lopez's 

so, not to be awkward but...

When I was a kid my parents put me in girl scouts a few different times. I'm a total introvert. Like for real. Making new friends is almost painful for me because I don't hit my stride until I've known someone for like 5 years. (just kidding...not really) That's why I had about 5 friends as a kid and I still know all of them. So I guess my parents thought I would meet more people if I was a part of girls scouts. The problem was for me, aside from the fact that I was painfully shy, I had to sell stuff. Stuff I didn't really believe in. Magazine subscriptions? nobody buys those from girl scouts but family members who feel guilty. Wrapping paper? again, just why? Even cookies were hard for me and those babies sell themselves.  (I mean it didn't help that there was a girl scout troop leader on our street so her daughter had the jump on me when it came to sales.)

So deep down inside I still feel like the 10 year old girl when I have to ask something like I'm about to ask. Only this time I believe in what I'm asking for. We came to Peru almost 4 years ago and at that time we did what all missionaries do. We traveled around and told people our vision and asked if they wanted to be involved. We did gain a lot of great support from that time and it has been so much help. But things happen and so sometimes our support base isn't able to come through with the full amount that we need to survive. When that happens we spend a lot of time in prayer (and fasting) for God to come through. This time God told me to do something that scares me a lot. He told me to share our need and ask you for help. 

~When we came to Peru we were a family of 4 and 2 of us were tiny and shared everything including clothes. Now we are a family of 5 and the 2 previously tiny ones are almost as tall as me and both can and often do out eat me. They also seem to grow out of their clothes and shoes when I blink. The newest tiny is still pretty tiny but seems to be on miracle grow and alas has no older sister to receive hand me downs from.  These things have raised our living expenses substantially. 

~The cost of living is rising here. In Houston our single family home with a yard cost us the same as our condo style (shared walls with neighbors on both sides) home with a "jardin" (Peru code for patio) here in Piura. Gas is about $5 a gallon. We don't have a car currently but anywhere we go costs us about $5 to go and come back. 

~Fluctuating exchange rates. We always do our best to find the most beneficial exchange rate. But sometimes there's nothing we can do. The amount we actually receive can vary by as much as $500 just because of how much the exchange rate is cutting off.

~Visas. To live here we have to have visas. Right now we need $700 to renew our visas and get Zoe one of her own.  

~Finally, this month our support is at about 1/4 what we usually get. When the full amount is already spreading thin I'm sure you can imagine what it's like when it's down by 3/4. 

Now If I could I would be at the local polleria applying for a job waiting tables or anything like that to help make ends meet. But unfortunately I don't have permission from this country to earn money here. So I'm asking you to make an investment into us and the work we are doing here. 

If you go to our home church or would like to make a tax deductible donation go here You can even set up a recurring donation if you want to.  Just make sure to direct it to Missions. Missions= US Jose and Kathryn we are the missionaries our church supports. =)

If you don't go to our home church and don't care about tax deductions you can give to us through paypal ~ jkmission2peru@gmail.com if you click that you are sending money to family or friends we pay much lower fees which means we get more of the money you send v. paypal getting it ;) 

If you don't like either of those options but still want to send us money you can email me at jkmission2peru@gmail and I will talk to you about the other options. *You can also email me there if you just want to say hey, I'm an introvert but I like email ;)  

Honestly I've had people give me $5 and say "sorry it's not much". To any of you who are thinking that I just want to say $5 (or .5) is that much more than we have today. It might not seem like much to you but for us it could mean the difference between having lunch or not. And if you can't send any money don't worry! Pray for us. Pray that God would provide our needs. Pray that the exchange rate stays in our favor. Pray that my children's clothes grow with them ;)  Your prayers have brought us this far and I know that God is able and faithful to do the rest. 

Finally, thank you. Without you all we couldn't do what we do. We love seeing what God is doing here and it's because of your partnership.  As Paul said "I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now," ~Philippians 1:3-5

Christmas Outreach 2012

This year we are really excited to partner with Salvemos A La Familia

in the fight against child sexual abuse.

In Peru 4 out of every 10 children are sexually abused.

In Latin America 224 cases of sexual abuse are reported per hour.  

This totals 2 million children abused sexually every year. 

Most sexual abuse is committed by someone the child knows. 

The impact of that abuse is life altering. 

We believe that education is key in helping to prevent child sexual abuse.

Our plan is to give the book "Cuentos Que No Son Cuentos" to children ages 2-9 years old.

This book will help them to prevent sexual abuse, understand how to react if they are in a situation of abuse, and build their self esteem.

The publishing house has made the books available to us at cost.

 Would you like to partner with us?

For every $1 that you give 2 children will benefit. 

Our goal is to reach 2000 children in Piura and the surrounding area. 

This video is in Spanish but it gives a lot of the information I posted above. 

To give to this outreach please donate through the paypal link on the right. 

Our deadline to order the books is December 15th. Every dollar we collect through paypal until then will go directly into this outreach.

Thank you in advance for your part in impacting the lives of the children of Peru. 

Pregnancy after loss

The last couple months have been a bit of a roller coaster for me. Since everything seemed fine with my last pregnancy I feel this hesitancy to totally get comfortable. Planning for the future seems so silly. I mean I did that last time. I had a baby registry and planned out how I would decorate the nursery. When he didn't come home with me though, any baby stuff I had out only served as a reminder of the big hole in my heart and my arms. But if I don't think about the nursery and the baby, if I don't plan then does that say I'm expecting the same outcome as before? This is the difficulty in being pregnant after losing a child the way I did. I want this child so much and I'm afraid to lose it. I'm also afraid to give into the joys of expecting in case I do lose it. I'm told it's normal to feel this way and I'm sure it is. That doesn't make it any easier.

The good news is that I have now had 2 ultrasounds with great results. The report that the Dr sent home with me listed my amniotic fluid level as "normal" both times. There is no way to explain how happy I am to have a normal amount of amniotic fluid. The baby has wiggled all the way through both ultrasounds and that is another great sign. Last time we took the boys with us hoping to find out the gender (no dice, the baby is still too small for Peruvian ultrasound technology to be able to tell) and we got to see the hand and the feet. We told them the baby was waving and they were excited about it. Both of my boys are voting for another brother. Apparently they like the boys club we've got over here.    Everyone in the world is wishing for me to have a girl, so the rebel in me thinks I should have another boy. It kind of seems like thats what I'm wired for anyway. Honestly I'll be happy either way. I just really want a healthy baby. Seriously, that's all that I care about.


If you are praying for us please continue to pray for the baby's health and peace for our family.
Also the value of the dollar has been plummeting over here. That means our money is not going as far as it was before because we are losing value in the exchange. God is faithful and has been providing as we have needs but we are praying that the dollar turns around and at least stabilizes. Hopefully it's just temporary.

We have a lot going on in the next few months that I'm just waiting until it's all finalized before I share. But please continue to pray that God opens doors and brings the provision for the doors that he has opened

The plan

Several years ago, when Jose and I were still pretty much newlyweds one of us was usually working for our church (first me then him) and we were involved in several ministries. Back then I used to think we spent so much time at the church we practically lived there....fast forward to our 8th year of marriage and we do live in the church, literally in the church. If you have read this blog or known us for very long you probably know this already.

Originally our plan was to live in the house we live in and once the church outgrew it we would move the church and continue living here. That was until things changed. We found a way to grow in the house and extend the use for the church but we need to move out. So for the last 3 months or so we have been looking for a house with the goal to be moved out by August 1st...but we didn't find anything. A part of being missionaries is we are completely dependent on God, and the people who give into the mission being faithful to give every month. Sometimes for one reason or another that doesn't happen. So in an effort to use wisdom we had to set a pretty low price point for the amount we can pay in a country where houses rent for about the same as the US. Realtors thought we were crazy or lying about our financial position because after all I am obviously a gringa. In a lot of peoples minds here white skin=lots of money. Jose actually started looking at houses by himself and verifying the cost of the house because some people even raised the rent price once they saw me. So we kept praying and finally a member of the church noticed one of the houses on her street was empty. She did some checking for us and we were able to rent it! We are going to move hopefully this weekend or possibly next week depending on when the repairs are finished.

We are so excited that God brought this house to us. Honestly I was starting to get discouraged about the whole thing. I knew that we needed to move and that God would take care of us. But sometimes...ok most of the time. I want to control the situation. I want to tell God "OK, I need this thing in my hands by 8 am Monday ok?" As if I could actually be in charge and give God a deadline. But he always comes through. Always.

It isn't without stretching though. A part of our August deadline was because we knew the month of September would be crazy and we need to be out before our conference which is September 18-20.
Jose has been having meetings all throughout the day every day for the past month and since this is our first conference he is only getting busier. So we are going to be moving in the middle of the busiest time of our lives. S--t--r--e--t--c--h. While I'm in the first trimester of this pregnancy. S--t--r--e--t--c--h. Oh, and we are hosting a group from our home church during the conference. yeah that too. Thankfully we have several church members who have stepped up and offered to let some of our visitors stay with them. Plus we don't have that much stuff so hopefully moving will be smooth, quick and easy.


Please pray for us
~that God would continue to work out all of the details of our upcoming Save the Family conference. He has already done some amazing things and we are so excited about it!

~Our move to be seamless and easy

~ the first trimester blahs would go away so that I can be a better helper for Jose and mom for the kids.

~extra funds/support as we continue to grow and expand the ministry here in Piura and as our family expands

If you are interested in supporting us monthly and have questions or even would like to make a one time donation. Please send me a message at jkmission2peru @ Gmail.com
We also have 2 different links to donate on the right hand side of the blog. One is through paypal and the other is a tax deductible donation through our home church

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!

Servolution.

A couple years ago Jose and I had the opportunity to hear Dino Rizzo speak at "The Remnant" conference in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He is the author of "Servolution" a book which sprang from something his church actually does. They go out and serve their community. Serving is very important to us and actually a part of how we met. So when Mr Rizzo was finished speaking Jose went up and told him "You wrote my book." Mr Rizzo responded "That's awesome, you should write one that's better than mine." Now our church here has become a part of Servolution. Every month (and sometimes twice a month) we go out into the community and do something nobody else here really does. These are the things we've been doing this month.

Refrescate! - Refresh yourself

Peru is south of the equator so Summer just ended for us and we have now entered into Autumn. The beginning of the year is the hottest time here. So we collected 1000 bottles of water, went to one of the busiest intersections in town and handed them out to everybody that wanted one. We gave ourselves 2 hours to run out. It only took us 30 minutes. Obviously this was a hit with the people of Piura. We saved 100 to give to the car washers and attendants at a local shopping center parking lot. The car washers pay 40 soles a day to work. Then they get to keep whatever they make. They make about 5 soles per car they wash and there are about 40 car washers all fighting to wash every car that comes into the lot. Even so not every person coming into the lot wants a car wash. You can imagine these people having to work so hard to make money don't really get to take breaks to go buy water. So they were really excited to get this water.

Operacion Utiles Escolar - Operation School Supplies

             Y                                      &

Operacion Mochila    -    Operation Backpack

This school is run by some local pastors. They felt the need for this school because these kids would have to cross a very busy street to get to the school the city provides. The year before the school began 21 kids died just trying to cross the street to go to school. It's a free private school so they work entirely off of outside donations. We were able to get a good portion of the school supplies donated from people in our church and local businesses. We also had 75 backpacks donated by 1 friend in Lima. In total we were able to bless 97 kids with their very own backpacks & bottle of water plus the school supplies I mentioned.

 

We have more things planned in the months to come. 

Please pray for us that God would continue to provide for these outreaches. 

Also the need for a van and possibly a truck has become increasingly apparent. (we rented the truck in the first photo set) Most of our church members don't have cars so we are just stuffing people wherever they fit and taking a few taxis. But some of the areas we are going to are really difficult to find taxis to come back. It would just be a huge burden lifted if we had a van big enough to fit about 18-20 people. So as you pray for us please put that on the top of your list. We need a van! 

Thank you so much for continuing to support us and lift us up in prayer!

You are a part of what we are doing here. We couldn't do it without you

2 Sundays 2 guests

Sunday was our second service here at Powerhouse Church Peru. The first week was a little disappointing because it was just the 5 of us. I kept thinking that we should not despise small beginnings so we keep pressing forward. This Sunday we were happy to have 2 visitors! So excited to see increase. Jose and Victor go out everyday to minister and invite people to our church. I stay home most of the time and work on school with the kids. We are getting settled into our life here in Piura.
It's still not easy but we are getting used to the differences of living here. It's funny how something as simple as a new grocery store can take some getting used to. I'm really happy to know that we will be here for an extended amount of time. I'm ready to let my roots stretch out some.

I have updated our prayer needs in the pages tabs. Some things will be there for a long time and some things change almost daily. We really appreciate every one of you that prays for us, as always we can feel them and see them working.

For those of you that are interested we will be visiting the dr on Monday. I will be 6 months pregnant and he will do an ultrasound to check on my amniotic fluid level and find out the gender. I can't wait! Girl or boy I'm ready to call this child by name :) Please keep us in prayer for all good news, especially about the amniotic fluid. I'm praying for a miracle increase.

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

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

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

...and then we slept with chickens on a bus

Our great adventure to Ecuador was one of those things where you have a basic idea of the plan and a few ideas of how it will come together. But in the end it's really not much like you thought it would be at all.

We started out our trip by going to Piura. Jose has family there and we have connected with a Missionary there too. Our main purpose was to really just visit and see what it's like there. Piura is a region but there is also a city called Piura. That is where we went. After living in a big city it's easy to forget that Peru is a developing country. In Lima we have many modern conveniences that are similar to America. Fast food, better roads, etc.. There are still dirt roads in many parts of Piura.

(houses outside the city of Piura)
We still aren't sure if the city of Piura is where we will end up or if we will be going to another area. Jose's family was telling us about an area close by that is full of witch doctors. There are several parts of the region that don't have even one church. The word of God is so needed there. It's hard to know where to start.

After we spent a few days in Piura, Jose's dad wanted to go to Mancora. There is a famous beach there and people come from all over the world to surf. We stayed there a couple days and really just got to relax. Which was nice. It's amazing how hard it can be to relax when your not used to it. But once we did it was heaven. The boys loved playing on the beach chasing waves and then running away from them. Collecting rocks and seashells. One day I want to live on the beach.


After our mini-cation we took an 8 hour bus trip to Ecuador. The trip up was fairly uneventful. In Ecuador Jose and Victor attended a conference in the evenings. Saturday we went to the market and walked around. I'm noticing that if you want to experience the real culture of the towns here you go to the market.
 

Sunday night we took a bus back to Piura. The bus left at 8pm and I was feeling under the weather. I knew we were going to cross the border around 2 am and I needed to be able to get off the bus and walk up to the window with Jose so I was trying to rest. After we were on the bus for awhile something woke me up. It sounded like...a chicken? no, several chickens. And it was. A lady with a cage full of chickens got on the bus at the second stop and stayed on all the way to Piura. I'm a light sleeper. When I'm sick I'm a very light sleeper. So every time I would start to drift off one of those chickens would screech and all the rest would start to chatter at each other. Then the lady who brought them would "sh-sh-sh-sh" as if they were a fussing child. It was ridiculous.
Once we go to the border we found out that the system was shut down and we had to wait for 1 hour for them to turn it on. I was feeling so bad at this point that Jose told me to take a Dramamine. If I had ever been wild I don't think I would have gotten too much into drinking and drugs because I'm a very cheap drunk when it comes to meds. One Dramamine and I can barely stand up. Within 30 minutes I can pretty much fall asleep wherever I am. So, I waited awhile and took it at about 2:45. There I am standing leaning against my husband in line to get my passport stamped and slurring my words, trying not to fall asleep until we get in the bus. When I realize, I have to do this again in an hour when we get to the border crossing into Peru. Thankfully Jose was able to do it by himself. I was in a Dramamine induced coma by that time.

From Piura we took another bus which was much nicer and more comfortable to get home. The trip was Monday night-Tuesday morning.

Now we have 90ish days to get our visas or leave the country again. Please pray that God would provide the finances for the visas. The trip we took was an adventure, just not something I want to be doing every 3 months.  Thank you all for keeping us in prayer while we were traveling. We saw the hand of God in many ways.

Quick update

Hey ya'll
We are in Ecuador until tomorrow...had to leave the country to renew our visas fun fun. Pray for us tomorrow (Sunday) if you think about it. We will be crossing the border and waiting for our new bus at 2am. God has been so faithful this whole trip and has taken care of us every step of the way. I will hopefully post a more detailed account in a few days. Thank you for your prayers! 

The beat goes on...

We are starting to work out a rhythm to our life here. I don't know how other people do it, but when I get in a new situation I feel like I just need to get my routine down and then I can feel comfortable. Ok, I admit it deep down inside I'm really 5 years old. I like to have a bedtime and a schedule. I don't like winging it too much.
Speaking of schedule's. We started school last week. I'm loving every minute of it. Well almost every minute the one's where Logan whines about stuff are not my favorite. But we are working through it. Logan has 3 favorite things about school. Math (I'm pretty sure he gets that from Jose) art (all me) and Lego's (no idea) Yes, that's right Lego's are a subject in our school. As a matter of fact if kindergarten had majors my children would be majoring in Lego construction. The amazing thing about Lego's is the boys will play with them for hours and they don't even fight over them. If I was catholic I would nominate the inventor of Lego's for sainthood. But since I'm not catholic I will just thank God for them. I never thought I would say Lego's that many times in one paragraph. Really, I never thought I would have any reason to talk about them. Who knew?

I may have mentioned this before but our house is actually an apartment. There are 3 other apartments in our building. One below us. One across from us and one on the third floor. Our front door is on the second floor but we have 3 floors to our apartment. Anyway, on Thursday the boys and I were home alone all day. It was a normal enough day. Friday morning Jose's dad went out to get some stuff and saw our neighbor. They told him that the apartments on the 1st and 3rd story had been robbed during a 3 hour period on Thursday. Our doors here have these crazy locks that seem impossible to break into but the robbers had a tool that broke them. I NEVER HEARD A THING. We believe that the thieves heard me and the boys in the apartment and weren't sure which one we were in so they skipped our floor. We also know that everyday we pray a hedge of protection around our home that no one with evil intentions would be able to come near us. God protected us and our stuff. We are going to use wisdom and have another lock installed and I think our landlady will be installing electric fences around the exterior walls soon. Just know that your prayers are powerful! We feel them every single day.

Our first day in Lima in pictures + update!!!

The first day here was exciting

We were all up early and ready to see what we could accomplish...but we didn't realize Peru doesn't really wake up until around 10 or 11

so we hung out around the hotel for awhile

 

When we did get out to the stores they weren't all open anyway but we enjoyed a nice walk.

In fact we walked and walked and walked.

But the boys still had energy so we let them play at the playground.

They were not the least bit excited about it

  

We ate at my current favorite restaurant

They have a cute little flower cart outside.

After lunch we drove around for a few hours looking for houses with for rent signs outside...we didn't find many but that didn't really matter.

We finished out the day at a grocery store named Wong. Jose got our cell phones set up and me and the boys sat in the little coin operated car area.

They liked this one

We have really seen God's hand and just favor over us the whole time here.

Even when we were flying over here. We checked with the airline the day before we left to find out how much it would cost if we checked extra baggage they said $140 per bag. We decided to buy an extra suitcase and check it because we were just running out of options. Tuesday morning at 4 am we showed up at the airport with our 11 suitcases, 5 carry-ons and 5 personal items. We weighed everything to make sure we weren't over weight and had to move a few things to carry ons. Jose went to check the bags and they said it was only an extra $40 instead of $140. Jose decided to go ahead and check 2 of our carry-ons as well because it was so much cheaper (plus we really didn't want that many carry ons.) The lady called her supervisor over at the end to sign off on everything and the supervisor said "no, you were supposed to charge them $140 for each additional bag" then she told Jose "sir because of our mistake we are going to let you check these 3 bags for free" We didn't have to pay any extra fees for our bags at all!

Secondly when we went out with the realtor she had 2 apartments to show us in our price range, and 2 that were slightly higher than we wanted to pay. We looked at all of them and Jose and I both liked the first one we looked at (which was in our price range hallelujah). All the places in the area we need to be in were unfurnished though. So while we waited to get the contract from the owner we decided to go price furniture and appliances (houses don't even come with ovens here) I'm not going to lie. Looking at how much everything was going to cost and even just trying to furnish a complete house from nothing was a little intimidating. But I serve a big God. That night we went to meet with the owner (a former actress/tv host) We were there for about 2 hours talking about the house/living arrangement/her health/the realtors family/ etc.... this is Peru you don't have short meetings about one specific thing and then move on here. In the process of our conversation she asked if we have furniture. We told her we don't and she said "My daughter lived here for 3 months. She bought everything new and left it with me when she moved. I'll tell you what, if you want I can furnish the house for an extra $200 a month then when you go to Piura you can have it all if you want it. I even have trucks that go up there all the time you can take it in one of my trucks when you go."  All we need to get is linens and some kitchen items to have everything we need for our house.

Third. One minor hickup is that the house is brand new. When we were looking at it it didn't have light fixtures and was still being painted. Because of that the house won't be ready until Friday. But our hotel is only available until Tuesday then we were going to have to move to a different room. Not a big deal for us but it would cost us 4 extra night's in the hotel. Yesterday when we were at church we talking with the pastors and the couple that is in charge of the retreat center. They asked where we are staying and we explained the whole situation. When we finished they said "don't spend your money on a hotel we have a guest house behind our house you can stay there until your house is finished." Then Jose asked if we can start moving our luggage over today and the pastor said "just use the church van. I will send it over to pick all your sutff up on Tuesday so you can move everything in one trip"

We have an amazing God. It is so awesome to see his hand on every step of our journey. It is clear he is Jehovah Jireh our provider. We can't wait to see what He is going to do next! 

Please be in prayer with us for a vehicle. There are six of us so we need something that carries at least six comfortably. We are really praying for an H1 mini van (they carry 12 passengers but look like a mini van) We have called on a few used vehicles but they sell for almost the same as new...cars do not depreciate here. 

Thank you so much for all your prayers and support it is deeply appreciated! And we can seriously see/feel the prayers in our daily life!   

3 Days left...

We are in Florida! Getting in some family time with Jose's family. Tonight we are eating Peruvian food and staying up way too late! We got blessed with a nice hotel room and are enjoying a little bit of chill out time. I'm not sure how soon we will have internet access in Peru so just please pray for us Tuesday we have to be at the airport in Miami at 4am. Logan has been getting motion sickness in the car and we are not sure how the airplane will be because this is a new thing. I have stocked up on dramamine and we are trying everything we can.

Giving Details

I've had several people ask what they can do to help and what our specific needs are.

Overall
PRAYER! We need all we can get and then some. This will only work as long as it has God's hand on it and we desire more than anything to be in his will. Because of that we covet your prayers above all else that He would guide us, our hearts will stay right and that he would go before us and behind us every step.

Financially
One time donation's
We need to raise about $10,000 more before we leave for start up costs. That covers everything we need to get initially established. As you probably know everything we own is currently residing in 12 suitcase (4 are carry-on's) So we will need everything from travel/transportation to a place to live, plus the paperwork fees etc... really boring stuff but important!

Monthly recurring donations
We will need about $3000 a month. The first year we will participate in the ministry school that reaches out to the families of Peru. Most of our budget will go to our daily living expenses. Including traveling to Piura monthly to work on establishing the mission there so when our time in Lima is done the transition will be easier. Anything we are given above that will go into a savings account we will use for the Mission in Piura.

If you would like to give into our ministry one time or monthly you have 2 options.

Option 1 Paypal. I have installed a tab to the right that will take you directly to our paypal account and you can give that way. Our paypal account name is jkmission2peru@GMail.com

Option 2 Tax deductible donation. There is another tab on the right that will take you to our church website. They have set up an account for us where you can give (designated as Mission to Peru.) They will track it and get it to us and mail you a giving statement at the beginning of the year (just in time for tax season) They also email you a receipt and you can track your giving through the website. If you choose to give this way please send me an email at the above address with the amount you are giving and if it's a one time gift or if you plan to give monthly.

Any amount you can give is helping us to fulfill our mission to Peru. Thank you for your support of this ministry!