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 

A day I thought would never come

The average christian parent has certain expectations or at least assumptions that they live with. One of them being that their children will be christians and get baptized or follow whatever example they set. Even so those parents are thrilled and excited when the expectations are met. A child coming to christ is a huge celebration and the same can be said of baptism. However sometimes there is a kink. Some reason why you might set your expectations aside. For example you might have a child who has sensory issues and can't stand the idea of water on his head because it might get into his eyes. For a child like that the idea of putting your head under water for any reason sounds like a really horrible idea. (and that's putting it mildly.)

I just described Timothy. Logan is the one who led Timothy to the Lord and ever since then has been trying to talk him into getting baptized (Did I ever mention that 3 different people who don't know each other or me prophesied that Logan was going to be like John the baptist while I was pregnant with him?) Sometime last week while Jose was talking about this baptism service Timothy volunteered to be baptized. I wasn't there so when Jose mentioned it I looked something like this

I should mention that Jose and I have different kinds of faith. When we have no money or are getting close. I have gotten to a place where I just expect God to take care of it. While Jose does a lot of math. I know he's worried about money when I find sheets of paper with numbers scribbled all over them. I on the other hand really struggle to have faith that everything will work out with Timothy. In my heart I know that God is taking care of it (just like Jose knows that God will take care of our finances) But when I'm looking at it day in and out it gets easy to think that he will always be set in whatever particular way he's currently set in and will never change. But Jose doesn't have that problem. He pushes him and believes he can and will get and be better than what he settles for currently. So, I admit, I got annoyed with Logan for continuing to ask. I even told him that Timothy would do it when he was ready (which was true) but I realize now that he needed that peer pressure from his brother to recognize the importance of making that decision. 

We asked him several times if he was sure he wanted to do it. Jose mentioned it every day this week and every day Timothy affirmed that yes, he wanted to be baptized. I let him wear his swim trunks to church and he was dressed before we woke up actually. He wanted to do it first thing when we got there but alas, he had to wait. 

He literally buzzed with excitement all through church. He sat with me and kept humming and clapping and asking me when he would get to be baptized. Then the moment came. He was by the pool the second they announced it. 

I love the progression of these photos. You can see how happy and excited he is and when he comes out of the water you can see how much he hates the water in his eyes.

I have been a mess all day. A happy mess. Every time I think about it I start to tear up and think about how good God is and how proud I am of Timothy. He may not act or think like most kids his age. But he has a very real relationship with God that he is working out in his own way. 

Today my son inspired me and showed me that he (and everybody really) has the ability to push through his discomfort and obey what God is telling him to do.  

And he did it with a joyful attitude.  

He was excited about being uncomfortable.

I wonder, when was the last time you got excited about being uncomfortable?  

The Special One: Part 2

This is part 2 to read part 1 click here

As I mentioned yesterday Our Pastor had 2 people for us to talk to. The second person our pastor told us to talk to was someone from our home church named Tracey. She had the exact same specialty as the woman I had been holding back on calling. The funny thing is my friend had been telling me for over a year I needed to meet Tracey but it just never happened in my short trips to the states. Aside from that we had dinner with a couple from our home church on Saturday night. We didn't really know them but they invited us over so we went :) as we were talking we shared about Timothy and that we were spending a little extra time to get him some help. The wife told us that she had been a special ed teacher for years (and only recently left that to become a vice principal) she told us we should talk to this woman from church named Tracey. I told her you are the 3rd person to say that. Can you help me find her at church? I don't know what she looks like but I want to meet her! She promised to call her and make sure we connected.

The next day at church our pastor instructed everyone to find a partner and pray for each other. Jose and I were about to pray for each other when this woman walked up to us and said "Hi, I'm Tracey. I hear we need to talk to each other." We prayed together and she gave me a sheet of paper with her phone number and said "Tomorrow is my day off. Lets get together and talk about Timothy"  By the time I got to restaurant where we ate lunch I had 2 Facebook notifications. A friend request and a message both from Tracey. She had cleared it with the clinic she works at to do all our work with her at the clinic pro-bono. She wanted us to meet her there instead so we could go ahead and get started. We made plans to be there first thing the next morning. We went to see my friend who had suggested I talk to Tracey a year before and she mentioned that she had emailed Tracey about talking to me. Tracey responded "lol, you are the third person who has contacted me about that. I'm getting together with them Tomorrow" It was so clear that God was putting everything together in the background I was on a happy high.

Monday morning we went to the clinic where Tracey worked. I sat in the waiting room and nervously looked at all the other parents and children waiting. I had no idea what to expect and Timothy was having a rough day so far. It usually takes a little over a week for him to hit his stride when we travel to the states and that was still a few days away. Tracey came out with a big smile hugged us and met Timothy for the first time. We went back into a room and watched her play with Timothy and ask him questions. It was so hard to just watch and not help him so many times when she asked him to do something and he didn't understand or couldn't do it. I kept telling myself "just watch, let him do it, she needs to see Timothy without help" He had difficulty with so many things. At the end of the evaluation she said we needed to get a hearing/speech evaluation as well. She wasn't sure he was understanding everything she said to him which effects the test results a lot. That evaluation would be someone else so we would need to see if/when she could fit us in and that would be kind of expensive (but still less than the other specialist we had talked to initially) She managed to get us an appointment that day. Jose called his aunt and explained the situation and she completely covered the cost. At the end of the day Tracey said she wanted to work with Timothy every day while we were there so she could help us come up with a home therapy plan. Every time I received a text or message from Tracey I would find myself crying and thanking God for his goodness.    

Timothy trying to make his hands and feet work together to grab the frogs and knock something down with them

swinging one of the things Timothy could do all day long

Spinning or earthquake on this board was another favorite 

Timothy has many challenges but he has a lot going for him too. His challenges have names like Sensory Processing Disorder, ADHD, and Aspergers/High Functioning Autism. But Tracey said something to us that blessed me so much and has been brought to my mind over and over. All of those things are names and every name must bow at the feet of Jesus. I learned about my son this past month and a lot of it was painful but some of it was sweet and inspiring. Timothy is very cognitively bright and super smart. So when you ask him to do something he can't like stand on one foot he will start clowning and fall in a cartoonish way. He has a million little coping mechanisms for a lot of the problem areas he faces. He figured those out himself. As I've read about kids like him they need those things and usually need help finding them but he's pretty great at problem solving in some areas. 

I'm only a couple weeks in from really knowing what we are dealing with. I'm still processing and I randomly think of things that make me sad or worry. But I was/am so blessed to have had this experience. So many people have stepped up and been so supportive of all of us. I never wanted Timothy to be branded as "special needs" but now I see it differently. He really is so special and no name or label being given or not given changes that.

The special one Part 1

As I mentioned yesterday this trip to the states was really special. One of the things that I really wanted to happen (and have wanted for years) happened this trip. It was nothing like I expected, it was way better. For years I have been working with Tim on a lot of stuff all the while not knowing what was going on exactly. When I talked to dr.'s they said "he's just a little slower with some things. Not all kids walk/talk/etc at the same time." Then later in life they said "oh, he's just spoiled. You need to be more firm with him." But in my heart I knew there was something more. I figured out on my own that he has sensory processing disorder. Once I read about it I knew to an extent that Timothy has difficulty with many forms of sensory input. So I kept doing everything I could to help him on my own, praying for him and asking God to help us do the best we could. Last year he started doing some things that made me think he might be on the autism spectrum. But, honestly? I didn't really want to admit that. It's so common now I didn't want it to seem like I was jumping on a bandwagon. Plus I didn't want to label my kid for life.  Sensory issues can be worked through. Autism? That's a lifelong thing. 

Timothy and I just chillin' on the floor as one does

Reading pastors book

He wanted his face painted "like a lego mini figure" this is his mini figure pose

As we wrapped up the school year last year I had become so overwhelmed that we were talking about sending the boys to school instead of homeschooling.  All I could think about was "what will they do with Timothy. He just barely manages Sunday School and that is less than an hour. School is hours and they don't have special education here, plus nobody really has listened to my calls for help. What if they don't believe me and treat him badly because they think he is spoiled?" I decided we needed to get a diagnosis. Whatever that meant. I had read an article about sensory processing disorder, adhd and autism and at the end it had a link that said "if you need help getting your child diagnosed find a specialist here" I followed the link and found a list of people in Houston and 2 people in Peru. I made a few phone calls and found someone that was extremely flexible and said to give her 2 weeks notice before we went to the states and she would work us in. I started to relax, the only thing bugging me was the cost. An initial examination would be $500 and any follow ups would be $350. That may not sound like much to you but that's a pretty big chunk of our monthly budget and we didn't have any extra money to set aside. Jose's aunt had previously offered to help us pay for speech therapy because if anything that is what people recognize as an issue and she wanted to help. We talked to her about the specialist and she said she would help us. Everything was coming together. We scheduled our trip and worked out all the details but there was something keeping me from contacting the specialist. I didn't know why but I just didn't feel peace about it. Jose had the same feeling so we held off. Our first week in Houston we had the mens conference then spent a few days with family and our pastors. I really poured my heart out to our pastors. I told them all the things I had been holding back about Timothy. Immediately our Pastor had 2 names of people he wanted us to talk to. He talked to both people and scheduled a meeting with one of them. The first person was a mother of a 7 year old boy with autism. She met Timothy and said she saw a lot of similarity between our boys. We talked for about 30 minutes but she just shared her journey with us and gave us a lot of good information. I cried all the way through it. I kept apologizing and she just laughed and said she knew exactly what I was feeling. At the end we hugged and I felt a little more confident about our next step.

(Come back tomorrow for part 2)

Traveling adventures

Whenever we travel it ends up being an adventure. Not just in the seeing new places meeting new people sense. But sometimes it’s a kiss-the-ground-and-hug-the-tree-when-you-get-out-of-the-vehicle-because-you-are-just-that-happy-to-have-survived kind of adventure. That kind of sums up our last trip to and from the states. But let me start from the beginning...
Our flight to Miami left out of Guayaquil Ecuador at 8am. Since we don’t have an international airport here in Piura, we have the choice of taking a bus 12ish hours north to Guayaquil. Or we can take a bus 16ish hours south to Lima. There’s also the option of flying to Lima which takes about an hour. But that can often be 2-4 times the cost of a bus x 4 tickets plus baby tax...we usually take a bus. Lately the cost of flying out of Ecuador was about half that of Lima so when we found some great tickets to the states we jumped on them. We had not been back for the holidays since we came to Peru 3 years ago so it was a big deal to find tickets we could afford.
Since we were flying out of Guayaquil our only way to get there was on a bus. Now when we were newer to the country we foolishly took a random bus to Ecuador that we later found out is not the safest thing (nor is it the most comfortable) since they stop for anybody that flags them down and have no regulations about what you can bring on. But this time we did the research and took the safest most comfortable bus. The only catch was theres only one per day. But it was scheduled to arrive about an hour before we needed to be at the airport so one of us thought we would be fine...the other one of us is working on having faith when it comes to the timeliness of public transportation.

We got to the bus terminal to wait for our bus they were running late but the lady at the counter said they would make up for their time on the trip. Even so if all went according to plan we would still arrive with a little time to spare. My mantra was something like “this is a vacation just go with the flow” it worked about 15% of the time so that was a plus. Finally the bus arrived about 30 minutes late and we were off. We should have made it to the border of Peru and Ecuador around midnight or 1 at the latest but that didn’t happen. We got there at 3 am Jose bolted out of the bus like a rocket and was the first in line to go through immigrations. But we were still 4 hours (in a car) away from the airport and the bus had already taken 2 hours longer to get to the border than it should have. Not to mention the 50 other people on the bus who needed to go through the immigration process. Jose did some asking around and found out we could get a Taxi to Guayaquil from immigrations. It was the most expensive Taxi ride we’ve ever taken but we figured lose the money or lose the flight...so we took a taxi. The driver was very energetic and anxious to get on the road so we moved all our stuff and sleeping children and we were off...until we got just outside immigrations. He was on the phone saying “yeah, I’m right here in the turnaround, pull up behind me.’ As he pulled over. He started telling Jose. “You have to change to my brothers taxi. Mine is a “new line” (code for illegal) so the cities always give me problems. But my brother has all the right permits already. He will take good care of you.”
So here we are between the Peru and Ecuador on the side of the road in a taxi that can’t go any further with 3 sleeping children at 3:30 am. He told us we need to move to the Taxi behind us so what else can we do? we move as quickly as possible because at this point we need to be at the airport in 3 and a half hours. We get settled and close the door when all of a sudden a truck pulls up next to us with a police lamp shining in our faces. They think somethings up so they take our passports and make us go back to immigrations to verify that everything is legit. Now I can’t say that we disagree with the police. If that kind of thing had happened at the USA/Mexico border I’m sure we would have been in prison 5 minutes later. I know it looked shady to him. But at that moment all we could think about was getting to the airport. So Jose keeps telling the taxi driver and police that we are pressed for time. Thankfully I had told the immigrations officer outside our whole story while Jose was getting a taxi so he remembered me and verified that we were not doing anything illegal. Once the officer was convinced we were not fugitives or people smugglers or something they let us go. It is now 4am and we have 3 hours to get to the airport. Jose stresses to the guy that we.have.to.be.there in 3 hours. Taxi man says no problem and once again we were off. 

                       (reference photo stolen from internet this is basically what our taxi looked like) 
Now, I’m almost accustomed to not sleeping these days because of a certain 9 month old princess who still thinks the middle of the night is the best time to be awake since she gets me all to herself. But I’m almost basically narcoleptic for me. I find myself dozing off only to be snapped back awake by random things like the taxi driver taking a speed bump at full speed causing me to hit my head on the roof of the car. (taxis don’t have seat belts) so I did doze of for awhile. But after waking up like that ^ I couldn’t sleep for some reason. There were 2 things I learned about our taxi driver. 1 he should have been in bed instead of driving a taxi full of people I love and 2 apparently he learned how to drive using a race car game. He kept speeding way up only to slow way down. I don’t usually have a problem with motion sickness, but I started to think it might become one. Logan on the other hand has a huge problem with motion sickness. Poor thing was so sick the whole trip. But the main problem was the taxi driver was trying not to fall asleep...and he was not being very successful. I was watching his eyes in the rear view mirror and they were shut more than they were open. Aside from that he kept rubbing his neck and face in the universal man gesture of trying to stay awake. So Jose tells him to pull over and trade places. It took a great deal of convincing but he finally did it. Thats right my husband took over driving the taxi. Let me just say here that I never appreciated what a good driver my husband is like I did that morning. You almost would have thought he was driving an automatic the way he sped up and slowed down was so smooth. I could have slept if it weren’t for all the adrenaline pumping through my veins from the previous 2 hours of the car trip. We rode like that for about 30 minutes before the taxi driver started telling jose we need to pull over for gas. (which turned out to be code for he had to go the bathroom) When the driver returned to the car he swore he was good to go and took over the driving. Yeah, lets just say he lied ok? We got into Guayaquil after another hour of jerky, sleepy driving. We tried to soothe ourselves with the thought that most likely the bus would just be leaving immigrations by now for all we knew. We formulated a plan. I would run to the counter and start the checkin process while Jose got the bags and paid the driver. As we are talking Timothy starts asking how many minute until we get there. I told him I didn’t know but it would be soon. As we pull into the airport I feel a warm wetness spreading under my leg..the leg closest to Timothy. Normally he wakes up and stumbles into the bathroom as fast as he can. But this time there was no bathroom to stumble to. We pull up to the departure door and exhausted carrying the baby and holding Timothys hand I ran into the airport half soaked in fresh pee.

(it might look big from this picture but this is all the check in counters. There are maybe 30 stations) 

Our checkin counter was by the door (thank God for tiny airports) and there was a sign above the counter. “Check in by 7:50 required” I looked for a clock it was 7:50 exactly. But there was a line. I got in line and waited. Jose walked in with all the luggage and the taxi driver pulled away. I pulled out some clothes and waited in line until the ticket counter person could see me and Tim then we dashed off the bathroom to change clothes. We were on our way

And that was just what it took to get to the airport...

Happy Birthday Timothy

In our home birthday season is February-June. We start with Caleb in February then it's Zoe in March, Jose & Logan in April, Me in May and finally Timothy in June. 

 Logan and Tim had been planning this birthday party since Logans birthday ended. One of our friends from church actually told me her son came home with a handmade invitation to Tims party at "the robot restaurant" (a restaurant with a play area that looks like a robot) a few weeks before his birthday. He's proactive like that. 

He always surprises me with the way he thinks. After Zoe was born he told me he couldn't touch her because he would get sick. Later I realized he meant she would get sick. He treats her like a precious relic and takes a very strong "look but don't touch" stance about his sister. At least once a day he gets angry at Logan for touching the baby without washing his hands first. 

Timothy is the most affectionate kid in the family right now. He always starts the morning by walking into my room and giving me a hug. Any time he leaves the house as soon as he gets back he looks for me to give me a hug. That's just a given.  

He is stubborn. While I think this is ultimately a good quality it creates lots of

opportunities for mommy humility. Like when he decides to go on strike and not speak spanish.

He is amazingly creative. For the last few years he has been very interested in movie end credits. 

It's hilarious to us that he will watch the beginning and end of any movie he can his hands on 

but isn't all that interested in the actual feature. 

He also loves Lego's. 

He spends hours building movie credits or movie theaters

He says he wants to be an architect or a movie producer when he grows up.

Timothy, you are and always will be baby mine. (even though I won't call you that after you hit puberty) I love you from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet. I hope you always know that you are loved and cherished by me and daddy. 

We are proud of you and excited to see what you do this year. I'm sure it will be surprising and amazing!

I love you!

Mommy

To Timothy

6 years ago today I went to my drs appointment not expecting to meet you for another 4 weeks. 

Little did I know you would be born about 2 hours later. 

Ever since then life has been an adventure and full of surprises.

You and I have a very special connection. 

I'm fairly certain it's because of all the hours I've spent praying about you. 

You have always danced to the beat of your own soundtrack and you often sing it to us.

Nobody else knows the words but that's ok, it's your song.

You are great at cheering me up and getting me to laugh when you are in trouble.

You love spending time with your family.

I love it that no matter what we are doing you want to be in the room with us.

You are just like your daddy. 

I love this picture because it shows how much you look alike. 

Sometimes you give me a glimpse of what he was like when he was your age.

I know that you will follow in his footsteps and be a great man one day. 

Timothy means Servant of God and Joseah means Fire of God.

You are already so full of faith that whenever you want something you pray for it until it happens.

You never doubt that God will do what you ask him to.

This year we lost your baby brother Caleb. 

You were really looking forward to having him here.

When we talked about it you asked if they have a bed for him in heaven.

You are so sweet and straightforward about everything. 

I love that you aren't shy about talking about Caleb. 

Logan is your best friend. You love him so much.
I love watching you follow him around and trying to be like him. Most of the time you guys go together like peanut butter and jelly. Other times...not so much. But I know you will always be there for each other.








One of your favorite things in the world right now
is movie credits. When we watch a movie you
always want to watch until the music is over and
the screen goes black on it's own. This is just one
of the ways you are uniquely you. Daddy and I
joke that one day you will be the guy who designs
movie credits. You already play at it with your
Jengas.
Some other things you really love are
Snoopy and Charlie Brown.
Happy Monsters
Pirates &
Chocolate.

Happy Birthday Timothy

You brighten up our lives in ways you can't imagine.

We love you!

Mommy & Daddy

I want to remember

It has been a crazy 5 months since we moved to Piura. In some ways I feel like we have been here forever. A lot has happened in our lives and with our church. Last Sunday we had 17 people in church! That is huge for us. Especially considering we didn't know any of those people 5 months ago.
We are really excited about several things we are working on right now and I wanted to share them so you can pray for us as we move forward.

As of last week week I started a women's group. I had 3 people (not counting me) on our first night and 9 on the second. I believe there are a lot of women that will want to be involved. We are going over the book "Captivating" by John and Stasi Eldridge. If you've never heard of it or read it I highly recommend it. (It is one of my all time favorite Christian books) The main thing I need prayer for here is that we can find a girl to interpret at these meetings. Jose has been doing it and while I like having him around I think there will be more openness with just women present.

In February we are having our second outreach as a church. "Operación Mochila" or Operation Backpack. We will go back into the same area we went to for Christmas and hand out *hopefully* 100 backpacks with school supplies inside. As far as we know this is totally original here. And just in case you think our timing is strange the school year begins in March.
Our goal after this is to have a monthly kids club so that we can build relationships with the kids/families in the same area. We will go in on a Saturday every month and have a Jesus centered fun time with the kids. As our team grows we hope to either go more often or spread out and bring the same idea to different areas of town
We are planning more outreaches either monthly or bi-monthly and I will share about those as we get closer to them.


*****

I'm 2 weeks away from my due date with this pregnancy. I have been pregnant for 38 weeks or 9 1/2 months (the way pregnancy is measured each month is 4 weeks so you end up saying you took 10 months total...yes, it's very confusing) This honestly has seemed like a very fast pregnancy and I 'm probably one of the only pregnant women ever who kind of wishes it would last longer. I would just ask that I not have to have contractions or heart burn. Those are the absolute worst part of being pregnant at this point. That and I miss Sushi. But we don't have that here in Piura anyway so it's not much of an issue right now.

The first picture lost it's caption in the process of putting these together but I'm 6 weeks pregnant in it. 

This pregnancy has been a huge trial of my faith. I know I talked about it a little here I'm just going to expand on it a little so I don't forget. Every time we have seen the Dr he has found another problem or concern. Lately there is some dilation in what he thinks is her kidneys and her head is measuring right on target but her abdomen and femur are several weeks smaller than they should be. I was put on bed rest the week before Christmas because my body was trying to go into labor and and I was only 33 weeks. I have so little amniotic fluid that even if my water did break I probably wouldn't notice. All of these things are cause for concern and make my Dr frown quite a bit. The papers they send home with me start with the statement "unique pregnancy." I know that God is taking care of me and the baby and even the fact that we've made it this far is a miracle. But that doesn't mean I haven't freaked out quite a bit. I'm actually embarrassed how many times I've started crying while listening to my Dr talk. He must think I'm the worlds most emotional woman. I want to remember this feeling though. When she is 9 months old if I'm struggling to get her to sleep through the night I want to remember that it's a miracle she's here. That I couldn't sleep through the night a year before because the Dr thought she wouldn't make it. When she's 3 years old if I can't get her to listen or be still I want to remember that 4 years before I wasn't listening to God or being still. I was all over the place emotionally. When she's a teenager and doesn't trust me or believe I know what I'm doing I don't want to be mad at her. I want to remember that when I was 29 I had a hard time trusting the one who made me and her. I need to remember these things for so many reasons but mostly because I want to always treasure the gift that God has given me in this baby and in the things he has taught me while I've carried her.

*****

The other day we did show and tell as a part of school. Both of the boys got very excited. I told them that I wanted them to bring something that is special to them and tell me why they like it.
Logan's was his playmobil Nativity set. In telling me about it he said "I like this because it's a very special birthday. It was Jesus birthday. Something very important to know is Jesus is the son of GOD! That is why this is special to me. Thank you." (I was pretty impressed with his presentation considering it was his first show and tell ever)
Timothy brought his bag full of jenga's (He has like 3 sets of the game that he uses as blocks. This is by far his favorite toy in the world) He held the bag up as high as he could and said "I have jenga's! all together they make credits, and castles, and special features. I play with JENGA'S! OK!" While Timothy didn't really have the poise Logan did he did understand and completed the assignment which is a win in my book. I never want to forget their first show and tell.

Timothy playing with Jenga's

*****

Recently Timothy watched a movie that had a couple of kids running a lemonade stand. Ever since then he has been wanting to do one. We talked about setting one up in our yard and letting him sell us lemonade but had not had a chance to do it yet. So the other day Jose told me that while some of his guys were over they were talking out in the yard and Timothy set up a chocolate milk stand. We had a pitcher of chocolate milk already made so Timothy took a table and chair to our yard. Set out cups, the chocolate milk and his piggy bank. He sat there waiting for someone to buy a glass of chocolate milk for a while. I'm pretty sure he didn't make any sales but we did run out of chocolate milk. He's not one to let good chocolate anything sit untouched for long. I wish I had seen it, but just hearing the story makes me smile. He's a funny kid.

5 Years

Wednesday (June 15th) our baby will be 5.
This will be a bittersweet celebration because he won't be the baby anymore.
Next year there will be another little Lopez taking that title, so the celebration is way more sweet than bitter. :)

Timothy is my shadow.
He loves to sit in the room with me and play while I do whatever I'm doing.
I can always count on him to keep me company.
I can also count on him to always make me laugh.
I never want to forget the way he started memorizing words (including the spelling) this year.
Words like Walt Disney Pictures Presents, restroom, all of our names, cake, exit, men, and monsters inc.
He loves to spell them out. For example if he needs to use the restroom he says "I need to go restroom, r-e-s-t-r-o-o-m-m-e-n"   And before he figured out what that spelled he would say
"I need to go potty m-e-n"
He also thought e-x-i-t spelled "get out of here" so when he was ready to go he would say
"let's e-x-i-t, get out'ta here"

He will always be my baby. Even though he tells me "No, not baby. I Timothy!" 

whenever I call him baby.

Timothy Joseah, thank you for allowing me the privilege of raising you. 

You are a sweet, funny, caring little boy with a mind that is totally your own. 

I thank God that you are who you are. I wouldn't change you, or trade you for anything in the world.

You are awesome. Don't you ever forget it!

Love, 

M-o-m-m-y Mommy

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

at the zoo

On Monday we went to the zoo

We splashed  

Ok, mostly we ran away from the splash...because thats how we roll

(we are not big fans of water in our eyes...)

    

We had fun with our friends

       

Logan and his buddy Matthew

(and some random girl...what can I say he's a chick magnet)

           

               

We called through the pirahna tank

              

We sat in the middle of the tank and blocked the other kids

            

               

We made silly faces at mommy

               

We...looked at the animals

               

and force fed daddy chips

              

We smiled our best when we were not all the way in the picture

 

We sat on a dinosaur

and sat in the wagon

Then we sat in the car

and we crashed (not literally, we just fell asleep)