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...

Deeper!

This year has been such an amazing year for us. I can't believe it's only half over! I feel like we have all grown and learned so much just from experiencing God. I could go on about this for awhile but there is so much else for me to talk about that I'll save it for another post. ;)

One of the biggest blessings for us was something that just happened! Jose and I planned our trip to the states in March so we could be a part of the Intense mens conference/father son campout. The only downside, we couldn't stay long enough to be a part of our 15th anniversary conference. So we enjoyed our time there. Only told a few people what we had faith for and PRAYED. So 2 weeks before the conference Jose gets an email that the tickets have gone down to half the normal price (the only time we have seen that happen) so we got blessed with the tickets to go to Houston! We surprised our Pastors and most of our church and had a great weekend of spiritual refreshing! I can't even begin to describe all the ways we got blessed last week while we were there. I will just summarize by saying that God is always, always faithful! He provided for every need we have and used some amazing and often surprising ways to do it. :) 

Some highlights from the conference

*We burned the note! Our building is paid off and Jordan Ranch is more than halfway there! I can't express how exciting this is for us!

*Jose turned 10! He got saved 10 years ago at the 5th anniversary conference. I will always be grateful to God for bringing Pastor Watkins to Katy Tx 15 years ago. Without him my husband would not be the man he is today. We will never forget where we came from!

*The teaching from the other covenant pastors. So awesome to hear the word from brothers in the faith!

*Seeing 57 men, women, and youth get commissioned!

*Visiting with Pastor Carven and Juanita Izaks from Namibia, South Africa. A brother and sister in the Lord and we love having them as a part of our family :) 

*The look on Pastor GF's face when he saw us walk into the sanctuary!

* Seeing so many people we love! We didn't have enough time to spend with most of you and we really wish we could have. But it was encouraging as always to see you and hear what God is doing in your lives!

There is too much stuff to list on one post!

   

One of the things we got blessed with was THE camera I've been praying for. I took over 300 pics and narrowed it down to about 90 favorites. So here are some of the best of the best. Or at least some of my favorites :)

We also got to say hi to some of our family. My niece is cuter than ever and likes Jose more than me. It's really not fair ;) Also my brother looks like an adult now. Which is so weird because when I think about him he is still in his 15 year old body. Why do they have to grow up (I admit he is almost 24 so I should probably adjust his age in my mind) 

For Nothing is impossible with God ~ Luke 1:37

What is it like?

I broke our laptop the other day. I'm not sure how, but I must have put something on top of it and cracked the screen. So today I am blogging from my phone. That either makes me crazy or amazing. If there are crazy words in here blame it on a combination of my current brain fog and auto complete on my phone.

Several people have been asking us what it's like coming back to America after being in Peru for 8 months. All we can say is it's different. I've started to understand why there are so many small business owners (gas stations, dry cleaners etc...) that are not from the US. Coming here I can see all the opportunities that I never would have recognized before. Also no matter what the economy is doing America is a blessed country. People with "no money" still own cars, live in houses made out of building materials instead of old shipping containers, and have running water. You can turn on most water faucets and have drinkable water. It may not be delicious but at least you know you won't get sick if you drink it. On top of that I see everyone upset about gas costing $3.47 here and I can't think if that's a bad price because in Peru gas is more like $5.

I can see why so many foreigners want to move to America. For them Americans have piles of money just waiting to be scooped up. One of our first days back Jose was in the foyer of our church and noticed several full trash bags, but they had tons of soda cans in them. He was joking that he wanted to go pull out all the cans and get them recycled because in Peru you would never see bags of recyclables mixed with other trash. I was horrified the first couple weeks there because every time I looked outside someone would be digging through our trash. We finally figured out that those people were looking for plastic bottles to recycle. Just wow. Have you ever been that desperate for cash? I know I haven't. EVER

There is a level of moral depravity that is immediately evident in Peru. Pornography is everywhere. Even billboards have nudity that would not be tolerated in America. As I mentioned in a previous post the law enforcement there is little help in most cases. Here they are protectors, there you never know if they are going to protect you or extort money from you. Honestly, I could go on and on but I'll leave it at this. I enjoy not having to see naked pictures everywhere I go and being able to trust the police (when I'm in the U.S.) :)

I also see a huge difference in the ministry world. For one thing the cost of labor is so low in Peru that you cannot find volunteers for ANYTHING. The people with money would rather hire someone else to do the work than do it themselves. The poor people work all the time to feed their family's so they just aren't available to volunteer. It's so weird to us. Jose has such a heart for volunteers and we both think it is an important part of serving God (J and I met volunteering at our church for what it's worth)
On the other hand. Peruvian christians are SO hungry. Everything we share with them is like gold. I've never seen such open hearts to the gospel and to instruction.

Now to be completely honest. I love Peru and I love America. They both have their own things that make me love them. So it's good to be home (so, so good) and it will be good to go back (but I'm not quite ready yet :p )

God is really good

Before Christmas I made a paper chain for the boys to count down the days until Christmas. Logan thought it was the single greatest idea he had ever heard. He loved it. Since then he has been looking for a reason to make another one. Last week he found one. We will be returning to Houston on February 23rd.
Our church is amazing and when we told them we wanted to take a break and spend a couple months at home they told us they would pray we could work it out and they started doing fundraisers of all kinds to help us make that happen. They blessed us with tickets and we are looking forward to going home for about 7 weeks. We will be visiting some covenant churches and look forward to meeting some new people and telling them what we are doing.
Thank you for those of you who prayed/gave/fund raised or all of the above.
Houston, we are coming home!  

...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! 

This is the real me

I'm sure that there are many women in the world that have lived in a world similar to the one I find myself in. A world where being punched in the shoulder is a very meaningful sign of affection. A world where princesses on the television cause a quick dash for the remote but if there is gunfire or swordplay you better believe we will at least stick to the station until the next commercial. Yes my friends. I am talking about my home where 5 out of 6 residents are male. I happen to be the remaining 1.
Being surrounded by men has it's benefits and it's challenges. While I love it, every once in a while I miss the energy of women. I love how women can be 15 or 75 and they still think and act almost identical. Every woman I know looks at their reflection and can pick out at least 5 things that they don't like. But we deny that our friends have any physical flaws vehemently. And when we get together. It's magical. Like being transported to a place where there are no consequences for eating way too much chocolate. A place where feather boas are a must! Where no matter how tired you may be you still want to stay up and talk for 5 more minutes. That is what "This Is The Real Me" was like

Kari Jobe led worship. It was one of the first times in my life I went expecting a performance and experienced a worship service. I've always been one to prefer men's voices over women's. Just a personal preference, but listening to 600 or so women worshiping God from the bottom of their hearts was awe inspiring. And I got to sit next to Kari Jobe during the ministry time. So fun!

Isn't she cute? (and isn't that the girliest thing you have ever heard?)

Pastor Sheila Gerald ministered the first night and to start she told us all to look into the eyes of the person next to us and very sincerely say "your butt looks good in that" Then she said I know you where all worried about it and now you don't have to be. SO true.

I could go on and on about how much fun I had and how great it was but I will finish with this.

God has graced me with some of the best and sweetest friends on earth. It doesn't matter how far away we are from each other because I know they will always be there for me. I didn't get pictures with all of them but here are the few I did get.

 
                                   

You girls make me think of Philippians 1:3

"I thank my God upon every remembrance of you"

I do. I am blessed beyond words to know you

And now, what we've all been waiting for

I just spent about 2 hours researching some stuff for a video I'm making for the conference next week. I never, ever thought a phrase like that would be coming from my mouth...er, fingers?
I am now very tired of research and ready to be done with it.
Today is September 30th which means I am leaving in 5 days to visit my family and have a blast at "This is the Real Me" I have been looking forward to this conference for awhile and I can't wait to be there! Plus, bonus: My sister seems to have been blessed with the ability to have a baby girl which so far has been un-attainable for me. (Pray for me ya'll, I have been out numbered for years. This house needs some estrogen ;)
When I go to Houston I get to see her for the first time. Ya'll better believe I'm not letting go of her until I leave...if then. :p

Anyway, the next several days will be busy for me getting ready to go etc... Then I will be in Houston so I may not blog for that time but I get make a special announcement today!

JOSE IS BLOGGING! Prepare yourself for the awesomeness! He will be sharing his daily thoughts right here on our little blog. Now we can finally live up to our name (joseandkat.blogspot) so with out further ado I will hand you over to my very capable husband.

See you in a couple weeks
Kat ~*

First Day In Lima

The last couple weeks have been a whirlwind of activity, and it's not over! We arrived in Lima last night around 12 with all of our 13 suitcases. Jose's dad had alreay secured and checked in to our hotel so he picked us up at the airport with a taxi-van and his rental car and we managed to fit everything into those 2 vehicles. We got a great night of sleep (8 hours! I can't remember when the last time we got that much sleep in a bed. maybe a week but it seems like months)
Today we will start looking for a place to stay a little more permanently. We also plan to stop by Casa Del Padre and check in with them.

There are so many ways we recieved favor and have seen the presence of God in our lives in this time it is absolutely amazing! We feel everyones prayers and are so thankful for them.

Next blog I plan to put up some pictures...but for now I gotta' run. God Bless!

quick update

After almost 2 days in Amarillo we took off yesterday around 1 (2 hours later than originally planned) and arrived in Kansas City at 1am. (yes it took us 12 hours to make a 10 hour drive) We are staying with my friend Jami's parents. When I was little I told my mom I wanted to be just like Terri Baker when I grew up and I really haven't changed my mind :) She has made us feel so at home. 

I get to see my best friend today! And we are going to ihop! Then I get to see Jami tomorrow! (Jami in case I don't talk to you before you read this, we are hanging out tomorrow fyi...lol)