Another month and another birthday. We celebrated Sandy's birthday two Sunday's ago with a big meal at Mike and Kathy's apartment. It was a great day. I made Sandy a peanut butter cake, and Kathy made a chocolate cake. All of the team was there and a special thank you to Arnold for smoking the ham. Great job.

Last Sunday we were able to celebrate Santa Cena or the Lord's Supper at church. Also 14 people were baptized and the Sanctuary was full. The music was great and uplifting. We sang celebrative songs during the baptisms and it created a wonderful atmosphere. It was a great service. After the service we all went (Reapsouth Team) to La Granja de Abuelo for pollo a la brasa. It is a wonderful place to eat. The food is excellent and fairly reasonable.

Sunday evening was our monthly English Fellowship fellowship time. We had popcorn, chips, drinks and a movie, (in English). It was a great time with about 50 students attending. They really enjoyed the snacks and listening, and practicing their English. I have included a picture of some of the students. The office was packed.

Tomorrow we will travel to a camp outside of Lima for a time or orientation for our summer mission students. We will have about 60 students and adults there. We will enjoy times of prayer, worship, testimonies, Bible study, and lots of pertinent information about living in the mountain villages. The students will go out in teams of three to villages all over Southern Peru. Please pray for them as they travel and minister in the mountain villages.

Almost forgot to share an interesting story. The mission purchased us a box spring and mattress a couple of weeks ago. Well, we live on the fourth floor of our apartment building, and they couldn't come up the elevator or the stairs. They had to use ropes and haul the mattress and box spring up through our window. It was an interesting experience. Will try to post a pic.

Last Saturday we went to the Museo De Arte De Lima in downtown Lima. It was very interesting with many wonderful exhibits of art and pottery. The Silver exhibition was beautiful and the museum is housed in a huge Colonial Period mansion. It is well worth the trip and only cost us 6 soles to get in. It was a 2 for one day. What luck.

Alan and Sandy in Peru

What a wonderful time celebrating my 55th birthday with the REAPSouth team. We gathered at Mike and Kathy's apartment for a birthday lunch. The picture is of me with the birthday cake that Kristen baked and decorated for me. It was so good. A big thank you to everyone for such a wonderful birthday.

We have completed language school, but after a short break we are studying again with a tutor. She is a wonderful Peruvian lady and has such a good spirit about her. Today we went on a field trip to the grocery store and made purchases and used our Spanish with her. She rides three different buses for a total of 11/2 hours to get to our apartment for class. Sandy and I met separately for class because we are at different levels.

It was an interesting day. We have been having problems with our telephone and internet service. They called from the mission office yesterday and reported the problem. Well, the service tech showed up this morning and of course he speaks no English. Our housekeeper was here this morning and she speaks no English. Our tutor speaks very little English, so communication was interesting. We finally had to call a young Peruvian lady on our team to translate for us. He could not understand the vonage phone that it wasn't for local calls. He thought we were using two phones and only paying for one. So he diagnosed the problem and then we had to call the phone company again and schedule another service call to fix the problem. Same language problem again but anyway it is fixed and cost us nothing, and that was the best news. Even small jobs become large and complicated when you only speak a little of the language.

Our English fellowship and Bible study is going great. We still have about 18 to 20 students and each week we see one or two new faces. We continue to build relationships with them and they are so eager to learn. They are such a blessing to us and minister to us every week.