Weekend in the country.

What a great time we had last weekend in Chosica. We met 60 students and adults there for our summer missions orientation. It was a great time of fellowship, prayer, worship, and information on ministering and living in an Andean village. The orientation was at our Baptist Camp in Chosica which is outside of Lima. It is in a beautiful setting with rocky mountains a river. I got off to a ruff start as I missed my turn in very heavy traffic off of Javier Prado. I had to go a little out of the way to turn back, but we made it. I am getting better at negotiating the Lima traffic.

Rick Shepard taught a study on the Tabernacle and our team led in worship and other presentations. I was responsible for introductions and going over the schedule and Sandy helped present a segment on culture shock.

On Friday the team helped prepare a thanksgiving feast for the students and it took us all day, but it was worth it. Baked three turkeys, pans of dressing, cranberry fluff and sauce, homemade rolls, green beans, sweet potato casserol, and many deserts. Everyone had plenty to eat. It was also good Sunday evening for supper.

We are still in language study and it is progressing well, finally. It has been tough but seems to finally coming together. I found out today that I will begin traveling a lot beginning in July, and will be very busy. We had a small tremor on Saturday, shook the windows but that was about all.

I had to wire a light over our table the other day. That was an interesting experience. The wiring here is not like the wiring at home. Of course it is 240 and they don't use wire nuts, just tape hot wires off. You have no idea what feeds what, and I don't have my meter with me, so it was trial and error. Wow errors create a lot of sparks when you cross two hot 240 wires. But I finally figured it out, and the light works great. We can actually see what we are eating now.

Got to finish some Spanish studying. Miss everyone and look forward to seeing you again.

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.

We went to the ruins of Huaca Pucllana Saturday which is about a mile from our house, and we saw this Peruvian dog. This is an ancient breed from Peru. It was an interesting tour and some other pics can be seen on yahoo flickr by doing a people search of alan_sandyinperu.

This weekend has found both of us sick. Saturday afternoon I came down with stomach problems and Sandy followed today. Right now we both seem to have fully recovered and am ready for a good day tomorrow in language school.

This has been a weekend to catch up on reports, the IMB believes in paperwork, prepare for our Bible studies, Spanish homework. Got to study more of my verbs after I finish typing this. We are studying direct and indirect objects and I sure wish I had studied my English a little more.

I had about twenty in my Bible study last Wednesday night with three new faces. I had a chance to talk and share with a young lady after class. Her English was very poor so another class member translated for me. I was able to catch some of her conversation, and that was good. We are studying how to have a quiet time with a little English lesson at the beginning.

We have friends from Chavin coming into Lima tomorrow and we are looking forward to seeing them. It is two journeygirls that was in our quad during orientation. They will be here for a few days. They are precious young ladies and a true joy to be around.

It was so wonderful today. The sun was shinning and there was a cool breeze blowing. Fall is in the air. It is getting cooler and less humid. Well, guess I need to work on a few more verbs so I will go.

Earthquakes and more

Well, we survived our first two earthquakes in peru this past Saturday. The first one woke me up at about 1:40 in the morning and at first I didn't realize what was happening. It was over before I realized it was an earthquake. The second was about 7:30 in the morning and it was a bit stronger. We could feel the walls and floors vibrating in our apartment. It also didn't last very long, but it made for an eventful wake up call.

We had a great time for the beginning of our Bible study last Wednesday. There were about 20 people there and we had a great time opening the scriptures. We are studying how to have a quiet time for the next few weeks.

This has been a very hard week, following such a great Easter Sunday. I have been so down this week. This has been my lowest point so far. School is progressing but not at the pace I feel some people would like it to, and you know I put a lot of pressure on myself to fulfill other's expectations. The time crunch of preparing two Bible studies, homework from school, team meetings, and other responsibilities really at times seem overwhelming. Also at home our daughter is causing very difficult problems for our family and being three thousand miles away makes me feel so helpless. This is weighing very heavily on my mind this week. Please pray that God will deal with her and return her to a relationship with Him and with her family. How appropriate that on my computer I Surrender All is playing while I am writing this. All I can do is surrender all to Christ at this point and turn it over to Him.

Saturday night we had our dear missionary friends Arnold, Susie, and their son Patrick, over for dinner with Kathy Weaver. It was a great evening of fellowship over plates of spaghetti, and a home made chocolate cake, my first attempt in Peru. They are such a blessing and source of strength in our lives.

God Bless everyone and thank you so much for your emails and calls.

Your servants in Peru
Alan and Sandy

The picture is of the entire REAPSouth Team

What a schedule

We are very busy in Lima, Peru these days. Here is our schedule this week. Sunday morning church at Flamingo Road. Sunday afternoon at the office by 3:30 for a meeting. At 5:00 in the office Sandy and I teach a Bible Study. Home by 7:30 to prepare for school Monday morning. 8:30 Monday morning our taxi driver (Raul, a wonderful Christian brother) waits for us at the corner of our calle. School is from 9 to 1. Raul picks us up in front of the school and we head for our apartmento for lunch, and homework. We have to be at the office by 6:30 for a Bible Study we teach on Monday night. Home by 9 to finish homework and study verbs. Tuesday school and home for homework. Actually had time for Sandy and I to take a walk. Wednesday school until 1 with a 3:00 meeting at the office until 6. At 7 we teach another Bible Study until 8:30. Back home around 9 for homework and more español. Thursday school again and another team meeting at the office at 2:30 until 5. Home for supper and and evening of studying. Friday back to school until 1, but right now we don't have anything else on Friday. Next week we have a team retreat and the schedule gets even more jammed. That is the life of a missionary.

We have moved into our new apartment and it is so nice to be in our own place. I will get pictures posted hopefully by this weekend. They have done some remodeling and it really is a very nice apartment overlooking a large park. It is on a quiet street. The only problem is with the one way streets in Lima you can get here you just can't get out. It is interesting finding a route to take with all of the one way streets. You have to go around the world to get anywhere.

Forgot to tell you we had our first test in español and I made muy bueno, and Sandy did bueno.

The picture is of Sandy at the Annual General Conference in Chile.

It's Been a Great Week

We had a wonderful time last Sunday with Debbie Brinkley and Tommy Smith at a small church on the East side of Lima. There were probably 30 people there and they baptized two ladies during the service. This was a very crude church building but it served its purpose well. God was there and that is all that counts. They set up a 4 X 8 plastic pool with about 2 feet of water in it. They were so proud of their new pool. We are so spoiled in the United States with all of our stuff. We hung around and visited with the people after the service and shared in some refreshments.

We had some excitement on Thursday afternoon. Sandy was walking Kathy Weaver's dog in the park and was attacked by a large dog that was not on a leash. They were both ok, but I drove the dog to the vet and had her checked out just in case. Sandy was shaken up a bit but suffered no cuts or bites. They were both very blessed to get out of the attack with no damage.
Our apartment is getting close to completion. But I said that last week also. Peruvians work on their own time schedule. I could probable finish everything else in one day, but they will be lucky to finish it in one more week. There is an inch of dust everywhere because of the renovations. It is going to take lot of cleaning to get it ready to move into.

We went to Ace Hardware the other day to purchase a water filter for our apartment. It is a large Ace. Looks like lowes or Home Depot. It was fun to get in there and ramble. Our taxi driver Raul, who is a believer, went in with us to help interpret. He was a blessing, or rather he is a blessing. A little more expensive but very reliable and safe. He is going to the Bible Society on Tuesday afternoon to purchase some tracts.

We went to Starbucks on the Ovalo this morning to meet the extreme team girls that was at orientation with us. There were in from the jungle and it was great to visit with them and catch up. They were traveling back today via bus. It is a very long trip.

Spanish class is tough. So many new words and so many different ways to use them. So many grammer rules. This is tough, but God will see us through. Pray for us. Our friend Solomon is coming over Monday evening for supper and to help us with homework.

Tomorrow we are going to another small church with the Roberts. I first met them nine years ago on my first trip to Peru with RBC. It is going to be fun. Life is good in Lima.