December 2016
Hello everyone! It's been a while since we've updated here, and as usual, a lot has happened :)
We made it to Lima!
Thanks to favor from the Lord and your prayers, travel went smoothly :) Originally we were scheduled to pass through Chicago and Canada to arrive in Lima (crazy, I know...and cheap!) but upon arrival at the Tulsa airport, we learned our first flight was delayed so much that we would miss all other connecting flights. The airline quickly offered to fly us from Tulsa, to Houston, and straight on to Lima! A flight that would have originally cost almost double what we paid for the Canada tickets :) Wow! And it was so much easier and faster!
We arrived around midnight and were greeted by friends and family, some of whom we hadn't seen in years. Such a sweet reunion!
Since arriving, we have lived in 3 different places.
First with Daniel's parents for a few weeks through the holidays. This was a great opportunity to reconnect with family and old neighborhood friends. It also confirmed our heart for the hurting and lost specifically in the neighborhood where Daniel grew up and that one day we will move back there :)
Next, we moved into the apartment of a friend of a friend who was traveling. This apartment was close to the neighborhood where we were looking for a permanent place to live, La Calera. It's on the 11th floor of the building and has a spectacular view of the entire community. Looking out the window everyday, we were reminded to pray constantly for our new neighborhood.
After a few weeks of searching and preparing our hearts, the Lord led us to where we are now :)
The Lord is really connecting us with the community as a family and as a church family. We're getting to know our neighbors, shopkeepers in the market, neighborhood security guards, moms and kids in the park, etc.
Mary and the girls frequent a park that's a couple blocks away with the purpose of creating friendships with the neighborhood families. It is always full every weekday around 5pm when the sun starts going down. Going to the park is really great way to connect with people!
Twice a week for the past few weeks, a small group of us have gotten together to play with the kids in the park. We do activities like story time, Spanish/English songs, games, puppet shows, etc. There have been anywhere from 15-40 kids at a time. The minute we get to the park, the kids start running up asking what we brought to do today :) We've also had some good conversations with moms, dads, and grandparents. The plan is to stick with two times a week for one more week and since school starts the beginning of March, move down to once a week. We're also praying about starting a mom's group on a regular basis in one of our homes.
We've gotten to know some families that live in the neighborhood but haven't even met the folks that live in the same compound as us. They come in a different entrance than us and it seems like our schedules are quite different. Pray that we can connect somehow with them.
These past few months have had their difficulties but, through it all, our faith and trust in the Lord have grown.
We had some hard moments with all of the transition and moving, especially Ellie and Adela, but now we're starting to get settled in. It helps that the girls are making new friends at the park and that we are developing more structure in our home.
Keep praying for Ellie's schooling situation. There are a lot of hoops to jump through to put her in a national school. They start in March and the schools are filling up fast. In the next week or so, she will have to take a test to prove she can enroll in 3rd grade. But even in this, we've seen God's faithfulness. When we first asked how to enroll her in school here, we were told, over the phone, by the Department of Education that there were documents that needed to be professionally translated and certified by the Peruvian consulate in the US. We went to their offices and asked the same question face to face and were told the same thing :) But then Daniel explained that it would be extremely difficult and inconvenient to get these papers, and they said, "OK, all you have to do, then, is fill out this form and have your daughter take a placement test." No up front fee, no translated and certified documents. Hallelujah!
Also, please pray for health. We've all had our share of sickness, including Daniel's parents.
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