Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

We have had a great time this Christmas and we are looking forward to the New Year. Hope you all are too!

News and Prayer Letters

Our first news and prayer letters are now available to download - here are the links:

The Family news & prayer letter

Daniel & Sophia's News and Prayer Letter

Visit to Blackwood

We recently visited Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Blackwood, near Newport. It was great to have the chance to meet with people there and to share some of our excitement about our move to Peru. It was also great to have lunch and meet people from other churches in the area.

Storytime at IMC

This is an impromptu gathering of the Holder and Roper children for bedtime stories at IMC. It was fantastic, and shows how good a time the children have been having here. It's very exciting to see, but also sad as we know it will come to an end soon. Please pray for Isaac, Daniel and Sophia, cos they will mis each other.

In other news...

Now that we have had our BMS Christmas, it is time for other celebrations. Daniel was 4 at the end of October, and he had 2 parties in Selly Oak and Enfield. He had loads of fun, and we can't believe that he is 4 already! We are blessed to be training with some very talented people, including Sarah who makes amazing cakes.



Meanwhile, Sophia has been busy preparing for Peru's rainy season:

The BMS Brigade

Excuse the delay in posting, but we have had some busy times recently, both in Selly Oak and Enfield in half term. Last week, we were delighted to be able to meet up with Scott, Anjanette, Jessica and Sam, the family that we will be working with - and initially living with - in Cusco. It was great to spend time with Scott and Anjanette, and wonderful to see how well the children played together, and proved that IMC is a fantastic place to play hide and seek. I use the term 'BMS Brigade' advisedly, as James and Julia are also in training at the moment, to go to Peru as long-term mission personnel. As the photo shows, there is a number of us, and we were excited to hear about the existing work in Peru, and looking forward to being part of God's mission in Peru.

Dorothy Day - A Taster

There's an article on the Sophia Network about Dorothy Day if anyone is interested - you can find it here. It talks a bit about Peru as well.

Christmas Time!

It was Christmas Day today at IMC, in honour of the Action Teamers. For the last month, we have been at IMC with a large number of 17-23 year olds, preparing to go in small teams for 6 months across the world! They will therefore be away from home at Christmas, and as it is their last night in Birmingham, we have been celebrating the seasonal festivities with them. We had a fantastic Christmas dinner, followed by the Mission Trainees (that's us!) putting on a very special Nativity, complete with lobsters, octopuses and a real baby acting as Jesus. Daniel was asked what animal he would like to be, and he said a grufallo. Sophia was, of course, an angel and I accompanied her. Neil was a shepherd. It was a special time where the whole community was involved and had a lot of fun! I love the family shot where our beautiful angel is picking her nose! And after a Christmas meal, there is always the washing up - Daniel can be seen wearing a beautiful hair net that we have to wear when washing up!

Culture Day

Today was 'Culture Day' at IMC. Yesterday, we were told of some new cultural rules that we were expected to adhere to during the course of today. These included dressing smartly, and the men having to be accompanied by someone else if they wanted to travel around. Also, they could only speak to a woman if she initated the conversation. It was a good learning experience to help us to think about the norms and expectations of different cultures. Daniel and Sophia got involved as well, although Sophia as a girl was meant to wear a dress that came below the knee. The dress I chose for her used to be long, but it seems as if she has grown! Daniel was also meant to wear a shirt, but the only shirt we had was part of a pirate costume, so he went off to nursery dressed as a pirate. Although I explained briefly that we were taking part in a culture day, some things got lost in translation and I picked him up later to discover that the children at nursery has also been joining in with 'Pirate Day' and following Pirate rules! Tomorrow, they are even having a treasure hunt! I love the fact that the nursery got involved - a true cross-cultural experience - and I also love the fact that the nursery leaders may have thought that we were having a pirate day here at IMC; I have images of us all chasing around the place looking for buried treasure. Maybe later in the term?...

The Next Steps...

So, here we are at IMC in Selly Oak, Birmingham. After what feels like a long time of preparation, we have begun the long road to Cusco. It has been a good first week and we have already made friends. This will come as no surprise to many, but there was always a slight fear that we would turn up for missionary training and find that everyone else was super-holy and saintlike. However - and I mean this in the best possible way - everyone is refreshingly normal, with the same doubts, questions, and in some cases, sense of humour as we have. I think that me and Neil are both going to really enjoy the training and appreciate the time when the children are in nursery. When we are all together, the time is precious, partly because we are catered for and don't have to spend time cooking!

One of our first assignments is to prepare a biography of a missionary. I have chosen to look at Dorothy Day and am already challenged by some of the things that she said:

'The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart; a revolution which has to start with each one of us.'

'We have all known the long loneliness, and we have found that the answer is community.'

In other matters, we have already had to visit the walk-in health centre, due to awful nappy rash (Sophia, of course...) and we have been in quarantine to a tummy bug. I have felt icky over the weekend, following a nasty virus the week before. I think that it is a mixture of fresher's flu, new nursery and finally having a chance to chill out after a hard August. If you like to pray, please pray that we will all soon return to full health... in time for Neil's hernia op on Friday!

He did it!

We were both hoping to run the Hackney Marshes 10k on Saturday, 11 September. Sadly, I came down with a virus and, despite working hard to train for it, I couldn't take part and spent the morning in bed watching Cemetery Junction! Neil on the other hand, completed it in 51 mins 33 secs (unofficial time), which is much better than I would have done! I am still hoping to run 10k beofre Christmas. Please contact us if you would like to retrospectively sponsor Neil, or sponsor me when I eventually get to do it! Hopefully, I can post a pic of Neil in action at some point.

Journeys

These are some photos taken last Friday night, when we held a photography and art exhibition & auction to raise money for Peru. The original idea came about because I work with so many talented and creative young people, and for ages I have wanted to display their work in some form. WHile talking to a group of young people, we came up with the idea of holding an exhibition on the theme of Journeys. Lots of people made a contribution, and these photos are the result! It was a great night, and we rasied over £500, but I also think it was a great way to rasie awareness of the brilliance if young people (and some not so young...)

Getting real...

This afternoon, the 4 of us had 9 injections between us, with Daniel taking 3 for the team. He was promised a treat and went for a juice lolly; personally I feel that he sold himself short and could have gone for a chocolate bar. We are booked in for more injections next week, and, following the medicals a couple of weeks ago, it is all starting to feel very real. I have started sorting out the house, as we will be moving out at the start of August, just over a month away. Thanks to the help and support of many people, we had a great time at the Peruvian night on Sunday and it provided a (literal) taster of what is to come. However, there is nothing like a needle in your aim to bring about a reality check, and it was this afternoon that it really started to hit home that we are actually doing this. We are leaving jobs, our house, friends and family and moving far, far away. We trust that God will continue to guide us, especially next week when the kids realise next week that they are about to be stanned with a needle again.

We'd love to invite you...

Peruvian Quizzes, Games, Food and Chat

Please come and join us on 27th June at Enfield Baptist Church for a taste of Peruvian life and further info on our forthcoming adventures.

The evening will begin at 6.30pm and end around 8pm.

Hope you can make it!

Taking risks

WHile at Spring Harvest recently, the topic of taking risks came up. I had been thinking about how scared I was about the whole aspect of going to Peru, and also coming back to England with no job, no house and no school for the kids etc. I know I should take this one day at a time, but my mind does wander sometimes! Anyway, as I refelcted on my mixed feelings and how out of my depth I felt, it suddenly hit me that this is what taking risks is about! If I didn't feel uncomfortable, a bit scared and unsure, then it wouldn't be a risk! We aren't called to have it all sorted, but to simply trust God. A friend recently sent me this great quote from Richard Rohr, which was a great encouragement:

Nothing good or creative emerges from business as usual. Much of the work of God is to get people into liminal space and to keep them there long enough so they can learn something essential.

Also, over the Easter hols, we popped up to the International Mission Centre to sort out childcare for our time there. We visited a great nursery just across the road, but they didn't know if we could get both children in there. The next day, they phoned to say they could both be there for 5 mornings! This may seem like a little thing, but it was a big weight off our minds and a timely reminder that God has everything in hand.

Things not to do when moving to another country...

If you don't like snakes, it is probably best to avoid googling 'snakes in Peru.' You mnay not like what you find. I don't know what I was expecting, really, considering that Peru contains rainforest! My hope is that surely there can't be many at high altitude?

Moving on...

I recently wrote an article for our church newsletter that explains a little more of how we decided to move to Peru. Here it is:

‘Well, I never thought that God would send me abroad, if I am honest.’ Instead of looking shocked by my acknowledgement that this wasn’t a life-long calling, my interviewers exchanged a wry smile. ‘You’d be surprised how many people sit here and say that,’ they laughed, making me a feel bizarre combination of relief and fear. Did this mean that we might actually get accepted?
The story of us going to Peru with the Baptist Missionary Society (BMS) began a long time ago as all of the best stories do. When Neil was 17, somebody prayed for him, and talked about him working in Mexico with street children. He has carried this with him for nearly 20 years, thinking and praying about how to act on it. I, on the other hand, had felt no such calling. In fact, at around the same age, I strongly believed that although I wanted to serve God with all of my heart, he did not plan to call me overseas.
We began to feel that God was gently tugging us to move on, and so we began to tentatively explore possibilities. We spoke to BMS and we found out more about Peru. A family of long-term missionaries have been living in Cusco, Peru for a short while. They have begun a cafe church and the ministry is rapidly growing with student work, a children’s club and support for the community of Yucay, which has recently been flooded. BMS had us in mind to go out with them as mid-term missionaries and support their work. The plan would be to move to Birmingham in September to train at the International Mission Centre and then fly to Peru in January for 2 years, beginning with 3 months of much needed language school. BMS would fund a number of the costs, but we would need to raise living costs. The more that we heard, the more excited we got and I began to think that perhaps God had other things in mind for me than what I had decided on his behalf!
We went away and prayed for confirmation. I don’t often ask this of God, but I did wonder whether he could send a very clear sign of what to do, the equivalent of Gideon and his fleece. This didn’t happen, but there were little things, such as casual comments from a young person about me taking a gap year. One Passion[fruit], we also looked at how Mary would have felt when she found out that she was pregnant with the Son of God. We decided that it was a mixture of scared, excited and completed freaked out, yet her response was ‘I am the Lord’s servant. Let it happen as you have said.’ Even as I spoke the words at Passion[fruit], I realised that this was how I felt about Peru and that I needed to echo Mary’s response. Neil felt at peace about going to Peru rather than Mexico and we began to seriously consider it.
The whole opportunity is so exciting. We hope that the experience will be great for the children as they learn a new language and live in a new culture. It is a huge adventure and will mean that we step out of our comfort zone in a way that we have never had to do before. It is a chance to fully rely on God; we will have to hold on to his promises that he will be there for us and provide for us. The passage about worrying and relying on God in Matthew 6 is already taking on a new significance. When I was baptised at 11, I said ‘I feel happy inside knowing that God is with me in my life and wherever he goes, I will follow him. Whatever he wants me to be in life, I will be. My ambitions can be forgotten because I love God so much that I am willing to give my life to him. After all, his son did the same for me.’ I stand by these words and want to serve him and others wherever that takes me and my family.

However, as people were congratulating us on the day that we were accepted, our initial feeling was one of shock. It was one thing to offer ourselves in this service to God and talk about doing it, but he was actually taking us up on it! Maybe this was a little of how Mary felt a few months after the Angel had visited and a baby bump was actually forming. We are truly excited, but still nervous. It is encouraging to see Daniel getting excited about Spanish, schools and Skype. He is picking up the language already, confirming that he and Sophia will be much better than us. It will be so hard to leave friends and family, but we look forward to this opportunity to serve God, knowing that he is hemming us in behind and before. And if you see me looking slightly bemused and wide-eyed in the months ahead, please pray for me and perhaps remind me of the words that I have written here.

The Adventure Begins

So, this is where it all begins. We have been accepted to work in Cusco, Peru with the Baptist Missionary Society (BMS). The plan is to move to Birmingham in September to spend a term training at the International Mission Centre and fly out to Peru in January 2011 for 2 years. We will use this blog to update everyone on what is happening as we prepare to leave and while we are out there. More to follow...