A day in the life...

Bad news: An early morning phone call to the DVLA confirms that I can't register to update my photo for the driving licence as I am living in Peru, and to do so would be illegal. In 2 weeks my drivers licence is out of date. Attempts to get the children to school and the house sorted leaves me a bit late for language (and slightly grumpy)

Good news: It is our final day at Language School! We have had a great time and loved getting to know our teachers (and attempting to get to know SPanish too.) However,especially in the last few weeks it has been hard to balance language with our other commitments and we are glad to be moving to the next stage. We took our long suffering and very patient teachers, Jose Carlos and Jimmy out for lunch to say a very big thank you!



Good news: after lunch, I went to town and bought tickets for Machu Picchu - we go in 7 weeks and Neil's parents arrive in 6 weeks! I am getting very over-excited.

Bad news: the trip to the dentist proved that my 2 sensitive teeth need new fillings, and one may need root canal treatment. Nowhere near as expensive as the UK, but still unpleasant and requiring money. I am not liking the combination of my weak teeth and altitude.

Good news: One of the letters that I picked up from the POst Office was a tax rebate. It can pay for the dental work. I feel like a proper mission worker with tales to tell of having to trust God for his provision and Him always providing at the right time.

Bad news: It is a cheque, which we can't cash in Peru... and so the day continues.

As much as our day has had its ups and downs, we end the day happpy and in good health (apart from 2 misbehaving teeth). Please remember in your prayers Sylvia, who yesterday had a day of great emotion with the funerals of both her husband and her brother, and please remember her and her family in the coming weeks and months as they continue to grieve and adjust. I hope to write soon of the privilege of being a part of Manuel's funeral. God's presence was so evident yesterday in the midst of the sadness, but he is just as present today in normal life with all its beauty, boring bits, struggles and phone calls to call centres to the UK. I just need to keep my heart and mind open to him.

Sad Times

It has been an emotinally draining and strange weekend. Last night, a lovely, lovely man from the church died. He was 76, but it all happened very suddenly, and was therefore a shock to us all. A lot of his family also come to the church and it is obviously a sad time . His funeral is on Tuesday. If you pray, please pray for his friends and family at this time.

Welcome Surprises

Last week, I noticed that a team from St Thomas' Brampton, Chesterfield were in Lima, working with Paul and Sarah Tester, CMS Mission workers. Neil was the Youth and Children's Worker at the church before we moved (back) to Enfield. After a quick exchange of emails, today we met up with Catherine and Michael Mann. It was a great opportunity to catch up with news from Chesterfield and fill them in on some of our adventures in Peru.

Funnily enough, last week I received an email out of the blue from an old friend from Chesterfield, Karen. She is very artistic and after reading a previous post on the blog, El Puente, was inspired to create this beautiful textile.



Here is her description:

The brown arch represents The Bridge church & the actual bridge (even though it doesn’t look anything like the more modern bridge in Cusco!)
The yellow- radiating light is God’s love (hopefully radiating from the church).
The leaves represent both the leaves that the girl was laying out on the bridge to sell but also the individual different people that the church is ministering to.
The 3 red/ orange leaf shapes represent the Trinity/ power of the Spirit & the 3 coins both the Trinity but also echo the poverty of the people & the fact that the little girl was selling the leaves.

It was very moving to read this. We often post things on the blog and aren't sure if it is interesting or useful to people, so it was so encouraging to discover that our reflections could inspire such beauty. Thanks Karen.

McDonald's

Today we had our first visit to McDonald's as a family, and my and Amanda's first visit since 2005. It was a party for one of Daniel's school friends, and was lots of fun. Daniel won a prize for his dancing, and both kid's had sweets, nuggets, chips and cake. So not necessarily the place we would have chosen to go but lots of fun was had by Daniel and Sophia.

Happy birthday El Puente

Last weekend, the church celebrated its second birthday. Celebrations included a women's evening with lots of cake, a special church service, involving the welcoming of new members, balloons and a meal at Daniel's favourite place in Cusco, Magic Chicken. We booked a table for 40 people, but it turned out to be more than 70! During the church service, Scott showed everyone the BMS Harvest video Sacred Soil, filmed in Cusco and Yucay. There was also lots of photos shown, marking the development of the church in more recent months. It was great to have been a part of the story in more recent months.

Sorry - we didn't take loads of pics and the church was more packed by the end of the service!

Are there some things that can't be forgiven?

I have just had an article published on the BMS website; you can find it here.

It deals with difficult issues, such as child rape and murder, so isn't necessarily a light read. It seems particularly poignant at this time, as people in the UK are dealing with feelings of anger and outrage following the looting and rioting.

El Campamento

What a week it has been! With a mixture of holiday club, the church anniversary and having James and Julia to stay, the youth camp feels like a very long time ago. Over the years, I have been to a fair few residentials, but this was my first experience in Peru. Without knowing what to expect, I may have over-packed. As I turned up, one of the young people murmured that I was a gringa, as we compared the size of our bags.



The camp wasn't really a camp at all, but was based at a school in Pisac, in the Sacred Valley near Cusco. It was all very civilised with bunk beds, showers and flushing toilets. I am not knocking Carroty Wood, which has a special place in my heart, but the views in Pisac were more spectacular than the Kent countryside, as beautiful as it is!



The camp itself was a mixture of games, meetings and training. The young people also had to choose a skill and spent the weekend preparing for an evangelistic event on the Saturday, and was a great opportunity to put new skills into action. There was lots of fun and an abundance of life. Although the theology and teaching was not completely my style, I loved the hearts of the young people and the leaders.

Most importantly, it was a great opportunity to spend time with the young people http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giffrom the church. It is impossible to quantify how important it was just to be able to chat and hang around together. We had lots of fun, I had lots of opportunites to practice my Spanish and we got very, very muddy! It is a great foundation for the youth work, and I am praying that we can build on this in the weeks and months ahead.



Videos from the camp can be seen here.

Holiday Club

Monday and Tuesday of this week we had a holiday club here in Peru in a place called Huambutio. It was held outside in the grounds of the school, and ran from 10am to 12 pm each day. The programme was fairly standard for a holiday club with craft, games, music, songs, teaching and stories. However, the event itself was anything but standard. Both mornings we started about 10.45am (children arriving late on the first day and the late arrival of the person opening up on the second day), giving us lots of time to fill with the children who turned up roughly on time.



Once we got started each day there was lots of fun with the singing, craft and games.



There were some very dramatic stories, and teaching which left the children with the message of Jesus love, in a situation where love is not always present in their lives. One of the children commented to Scott that he would always remember about Jesus love, but said that there wasn't much love at his house.



One of the most exciting aspects of the club was the way that so many people worked together from the church. It was great to see so many people involved, and so many people having such a great time together.



So that was a taste of our holiday club, report on the youth camp to follow...