Ninos Del Peru (children of Peru)

The goal of BCM is to “Reach Children and Plant Churches Worldwide.” Brian and I joined BCM International because that’s the desire of our hearts as well! Before coming to Peru, we learned that Peru has the highest percentage of illegal abortions… in the world. Whether or not this is true, we’re not sure. But, we DO know that the percentage of abortions here is abnormally high. I talked with a friend of ours here this week about it and she confirmed that abortions here, illegal though they may be, are done in crazy high numbers.

One of the things we see frequently posted literally all over are signs that say, “Atrso Mensual?” with a phone number underneath. They’re not very big, always white, and literally pasted everywhere there’s space. We were told that these are all advertising illegal abortion clinics. Yesterday, on the way to a town about 20 minutes away, I counted 85. Before I quit counting. Halfway to the town. That’s too many.

The other issue in Peru is human trafficking. Prostitution is legal; trafficking people of any age is not. However, many of the street children here in Lima have been brought here against their will from the mountains and the jungle. There’s a whole section in Lima made up of women brought here from Iquitos. Most of the places labeled “Hostal” are actually brothels – with trafficked women. We could not believe it when we read last week that so many kids on the streets – that we see every day – are actually kidnapped and working for their kidnapers. Makes us wonder how many of the kids we see every day are not supposed to be here.

So, how can you help us? Please pray with us for our “Casa Hogar” – our orphanage. BCM Peru has been trying to open an orphange since 2002. But, the paperwork has been stuck in government issues this entire time. We still can’t see an end in sight – and yet, we frequently have children left here that are in need of a home. Two of the missionary families here are known for taking in kids who need a home, putting them through high school, and helping them through Bible school. We need a Children’s Home – preferably 7 years ago when we wanted it.

You can also pray for our Apoyo (evangelism) team. Occasionally, they are given the opportunity to go into schools and talk about abstinence. But, “talking” about abstinence doesn’t fix the problem. I would love to see us doing more to help the pregnant women in the area who have nowhere else to go and no one to help them. An anonymous sign on a post is about the only help they have right now. And heaven knows, that’s NOT help!

Pray for Brian and I as we see how we fit into this picture. Pray for the leaders of Pennies for Peru – Robert and Zarela – as they deal first hand with children needing homes and help every week.

Peru’s population is over 50% under the age of 18. We live in the middle of the 4/14 window and we desire to be affective in reaching these little ones for Christ.

Long Awaited Updated House Pictures!

We finally have some updated pictures of our house to show you! So, without further ado…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our whole house got varnished in August! It finally doesn’t look like Monster House!

 

 

 

 

 

 

My dad came in August and purchased blinds for our downstairs windows for us. So generous! We now have privacy! What a concept!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the completed kitchen! You can see our tiny oven in the middle. I don’t care how small it is – it works and it works great! Although, our floor is tipped just slightly to the back, so sometimes cakes come out lopsided. Ha!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Both bathrooms are painted now! Phew! We hung a big mirror on the wall behind the door in the upstairs bath and then put a light above it. The goal is to get some kind of shelving system to put underneath it eventually. The colors look wonderful, don’t they?!

Our living room, complete with coffeetable and end tables. We purchased them at a local Industrial Park where you literally have blocks and blocks of stores selling furniture. You haggle your prices and pick the store that gives you the best deal AND has the quality you’d like. Normally, delivery is free AND you can tell them how you want them made, what color wood, how big, etc. These were all supposed to be white and wood, but we nixed the white part and got them done in all wood. Gorgeous!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The coffeetable up close. I (Lisa) have always wanted a coffeetable and I absolutely love this one. Complete with room for pictures!

We still need to get pictures of our bedroom. Also, Brian has made a flower garden in the front of the house and once he gets the flowers planted this week, we’ll get a picture of that as well. He’ll be going with our gardner who knows a place where you can buy large, gorgeous bushes and other flowers for 50 cents apiece! Crazy!! Brian also wants to get a nice tree for our front yard, which shouldn’t cost us more than a couple bucks. Brian is working on clearing our backyard of giant rocks (the name of our town is “Picapiedra”, literally translated, it means “bedrock” and was named for all the ROCKS in our ground) and wants to build a firepit behind the house. He already found some bricks and a grill and cooked over the fire this weekend; it’ll be nice to have an actual firepit that we can sit around this summer.

Lots of improvements! Feels more and more like home!

Answers to Prayer!

We just wanted to let you know that after we started talking about culture stress and after expressing some of our frustrations, we had such an encouraging week! Found out that everyone here were miles ahead of us and had already implemented ways to help us out. We also heard from several of you – finding out you’ve been praying for us and thinking of us.

We saw our Father God taking care of us and aware of our needs before we were even aware of them. Maybe that’s the reason we went through a bad week – so we would be reminded of how well God is taking care of us!

Thanks for your prayers; we still need them. We’ll try to be more upbeat in the future!

Culture Stress 101

We try to keep this blog rather upbeat, sharing with you the successes and joys of the ministry. However, we also desire to keep our life honest before you, our supporters and friends. In doing so, we felt we needed to tell you a little about life these days.

            Month #7 is upon us and we are beginning to see where all of our cultural training last year is going to come in handy! We always knew it was going to be useful, but we didn’t know when and we certainly didn’t know exactly how.

            “Culture Stress” (not necessarily “shock”) affects a person in a variety of ways. The most obvious are physically and mentally. Although a lot of people don’t realize that physical health can be directly related to culture stress, it sure is a good indicator that one is experiencing it. The mental aspect is a little more subtle and if one is not willing to talk about it, others may never know they are experiencing it. But, people tend to become more reclusive and to back out of things that are out of their comfort zone and begin to do only things they are completely comfortable with – or things that remind them of the life they left behind.

            We, personally, are experiencing culture STRESS (emphasis on the STRESS) in a variety of ways right now. Our health has not been where it should be. We both got hit with nasty head colds and for Brian, that meant lying in bed for two days straight – something that never happens. We both feel that getting these colds was merely the culmination of weeks of stress and misunderstandings with our co-workers, extra responsibilities, and just plain STRESS of the ministry.

            Culture Stress is also affecting us mentally. We’re finding ourselves to be more negative towards our responsibilities and our teammates than ever before. Things that never bothered us before about our jobs or our teammates are bothering us BIG time now. Things that never used to stress us out or make us upset are definitely doing that now. We’re trying hard to keep these negative thoughts, feelings, and attitudes from affecting us, but to be brutally honest – it can be really hard.

            To give you an idea of what adapting to another culture is like, imagine these circumstances:

• Everybody around you speaks another language, a language you’re not completely familiar with.
• They believe you understand more than what you actually do, so they no longer translate or aid in any way.
• But, you don’t understand. So, you pester them with questions. They get frustrated that you don’t understand yet and start making it obvious that it’s YOUR fault for not knowing the language.
• You get left out of events and activities because they don’t think you’d want to participate (because you’re not from their country) and they don’t really know what to do with you anyway.
• The weather, climate, and seasons are completely opposite to what you have experienced your entire life. All the plants and allergens are brand new – some you’ve never even seen before. And you’re now exposed to illnesses you’ve never had, therefore, you have no natural immunity built up to fight them.
• Food is very different. Everything is watered with sewer water, therefore nothing is particularly safe to eat without extensive cleaning and sanitizing. However, you can’t be careful 100% of the time, so something always seems to sneak by – whether it be a piece of fruit not washed in chlorinated water or fresh juice made from tap water.
• Because you are the only person from another country working in this area, nobody understands exactly how careful you need to be in what you eat and they get frustrated with how frequently you seem to get sick. They also don’t realize they need to help you find your way around and fill you in on normal happenings. They tend to forget that you have not been a life-long resident.
• You are thousands of miles from family and friends. You miss out on babies, weddings, birthdays, special events, and holidays. People tend to forget you because you’re so far away, so you feel completely left out of the loop of information most of the time. So, you begin to feel disconnected from that side of the ocean… while feeling disconnected from the area you’re supposed to be getting connected to.

 So, here we are. In no way, shape, or form do we want to return to the States. We are by no means dissatisfied by our life, our jobs, or our ministry. We have made some wonderful friends and are making great progress in language and feeling like we know where and how we fit in down here.

We are, however, asking that you pray for us during this difficult time. We knew culture STRESS would hit us eventually – it was inevitable! But, it’s up to us how far we sink into the stress of it all and it’s up to us on how we handle it. We need your prayers! We need your encouragement! You may think that mailing us a hand-written note, talking about life and nothing in particular, is a waste of time – let me tell you, it’s NOT. Being remembered, either by email or snail mail or whatever, is one of the BIGGEST ways you could help us out right now. We’re approaching the holiday season and down here, of course, it’s NOT the holiday season, minus Christmas. So, everything is different. We’re heading into genuinely HOT weather, no snow, no fall beauty. We’re ending the school year and beginning summer – not starting the school year and beginning winter. We can’t find a turkey, and stuffing and cranberry sauce are nowhere to be had. Ham is extremely expensive and scalloped potatoes are unheard of.

So…. Pray for us. Things are not always bleak and we really do love where we’re at. We know God has brought us here, therefore He will carry us through. Thanks for thinking of us!

Primavera~Spring!

The end of September hails the beginning of spring for us here in Peru! We cannot even begin to express to you how wonderful it is to finally see the sun! Since about the middle of June, we’ve only had a few hours of sun a couple times a week. We live in a river valley and the fog just settles in down here, normally thick enough that it feels like drizzly rain. Day in and day out, that gets a little old. But, lately, the fog has been lifting higher and higher and today, it actually DOES feel like spring!

To celebrate the coming of spring, we had a few fun activities last week here at the Bible school. Wednesday was our day of Olympics! All the IBYM students were divided into teams and they competed in a day of Olympic-like events (long jump, high jump, relays, etc). We ate Peru’s famous coastal dish for lunch – cebiche. Cebiche is raw fish “cooked” (marinated, really) in lemon and herbs until it is just perfect, then it’s served with chicarron (fried meat, sometimes fish, sometimes pork or chicken), sweet potato, and corn. We finished out the day with a fancy banquet that evening where everyone was to have a date and the boys were given an opportunity to buy roses for the girls. Here’s a few pictures from the Olympics so you can see the activities:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then on Friday afternoon, we planted flowers around the campus, trying to get into the feeling of spring. All the kids (including the ones that don’t attend my school) were able to help plant flowers around the school building. It was awfully cold and windy Friday afternoon, but the kids really had a lot of fun planting flowers!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A couple of weeks ago, we had an event called “Festiclub” here at camp. Festiclub is held a couple times a year and is a time for all the Bible clubs in an area to come together and have competitions for a day. They all get dressed up in their club colors and they compete in areas of banner (they make their own team banner), color (they have to wear as much of their color as possible), song (they make up a song or chant for their team), verses, and knowledge from their club times. The third year students are in charge of the different Festiclubs and they work with the club leaders to get the kids to come and participate well. Festiclub for the cities of Manchay, Pachacamac, Picapiedra, and Via El Salvador was held here at IBYM. They had a pretty good turnout and it was SO fun watching the kids get excited about Bible club!