The wikipedia definition–Chick flick is a slang term for a film mainly dealing with love and romance designed to appeal to a female target audience.  Although many types of films may be directed toward the female gender, “chick flick” is typically used only in reference to films that are heavy with emotion or contain themes that are relationship-based.

Yes, it’s true.  I can almost always go for a good chick flick.  I saw one recently and it got me thinking.  What is it about these movies that draw us to them?  “Us,” being girls, typically, as the definition says.  Love, romance, relationship.  Words that either make you sigh and bat your eyelashes, or sigh and make you crinkle up your nose.

This particular film that I saw stuck with me for a couple of days, so I couldn’t help but ask why.  And I couldn’t help but write about it.

To me, this is one way a good chick flick can go:  Boy likes girl.  But girl initially rejects boy.  Their paths continue to cross and eventually the girl decides to be friends with the boy.  Despite her rejections and hardness of heart, the boy accepts the girl as she is, and he enjoys her company.  He decides she is worth pursuing even if she does put up a fight.  He believes in her, values her, adores her.  All the while she is blind to this, because it is too hard for her to accept him for who he is, and also too hard for her to accept that she is who he sees her to be.  She fights against his love for her.  She fights against the love she feels for him.  But the boy is patient, kind, forgiving.  He is up for the challenge and continues to give her grace that she doesn’t deserve, because he can’t deny his heart.  She is worth fighting for.  But he endures another rejection and has to let her go.  He knows she has to decide on her own that she is who he saw her to be all along.  He knows that she has to believe on her own that he is the one she loves and the one that she is meant to love forever.  When the veil is finally lifted from her heart then she goes to him and makes herself vulnerable like he had been with her all along.  He could say many things in response to her, but he says the truth he can’t deny… “I love you.  I never stopped loving you.”

Roll the credits.  I take a great sigh, bat my eyelashes and imagine how they live happily ever after.

Then it’s back to reality, right?  Well, I woke up the next morning after watching that movie and read my devotional thought for the day.  From Sarah Young’s, Jesus Calling:

Come to Me. Come to Me. Come to Me.  This is My continual invitation to you, proclaimed in holy whispers.  When your heart and mind are quiet, you can hear Me inviting you to draw near.  Coming close to Me requires no great effort on your part; it is more like ceasing to resist the magnetic pull of My Love.  Open yourself to My loving Presence, so that I may fill you with My fullness.  I want you to experience how wide and long and high and deep is My Love for you, so that you can know My Love that surpasses knowledge.  This vast ocean of Love cannot be measured or explained, but it can be experienced.  Rev. 22:17, John 6:37, Eph. 3:16-19.

Wow.  So this is why I love chick-flicks so much!   It’s true!  It is the reality of how God pursues a love relationship with mankind!  Girls, next time your man rolls his eyes at the mention of you wanting to go see another chick-flick, just reassure him that it’s the Godly thing to do!

Just kidding.  Sort of.

No, really, though.  The other reason why this particular chick-flick stuck with me is because it was all too familiar.  You can substitute “boy” in that description above with “Wes,” and “girl” with “Stacy.”

Wes and I are celebrating 9 years of marriage!  On August 24, 2002 I married the most amazing man.  I married my best friend.  I married the one I was waiting for–someone who would love God more than he would ever love me.  I married Wes, took a great sigh, batted my eyelashes, and dreamed of how we would live happily ever after.

The Lord knows the kinds of trials we have been through over these last 9 years.  And the kinds of trials that we went through before we even got married!   Who ever said being in a committed relationship was easy?  If you have been told that, then you have been straight up lied to.  Happily ever after doesn’t mean perfectly easy.  It means that even when times are tough you hold on tight to the promise that God will see you through that fire.  And then you rejoice together, because you endured the flames and came out stronger, together.  Closer, with a greater dependence on your Lord.

It was about 10 years ago when that veil was lifted from my eyes and I could finally see what was before me clearly.  I began to realize that Wes has taught me more about God’s grace and unconditional love than anyone I’ve ever known.  And since that day I am constantly given a picture, in the flesh, of what my relationship with God is like.  What it was like.  What it is supposed to be like.  What it can be like.  What it will be like with time.  Who ever said being in a committed relationship with God was easy?  If you have been told that, then you have been straight up lied to.

But maybe there is something you haven’t been told.  Here it is again.  What God says to you,

Coming close to Me requires no great effort on your part; it is more like ceasing to resist the magnetic pull of My Love.  Open yourself to My loving Presence, so that I may fill you with My fullness.  I want you to experience how wide and long and high and deep is My Love for you, so that you can know My Love that surpasses knowledge.  This vast ocean of Love cannot be measured or explained, but it can be experienced.

It’s true.  It can be experienced.  God desires intimacy with us.  A kind of intimacy that is even greater and stronger than the kind of intimacy between husband and wife.  It can’t be explained.  But it can be experienced.

Thank you, my Lord, and my God for pursing me even when I fight against the magnetic pull of Your love.  Thank you for not giving up on me.  And thank you, sweet Lord, for giving me Wes.  I don’t deserve him, as I don’t deserve You.  But I will praise You and thank You all the more!

Happy Anniversary, Wesley.  I love you more and more each day.  It is such a privilege to live this adventure with you.  Thank you for loving our God even more than you’ll ever love me.

When we walked out of the terminal after getting off the airplane in Houston we were asking, “Why is this hall space so BIG?  They are actually driving large carts around inside the airport!  There is SO MUCH space.”

“I can understand EVERYTHING that everyone around me is saying!  And I can read what ALL the signs say!” ~ Stacy

When Wes got back from setting up our temporary phones he said, “I am an English speaking SUPERSTAR!  I can do anything!”

At 8:30 PM (when our kids are normally in bed) it was still bright outside.

Again, there’s so much empty/extra space.  Wes said, “What’s that over there?  A park?”  I answered, “No, actually it’s just land not being used for anything.”

After eating a meal using those blue and red hard plastic plates and cups I saw everyone start to throw them away.  I thought, “What?!  Why are we throwing these away?  We can totally reuse these like at least 50 more times!” But I threw them away anyway, and strangely felt kind of guilty about it.

Derek was one year old when we arrived in Lima, so this was his first time in Texas where he was old enough to really differentiate his surroundings.  Our second day in we were sitting at little restaurant and I saw him turn around in his chair and look around the room pensively.  Then he said curiously, “Mommy.  Everybody in here is speakin‘  Engwish.”  It was really cute and I explained it was because we were in the U.S. and not Peru.

Everywhere we went seemed extra clean and extra fancy–the roads, the sides of the roads, the buildings, the houses, the insides of the houses, the stores, the restaurants, etc.  The wealth of our country was so “in your face” and obvious.

In Texas, if you have 4 or 5 blocks distance to get somewhere, then you drive there.  Walking there doesn’t even cross your mind.  And there are no taxis or buses.

Beef.  Lots and lots of yummy beef.  This was not a shock, but it was still so amazingly good.  At the end of our time there Wes said that he thinks Whataburger is still his first option if he wants a good burger (if you are on facebook, then you saw how that was his profile pic for most of our trip).

Hours and hours of driving on nearly perfectly paved and clean roads and highways.

Drivers that stay in their own lane, don’t honk all the time, stop at stop signs, and don’t turn left from the far right lane (or visa versa).

Rain!  Even though Texas has been in its worst drought in like 40 years, we still saw more rain there than we have in our 2 years here in Lima…combined!  We live in a desert region, people!  Dew, we know.  Mist we know.  But rain–not here.  The climate in Lima is like nothing you have ever experienced.

Mrs. Baird’s bread is soooooo soft.

Doing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen was a privilege.  Love those dishwashers!

Sun.  Sun, sun, and MORE sun! (It is cloudy and overcast in Lima for about 8 to 9 months out of the year.)

So, those were the things that stood out to us the most.  It is really interesting how we learn to adapt to the different cultures that we experience.  It has been such a wonderful, exhausting, fun, stressful, emotional, joyous, difficult, and amazing adventure that we have been on!  We have so many things to be thankful for and we are so often reminded of how important it is to have a loving friendship with our Jesus.  When everything around you is changing, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

We were very intentional about trying to make our two month furlough during the Texas summer.  Here are the reasons why:

1. Wes and I have always enjoyed hot summer days that drench you in sweat.  We’d prefer that over shivering in the cold any day, so you did not hear us complain one bit about the 100 plus degree weather of Texas!
2. Summer time is when cousins and Gran are on their school vacation!
3. Now that Jake is in school, summer time furloughs work out great with his school schedule, too.  At ICSL the students get at least one month off for the Peruvian summer (January) and at least one month off for the American summer.

So here’s a quick overview of our time in Texas:

Our first three weeks were spent with our supporting church in Kaufman and we were SO blessed by this time with them.  We love our church family there and we are super excited about the new couple they just hired to work and serve in the role of Senior Minister–Doug and Lana Page!

While trekking across Texas, we were able to spend some time in Houston, College Station, Corpus Christi, Kaufman, Fort Worth, Levelland, San Antonio, New Braunfels, and Chapel Hill.  Great times with family and friends!  I know there are many of you that we didn’t get to touch base with, but know that we think of you often and appreciate you, and we would love to try and meet with you on our next trip down.  OR you always have a place here in Lima if you get a hunch to see the Peruvian sights!

We spent time with both of our families and were able to do almost everything you could possibly do in the summer time–went to the pool, went to the beach, went to the lake, went camping on the river, went to a water park, the Ft. Worth Zoo, and a Ranger baseball game!  The boys had a blast and so did we!  And thanks to some dear, sweet friends in Kaufman, we were also treated to the Dallas Museum of Nature and Science.  Thanks again, Sandra and Lisa!  The boys will cherish their time at the dinosaur exhibits, children’s museum, imax, and the planetarium (and so will we, because those are great memories)!

We also got to celebrate Derek’s 3rd birthday on July 4th weekend! (I’ll write a whole other post for that one).

Stay tuned.  My vacation is over, and I apparently have a lot to say, so many more updates to come.  (And eventually Wes will get pictures ready to go with this post and the ones to come.  He’s been busy being the “Intern Coordinator” for our team.  We got 4 new interns a week after we got back, so I’ll introduce you to them soon!)

Well, as the title says, there are whirlwind weeks ahead!  TONIGHT as I type this we have some short-term AFCers who are arriving here to work with our team for about two weeks.  Among other things, they will be doing some service projects and a VBS for all our kids next week when we go to the Peruvian Missions Summit in Arequipa.  Yeah!  We are so excited to have them here!  When we get back from Arequipa our family will have just a couple of days to pack, because visiting Texas is on the horizon!  It is time for our first furlough!  Wow, August 19 will be the 2 year mark of us living here in Lima!  We are looking forward to time spent with our supporting churches, family, and friends.

The next several weeks are going to FLY by.  And on August 3rd Wes and I will enter a new stage in life–kids in SCHOOL.  Like for real big kid school.  Jake starts KINDERGARTEN!  What?!  I know, I can’t believe it, either.

But let’s not focus on that quite yet.  We have a Texan summer to enjoy before that happens, and a little Derek who will be turning THREE on 4th of July weekend!  Fun times in these whirlwind weeks ahead!

Jakob told me he wanted to play Batman games, have a birthday cake (NOT cupcakes) with M&Ms and marshmallows on it, and he wanted to play home run derby at the park. Well, he got 3 out of 5 of those and seemed pretty happy! We had a great time celebrating him and he had a lot of fun with all his friends.

(We weren’t done singing, so Daniel was trying to keep him from blowing out the candles too early.)

And yes, he has three cakes.  I ran out of time.  My plan was to put the two cakes together to make one big cake and then cut out the batman symbol from the brownies to put on top of the big cake with yellow m&ms surrounding it to make the yellow oval.  But as Wes and Trevor say, “You do what you can.  You don’t what you can’t.”  (And since I had a sick kid while Wes was in the jungle the few days before the party, I don’t win the “Super Prepared and Un-Stressed Mom” award.)  :)

So the first thing we did was have them watch a short Batman cartoon, because we wanted to make sure they knew who Batman really was and who the villains are, too.

After that Wes led them through a scavenger hunt that the Riddler left for them. They had to follow clues that were hidden in certain spots and pop the balloon to get the clue. Jake loves all kinds of problem solving and puzzles so he had a blast. The first clue was my favorite (Wes made them up). It said, “When your face is all grimy and your hands are all slimy, this is where you go to get clean all the timey!”  Jake yelled, “The Bathroom!”  And off they ran to get the next clue.  The last clue led them to “Stomp the Villains,” (lots of balloons with bad guy faces drawn on them) and there was candy inside the balloons waiting for them.

Wes worked hard last weekend to get the playground finished (minus the slide, because we haven’t figured out where to buy one of those, yet). So, that was Jake’s present from us. You can see it in the background there behind Kyle playing tug of war with the kiddos.

And here are some more pics of the playground.

The climbing wall.

The sandbox and fireman pole. And the side where the slide will eventually go.

Not only do I have an incredibly gifted and amazing husband who is an awesome Daddy who can build anything and fix anything, he is also a talented artist. So of course I asked him to make a “Pin the Cape on Batman” game. Turns out 5 is a great age for that game. They loved it!

Wes explaining the game.  Yes, Batman is giving us a gig ‘em.

Friends!  Maddox, Jessica, Parker, Joel, Jake, Daniel, Sofia, Kellan, Derek.  James was in the sandbox.  And I’m not sure where Cailyn is.

Opening presents.

We are blessed!  We love you, Jake, and can’t believe how fast you are growing.  Thanks everyone for helping us make his day special!  Click here for more pics.

Our First Interns
One of our desires from the very first moments of dreaming about our team, in addition to sharing our faith with the people of Peru, has been to spread the seeds of missions to the those who might come after us.  This can happen in lots of ways.  We talk with our family and friends.  We share our stories with anyone who will listen.  We communicate through things like this newsletter and our websites.  We receive short term groups for things like our medial campaign that we had last July.  Beginning on January 5th of this new year, we finally have realized another one of our dreams.  That is to host interns.

We are really and truly blessed to have four fantastic young people that have come to help and serve and share alongside of us for the next six months.  We have Taylor Green, Kyle Westbrook, Jenny Durham and Kyle Glaeser (as seen from left to right in the above photo).  All four are either recent graduates or upperclassmen from Texas A&M.  As you probably well know, most of us on our team, including us Yoakums, have strong ties with the Aggies for Christ. For many of us the flame of spreading the gospel in other cultures was sparked by experiences like being interns with the Aggies for Christ.

This is a really talented and blessed group of interns.  They have already jumped right in and have brought with them the energy that only college aged peole seem to have.  This week, their first full week here, they’ve begun intensive language school at a school here in Lima called Hispana.  We’ve been impressed with their attitudes and their excitement to learn the language. As they improve in their language skills and spend more and more time with our Peruvian friends here, we know they will add a relational dynamic that is invaluable to sharing the love and grace of God to Peruvians in the same stages of life as they are in.  They all also have a passion for children and young people… which is great since we have a lot of little missionary kids running around!  In the future you’ll be hearing more about these guys.  So when you hear about Jenny, Taylor and The Kyles, that’s who we’re talking about.  It is our prayer for them that this time will be a pivotal experience for them in their journey and that God will speak to them in powerful ways while they are with us.  We know that we will be blessed by them being here with us. And we pray that God will use them equally as powerfully to share his Good News here in Peru.

To hear from the interns themselves check out their blog at thelima4.blogspot.com.

Villa Maria del Triunfo
Lima is a city of great differences.  Here the gap that spans the divide between the rich and the poor is a canyon that the rich wouldn’t think about crossing and a chasm the poor can hardly dare to dream about traversing.  There is a great deal of racial and socio-economic division here.  That, though, is something that we fortunately have the ability to bridge quite easily.  As American foreigners, gringos, we are easily accepted by the upper class as equals and welcomed by the poor with open arms.  In many ways, our dream is to build a bridge paved with Christ’s love that can connect the two.

Continuing to Build Relationships
Through a number of different circumstances… that is, through God’s guidance, we have found ourselves reaching out to a community here called “Paraiso” or “Paradise.”  I’ve mentioned this place before and we continue to reach out to this community.  It is in this financially poor area of Lima that we have had the chance to do things like hold our medical campaign and where we’ve reached out and built homes for those in need and where we had our blanket giveaway.  While these things are wonderful and we love to help those in need with their physical needs.  The greatest fruit of our efforts is the relationships that we’ve built… the friends that we’ve come to love.  For now I’d like to just introduce you to some of them.  Please pray for them as many of them still don’t know the Lord and many are very much on that path and some are new believers.

Angel and Gudelia are some friends that we’ve known for a long time now and have been very involved.  Angel is in a Bible study each Wednesday and they’ve in many ways been our liaisons to the community.  My friend Marta believes in God but doesn’t really know him.  She suffers with severe back pain and can not work as she is struggling to feed her kids as a single mom.  Rosa and Pedro are an elderly couple taking care of their grandson.  Rosa struggles with arthritis and Pedro has Tuberculosis… pray for opportunities for us to share our faith with them.  Arelia became a Christian a long time ago but has been disenchanted with the church, her sister is crippled from Polio and can’t leave their small home.  Please pray for Juan Carlos and Maritza, Suzanna, Elvira, Maria, Pedro, Rebecca, Gloria, Edwin and our other friends that are too many to list.

Working With a Local School
Another opportunity we’ve had is to teach in a local public school.  Our friends Angel and Gudelia have a daughter, Jessica (in the blue shirt to John Mark’s right in the picture above), that is in the fifth grade.  We have been teaching English lessons there for a number of months now and have formed some great relationships.  We don’t know what God has in store but doors are opening for opportunities to teach the teachers about our faith in order to equip them to teach their required religion courses.  Please pray for these relationships and that God would bless the students and staff at the Colegio Sagrada Corazon de Jesus.

Home for the Holidays
As I’m sure you can imagine, one of the more difficult things about moving to another country like we have done, is being so far from friends and family.  We moved to Lima in August of 2009 and since that time had not returned to the US.  The distance from family is something we knew we were signing up for from the beginning.  But with time that strain builds and becomes something of a weight on your shoulders.  For instance, Derek is 2 and a half but it had been more than a year and a half since we had seen half of his grandparents his aunts and uncles and cousins… more than half his lifetime for a little guy like him.

This Christmas and New Years we were blessed by the chance to go back and celebrate with our families and friends and to just get a dose of the US of A.

We were only able to do this because several of our dear friends are incredibly generous and donated their airline miles and their hard earned money to fly us back.  I don’t know how we could possibly put a price on the value of this short trip.  So many important moments took place…  We were able to be there with Stacy’s family for her Grandfather’s funeral, we spent Christmas with Wes’s family and New years with Stacy’s.  We sat around the table and played games with our brothers and sisters. We laughed until we cried and we ate way more than was good for us.  The boys played like crazy with their cousins and hugged on their grandparents. We were even their for the birth of two of our dear friends’ first babies!  Thank you so much to those that helped us come back.  We were refreshed and our tanks were refilled more than you know!

Missionary Women’s Conference
In October, I (Stacy) joined 40 other missionary women from 7 different countries across South America at the CCC in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The missionaries were welcomed by a care team of 17 women who consisted of licensed counselors, worship leaders, and care group leaders.

Missionaries rarely have the opportunity to be with other missionary women who understand their lives and share common lifestyles. Each of us were assigned to a small care group that met together twice daily. Coupled with the class sessions, the care groups provided a safe place to share trials, fears, failures and successes. As for me, I was hoping for a time to just “be”–be renewed, refreshed, and reconnected with God.  My expectations were met!  It was the perfect balance, and I’m so thankful for the opportunity to go.

Leadership Training, Amazon Style
We have been really blessed by some new friends that we’ve made that are fellow missionaries here in Lima.  Two of those friends are our friends Mark and Anna that have come from England as missionaries here.  A few months ago Mark invited me to come along with him on a trip he was planning to visit some tribal churches in the jungle region of Peru.

Mark has relationships with several church leaders in the Jungle town of Pucallpa and in communities of  Shipibo tribes in the surrounding Jungle.   Our main purpose for this trip was to teach and equip the local church leaders to better serve their local churches and communities.  We had sessions of group teaching followed by smaller discussion groups.  Many of these people, especially those older individuals, did not speak much Spanish, but only their native Shipibo language.  That was a real challenge!

We taught based on a simple concept of a triangle with the three points representing Up, In and Out.  That is our relationship with God, our relationships within the church body, and our outward relationships with the community outside of the church.  At one point I was feeling a little discouraged by the language barrier.  Then, all of a sudden I could see a spark in the eyes of one of the men.  He looked at and said roughly with excitement in his voice, “I’ve always seen serving God as what we do in church.  But now I see that when we love our neighbors and our community, we are loving God too!”  We don’t have much communication with these remote churches, but I hope to see them again soon and I and joyful because I know that God is working out there amongst the wild mango and banana trees just like he’s working here between the busy streets and in the smog of Lima.

Prayer Requests

• The relationships that our interns Jenny, Taylor, Kyle and Kyle will be forming in the coming months.
• Our many friends that I mentioned that live in Villa Maria del Triunfo.
• Our family relationships… especially our boys relationships with far away family.
• Our neighbors as we try to meet them and form good relationships with them
• For Stacy as she continues to improve her Spanish
• Jakob starts Kindergarten in August!

The very same day we arrived back from our vacation, we also welcomed our very first interns who are here from the Aggies For Christ!  We (and them) hit the ground RUNNING and it has been an amazing two weeks already.  We love having them here!  Here is their blog about their adventures here, thelima4.blogspot.com.

Kyle G., Jenny, Taylor, and Kyle W.

And last but not least…

The Thompsons will be back in Lima next week!  Thank you, thank you, for all your prayers and support!  Here is the link to their blog post about them coming back–  Let the Games Begin.

Our teammates, The Thompsons, abruptly lost their financial support just over two months ago. They left their home here in Lima with the hopes of returning to it as soon as possible.  They flew back to Texas and started blazing down that fundraising trail once again.  We, as a team, have no doubt that Lima is where the Lord wants this family to be and we know He is providing a way back for them.  We have missed them terribly and it has been a rough journey for them.  As always, times like these are opportunities to build our trust in our God and strengthen our faith.  Will you consider joining us in prayer and think about helping the Thompsons get back to Lima?

Our new house

We love our new house and feel like God hand-picked it for us.  We feel more at home now, are saving money with this smaller house that is the perfect size for us, and are already enjoying watching our boys grow up here.  We are praying that God is using our new location and home to further the ministry here.

Saturday morning football with Daddy

A couple of times this month we have enjoyed a relaxing Saturday morning together as a family, watching ESPN with Daddy.

The first week of October I had the chance to go to Brazil for a women’s missionary conference.  It was everything I had hoped for and more.  Relaxing.  Encouraging.  Nurturing.  Challenging.  A time of praise and worship, and fun.

The conference was held at Maresias Beach.

Representing Peru–Jennifer from Cusco, Me from Lima, Rachel from Arequipa

Jake and his creative tool belt.

Jakob is so much like his Daddy in a lot of ways.  He is always creating something, building something, working on something, or asking questions about something.  His mind never stops working and asking questions!  Really, it doesn’t.  Tonight while putting the boys to bed, in between singing songs and saying our prayers, Jake asks randomly, “What happened to dinosaur skin?”  What?!  He usually asks some kind of question that comes out of no where just before falling asleep.  Well, anyway…This particular tool belt came about for two reasons.  Jake had been watching Wes walk around with his tool belt, building the play ground in the back yard.  And he had also been watching Go Diego Go on the TV rescuing animals.  So, naturally this tool belt he made was used for building things needed to rescue animals in trouble.

Carving pumpkins.

Jake's, Wes', Derek's

Okay, I HAVE TO tell a story about Jake carving pumpkins with Wes.  When I came home from the grocery store with three pumpkins Jake could not wait for Wes to get home so they could make jack-o-lanterns.  Finally, the time came and Jake designed the face on his pumpkin.  Then it was time to cut them open and clean them out.  Jake was a bit surprised by the pumpkin goo–the stringy, slimy, gooey mess that erupts from inside the nice, clean, orange pumpkin with a face drawn on it.  Wes asked him if he wanted to help scoop out the goo.  Jake said no.  Wes asked again.  Jake said no thanks, he didn’t want to touch it.  Wes asked again and said, “Oh come on!  It’s fun to get all gooey and messy!” and then he grabbed Jake’s hand and put the slimy, stringy goo all over Jake’s hand.  Jakob literally GAGGED and almost threw up, he thought it was so disgusting!  We laughed so hard and I was wishing I had it on video!  Don’t worry, he recovered after that, and said that maybe he’d be ready to help clean out the pumpkin next year.  Hilarious.

Costumes.

Jake was Spider Man.

Derek was a Boxer.

Since the Fletchers had these great extra costumes for us to borrow we didn’t have to think of anything creative and at the last minute last we did the last two years:

The Incredibles (Halloween 2009 in Lima)

Mormons (Halloween 2008 in Costa Rica)

We didn’t go trick-or-treating on Sunday, but Sofia hosted her class party and we crashed it.  It was quite the party and the kids had a great time and still came home full of sugar and with plenty of candy to stash.  Check out the Fletcher’s pictures if you want to.  You can see Jake in line for the Limbo.

Well, that about wraps up October.  November is already starting off with a bang.  I am in my third straight week of intense language school (5 days a week, 4 hours a day) and Wes will be back soon from the jungle (Pucallpa).  More updates to come and hopefully some pictures from the jungle.  Maybe some snakes, crocodiles, and the Ucayali river (one of the major river systems that makes up the upper Amazon)!

We had a really great turn out this time around… which was encouraging. I don’t know how many people came but the room we rented out for the occasion was pretty packed and we completely ran out of the snacks that we brought. During these times of “celebration” we generally have some times of prayer, worship in song, read scripture and maybe have someone share a short thought… the idea is to have a time in which we celebrate our shared faith in Jesus and enjoy the chance to realize that we are in fact a part of something that is bigger than us and to enjoy the community of worshipping together as a group.

Today we did all of that… but it was also a special day because two of our Peruvian friends decided that they wanted to be baptized. Do you remember Edgar? I wrote about Edgar a long time ago… a story about how I was just trying to go play soccer and he completely got in my way by asking me about my faith. Well, Edgar has just kept “getting in my way” in a good way, dropping by and wanting to study the Bible or just talk about life and faith whenever he gets the chance. We’ve become good friends over the last few months and even though I didn’t know Edgar before, I’ve seen that God has made big changes in his life. He works in a small bus, called a combi, as a “cobrador”, the guy who collects the fare from the passengers. While riding all across town he is constantly telling people about his newfound faith and what God has been doing in his life… a natural evangelist. Along with Edgar, his wife Graciela and her mom, Victoria have been learning about God’s love and we are excited to see how God is working in them as well. Anyways, today we got to celebrate with Edgar as he clothed himself with Christ through baptism, as the scripture says in Galations 3.

Of course, Edgar is one of many of our new friends here. Also, we have a friend, Luis, who has been studying mostly with Justin, who was baptized tonight. Luis is a young single man who works as a guard on the Thompsons street and has become a good friend to us all.

Ok, well, I just wanted to share a little bit about our Celebration Sunday today and some of the stuff that God is doing in the lives of our new friends. Please keep us in your prayers, and especially Edgar and Luis as they continue along the path that God has for them.