Happy New Year!

A view from the Mirage Hotel where we had breakfast for Anna's Mum's birthday on Saturday

Well this is the final post for 2007 and what a long year its been, but so quick at the same time! It amazing how much we have done and we praise God for His faithfulness to us. Today we took a trip into the centre of Sydney to visit the Chinese Gardens. My mum and Grandad and Daniel all dressed up (Mark and I didn't as we did it when we were last in Australia - see posts from April 2007 to see photos!) It was very hot today - too hot to be in the sun and even so, Daniel didn't seem to mind being dressed up. I think he found it all rather funny.

Doesn't he look cute?! (check out the fake pony tail that is just visible on the left of him!)

Anna's Mum and Grandad all dressed up

A big Happy New Year to you all - looking forward to hearing about what's in store for 2008...

Christmas and Boxing Day

A selection of photos...

Santa?!

Anna's Mum and Dad

Anna's sister Chloe

Daniel playing with one of his presents from Grandma Jean

Opening present with Uncle BenChristmas lunch
Boxing Day...

Ride on bike from Grandad and Grandma Sue

Grandad and Daniel

Mummy and Daniel

A few photos of nature

I (Anna) went on a walk with my Mum the other day and took along the camera - I took pictures of lots of different interesting colours and shapes that I saw in nature and it made me realise how many different species of plants and flowers there were that I normally miss and how many natural colours and shades there are in nature. I made a couple of collages from some of the photos I took...

Visas

Yesterday I (Mark) picked up our resident visas from the Peruvian consulate in Sydney. This has been a really easy process considering how difficult it could have been, and has been for others in Peru, and also friends, going to other countries from the UK. Thank to all of you have prayed for this.
We now need to apply for Daniel's visa (which is dependent on ours) and apply for our ID card, which everyone has in Peru.

Arrival in Oz

We arrived in Oz on Thursday morning after 2 very long flights (8 hours to LA and then 14 hours to Sydney) which went as well as can be expected. We left Lima on Monday night and then we never saw Wednesday as it got lost over the international date line!

It's great to see Anna's family again and we have had mixed weather - gorgeous sunshine yesterday but rain and a dramatic thunderstorm today. Daniel has been very tired and jetlagged and today he has been particularly grumpy with a throat infection, which Mark has also had. (I'm just trying to see how many countries health systems I can try out - maybe I'll write a book?!)

Daniel and Mark had been enjoying the heated pool though for the last few days before they got ill and here are a few photos...

A place of belonging

Well following our period of observation, and reflection, (and lots of time spent at the white board and chatting to different people, as well as praying!) we have felt it is right to put our roots down in a church called Viviendo en Gracia (Living in Grace) which is in San Gabriel, a slightly more advanced shanty town. This is on a regular bus route from our new house, which we will move into in January, when we get back from visiting Anna's family in Sydney over Christmas and New Year.

A view of the local area

We initially plan to work with their young adults and teenagers, as their is a great number in the young church, and will help us to connect with Peruvians of this age, before we start our discipleship/leadership school in 2009. Therefore this year will be a pilot year for the school next year. We don't know how this will look yet. We plan to take all the young people (about 25 of them) from the church on a retreat at the end February, at the end of their summer holidays.

Edgar and Cesar 2 of the key young people.

This will be our main place of belonging, and will be our main work base. We will continue to work with Alfredo and others, but we will concentrate on helping these guys to be better leaders, and ones who will make a difference here in Peru. We will also be doing training and supporting the leadership of San Gabriel and other churches in the area, and other parts of Lima.

One of the Sunday morning services in full swing

The church was started by our friends Humberto and Esther in 2003, and has now grown to at least 70 people, who mostly come from the local area. The church is now led by Esther's parents Santiago (James), and Margarita (Margaret).

Santiago and Margarita (Santiago doing his Doctor Evil Impression!!)

The church meets in a small upper room, however at the moment there is no room for kids work in the building, but they are hoping to rent the 3rd floor room (they currently rent the 2nd floor).
There is a great need for this space as there was 13 children there yesterday, and as new people are joining the church all the time, before we know it, we could be at 25 kids.

The current state of the room needed for kids work

We're off to Oz tonight, so we will post soon from there!

Update on Alfredo and His Work

Last Thursday I (Mark) went to Ventanilla again, to be the official photographer for Alfredo's building project, as well as catching up with him, and see how the work is progressing on the school, still due to open in March 2008.

The school as it currently is, in its rudimentary state in Oasis.

In a previous post I mentioned Alfredo was working on 2 projects in similar areas, one called Oasis, and one Nuevo Pachacutec. The 2nd project in Nuevo Pachacutec has been delayed until 2009, as this is overseen by a Baptist Church who feel 2008 is too soon to build a school.

The view of the local community, desperate for a school, from the plot where the school will be.

The work in Nuevo Pachacutec is being supported by a US church, yet is not being built, while Oasis, being supported by a few friends and contacts of Alfredo is progressing.

Alfredo by some of the construction materials for the Oasis school.

This visit opened my eyes in a several ways. It introduced me to the high level of poverty in that particular area and the seemly injust higher costs for building a rudimentary school just because of the remote location of Oasis. It also made me realise how needed this school is, as I found out that most children who can afford to go to school have to travel for up to an hour or more.

Alfredo with his team

While I was there I spent some time speaking to some of Alfredo's co-workers, Carmen (who arrived about 5 months ago from the Provinces to look for work, which she hasn't found yet), and especially Gladys, the (local representative for this area). Gladys was telling me that her husband works from 5am till 9pm 6 days a week and recieves 20 cents (3p) for every crate of bottles he makes up. He works for Kola Real a cheap coke firm, here in Peru. This means he earns 50 soles (£7.50)a day at best, normally less. This is before he pays for his journeys to work and back, and his lunch (which will cost him at least a fifth of his daily salary) This is to support a family of 5, as well as to help their wider family (blood and those in the community).

Gladys with her family and other children she looks after (for free) during the day while their parents are at work

I also saw the real favour Alfredo has in this area, as many people have talked about building a school, but Alfredo is the 1st to actually start this process. This process is a bureacratic nightmare, with hundreds of pages of documents to be present to the authorities, and materials to build the school have to be carried from the nearest road over 100 metres away after they have been bought several miles away and carried in expensive taxis.



My respect for Alfredo continues to increase as he and his family live by faith, as well as praying for the money for this building project. (I don't believe he could have picked a more difficult location in Lima.) He thinks he'll need 5000 soles ( £800 pounds) to build the school, which needs to be found ASAP. This is not including his living costs.

Daniel's first year

Here is a summary of Daniel's first year!

Daniel's First Birthday

Yesterday was Daniel's birthday and sorry we didn't post photos sooner, but it has been a very busy couple of days and we have been exhausted!! Anyway, Daniel is now one and had a lovely day.
It started about 7am with cards and presents being opened...

Yummy card - thanks Auntie Liz
Ripping off the paper was really good fun!
Look at my lovely new activity cube! Thanks Grandma JeanShowing off my new walker / ride-on hippo. I can now walk along with it by myself and stop every few metres to let go and show off how I can stand myself for a couple of seconds, before I set off again.
'Cat' was what I said when I saw this present from Grandma Sue. Nearly eh!
Daddy proudly decided to wear his Leeds Rhino's rugby top today so we could be twins. What do you think?!

My friend Jordan came over for lunch and to stay for my party, which was lots of fun. A few children came with their mummies or daddies. We played lots of games, like pass the parcel and musical animal statues and then we had a piñata with lots of surprises inside before my lovely cake. (Which was yummy!)

'Rabbit' animal statues. The piñata - everyone pulls a string until the bottom comes out, dropping all the lovely sweets and toys.Look at my lovely cake!

Merk and Ana's first Peruvian wedding

This blogpost comes especially to you by Merk and Ana - also known as Mariana (just run our names together quickly and drop the 'k' to get the idea) or Max and Anita.

Last night we got a special mention on the wedding program of the couple we have been giving marriage classes to. 'Prayers: Merk y Ana' the program said. 'Do you think that is us?' Mark asked ironically.

The wedding was our first Peruvian experience and we won't forget it.

24 hours before the wedding the church had no roof (it fell down after the earthquake), there were no lights, no sound system and no cake.

Thanks to last-minute Peruvian efficiency (and Jono!) when we arrived the church looked beautiful, a marquee of beautifully folded fabrics had been erected and the church decorated with flowers. Lights had been put up under the marquee, the missing things had been acquired and a lovely three-tiered cake (made in 24 hours!) stood at the front of the church.

The first difference was that the wedding was in the evening unlike our UK law that weddings cannot be performed after dark (for fear that the wrong people might get married! - strange but true). When the wedding finally started (two hours after the time on the invitation at 8pm) we had various processions of bridesmaids and page boys, flower girls, the boy carrying the bible, the candle carriers, the family, the padrinos (godparents or sponsors of the wedding), the groom (accompanied by his mother) and finally the bride accompanied by her father. The sisters of the bride all wore identical bright blue sequined dresses, whilst the bridesmaids all looked like mini brides in strapless white dresses.

The rest of the wedding was fairly like a UK wedding without the usual slickness (I'm not convinced the guy leading the service had even read the program let alone been told what to do!) and of course everyone looked beautiful.

At the end food was served to the guests in their seats and amazingly for a Peruvian wedding, it was served even before the service had ended and it had all finished by 10.15pm.

Happy 31st Birthday Mark

Today has been a very full day!

Unfortunately part of that was due to Daniel waking up at 5.30am - what is that all about???

After Mark had another hour in bed later on, and after his 3 presents and 2 cards were opened, we went for our luxury breakfast (£5!) courtesy of Jono at the Marriott hotel, a lovely buffet brunch with a view out to sea. (The waffles with chocolate sauce and strawberries were the best!)

This afternoon we invited our friends round to share a cake and some snacks. Different friends from different churches and ex-pat friends all dropped in to help celebrate.

Singing 'appy bird-day' to Mark Baruj and Anita enjoyed playing together

Daniel loved having so many people around to entertain him

Happy Birthday Mark!