When skin is so dirty it looks like you have a suntan

Alfredo, one of the ex-pastors in one of the churches we worked with previously in La Tablada, invited us to spend today with him and his family. He said they were part of a new church plant and would like us to come as he was preaching. We assumed it was nearby where he lived, which is about 40mins from us.

2 hours later we were in Ventanilla. A new shanty town on the north coast of Lima, with reed-mat and thin-wooden shacks built on the sand (or rather the dirt -we got filthy!!). 2 years ago only 2 or 3 houses were scattered on the hill overlooking the sea, now...

Alfredo chose this place to plant a church because it is now highly populated, there is great need and there are no churches there. Along with the church, Alfredo hopes to also set up a school, not only to teach the children, but also to give care to many of the little ones who are left at home alone during the day whilst their parents work long hours in low-paid domestic jobs in the nicer parts of Lima.

Alfredo gave a brief evangelistic message and many responded. Mark and I spent some of our time talking to and interpreting for a group of Southern Baptist Americans who have been helping to support the new church. Even though we are taking things slowly in Peru and not committing to anything at the moment, no matter how hard we try, we always end up getting involved with something - so great is the need. Today we ended up interpreting for the American street evangelists; Thursday evening Mark ended up preaching off the cuff at a meeting he was invited to 2 hours before it started (which nearly ended up being outside without lighting!); and Wednesday I was asked to do a Bible Study and share with a leader from La Tablada church when she came for lunch which turned into an inner-healing session! And all we think we have been agreeing to is spending time with friends!

Mark starts language study tomorrow to help perfect his Spanish, but thankfully he is doing really well with it and even seems to have improved since we were last here.

A Birthday party in La Roca and a few other photos

Yesterday we went back to La Roca, a church in the shanty town which we helped plant two years ago and which was a shack when we first arrived in Peru in January 2005. Now it has 2 floors completed and the family are living on the bottom floor. We got a taxi half way up the hill to La Roca, as far as the road went and then had to climb up the steps to the top of the hill where the church is. We used to go up 4 or 5 times a week so the steps weren't so bad, but yesterday we both arrived out of breath. It's strange being back in Peru, because things we had temporarily forgotten come back, like the dogs that bark loudly at you as you pass the houses and the flies that fill the house because keeping things clean without running water is difficult. La Roca as it is now with the second floor built. Outside La Roca with Carlos (far right) and his friend. It felt very cold because La Roca is at the top of a hill, (with no road access) and the wind comes up the hill from about 4pm.
Angie (11), the birthday girl, and her sister Ana (3) (who both live in the bottom floor of the church in La Roca) with Daniel.
Daniel with Esther yesterday evening.

Baruj, Humberto & Esther's son, with Daniel. Baruj loves 'Naniel' and likes to play with him.

Love it or hate it?

Finally, we have found something that Daniel won't eat...

End of week 1

We've completed our first week in the land of Paddington and it's been a productive week, not that it's felt like that to me (Mark). I keep forgetting we are called here indefintely and this means good strong foundations need to be built. We are starting to formulate ideas that we have had before we came, and also meet up with friends as our last post said. People are very excited in the possibilty of us setting up a discipleship year, what this will look like remains to be seen.

As we settle in we have started to notice the Peruvian quirks, and the differences with the UK.

My favourite so far has been whilst we have been looking for houses to rent. In Peru people advertise their house/flat for rent in 3 ways,

1. in the paper,

2. by hanging up a poster outside the house, or in a local shop,

or 3 through an estate agent.

No real difference here, so it seems. Well we found a flat we were potentially going to rent through a estate agent, more or less. (We decided in the end it was too small) This estate agent however was nothing like the western equivalant. We found him not in the yellow pages, not in his shop, but from a billboard on a random street, manned by a man who was also selling a rug, at the side of the road. The sign said flats for rent, but no contact number. Logically, we asked the rug seller about the sign he was standing next to. He said,' are you interested?' we replied 'yes'. He then ran halfway down the street and to a nearby fruit and veg seller. The seller then came out and said 'yes I know flats for rent, what are you interested in?' We told him, paid him his comission (£3)and then drove to see this flat about 3 miles away.

Another thing to get used to has been the traffic which has completely different rules from the UK. I am not known for my amazing driving in the UK, but I would probably be rated as the best driver in Peru. It is normal to pull out in front of someone, to drive 3cms away from someone else and to indicate that you are pulling over by sticking your hand out of the window (even though they have indicators).

Also the alert ones of you out there may have noticed we are not writing from Arequipa, but Lima, as about a week before we left the UK, our friends Humberto and Esther had to leave Arequipa at short notice and returned to Lima. We are therefore in Lima for the forseeable future.

Finally we have not been hit by an asteroid as i've been asked more than once, as this happened in Puno, about as far away from ourselves as is possible!

Meeting friends again

This last week has been taken up with exploring shops to compare prices of household goods, deliberating over what size house/apartment we should get and catching up with old friends. Of course, last time we were in Peru Daniel wasn't yet born, so the Peruvians are meeting him for the first time.



Today we were having a civil lunch with our friends Esther and Humberto and their son Baruj, who's 3 and loves Daniel (or Naniel as he calls him!)- he kept wanting to kiss Daniel on the cheek, which Daniel loved to start off with but after the 20th or so time he made his objections very clear with a clear grunt and push away! Mark tried a new recipe which went ok considering he had to adapt most of the ingredients to what was available - it just needs a few further adaptations! Then Jono, (who we're staying with) pulled me aside to warn me that 9 teenage girls from one of the shanty town churches were about to descend on the house, and now was our chance to escape!!



We decided to stay and so once again, exaggerated cries of "Ahhhh, tu bebito! Que lindo es!" (Ahhh, your baby! He's so cute!) could be heard by all the neighbours. Of course, Daniel was whisked off by the girls and entertained for a couple of hours on and off, having to be rescued now and again when things got just a bit too crazy! Mostly though, he loved the attention!

We're here - and we believe in miracles.

All our luggage

Well finally we are in Peru!

We arrived yesterday morning very early and we are staying with Jono, an English friend in Lima. It is very cold here - only 14'C or so, but no heating so we are well wrapped up. I am SO glad I packed my slippers!

Anyway, onto the miracles...
1) After months of trying to add Mark onto my nationwide account (with it we can get money out for free here) and failed credit checks because of a mistake O2 made years ago, we went to add him again last Monday. We were told the credit card would take 7-10 working days (and we had 4 left) and so it would take a miracle to get it before we left. 'That's ok,' I told the lady. 'We believe in miracles'. The card arrived in the last post before we left.

2) I tried and tried to get everything we wanted to take with us into 4 large suitcases, but to no avail. So in the end we decided to take more and pray (and pay if necessary!). In the end we ended up taking 8 pieces to check in, plus the carseat and buggy (stroller) and BA charged us nothing! Amazing. (it could have been over £400) We had to pay from LA to Lima, but it wasn't too much (and I was expecting to have to pay something anyway.)

God is gracious!

Today Mark is meeting someone about some potential language tuition and we are hoping to view a couple more flats/ houses. We saw 2 yesterday, but they were too small.

Leaving Picnic

Last Saturday we had our leaving picnic in the botanical gardens. 1pm start time, so Mark was keen to get there for 1 for all the keenies (of which there were none.) So we ate our picnic on our own until the reliables turned up at 1.30pm.

Eating can wait. Smiling at the camera is much more important!

But we were not to worry, about 40 people came and went over the afternoon and we all had fun chatting. Even Daniel managed some babbling with the other babies.

We're having a competition to see who can fit the biggest object in our mouths. Think Callum's winning.

Come on Dan! I'm only 9 months and I've got this smiling at the camera thing worked out already!
The weather looked tempremental to start off with, but we had some beautiful sunshine to relax in as the afternoon went on. It was great to be able to see so many people before we left and to feel like we will missed.

Now where is Mummy? Oh, there she is!

Leaving Sheffield

We have now left Sheffield to spend a week with my parents (Mark) in Leeds, before flying to L.A on Saturday 15th September. We're certainly ready to go. We'll have more info about leaving this week.