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!

Look what I can do!

Here's a video of a few of the latest things Daniel can do since we left the UK

Man flu + Peruvians = bizarre medication

Since signing for our house we have all been ill with various illnesses and bugs - mixture of colds, flu and the common missionary complaint. Mark has had a tickly cough to go with his sore throat and cold and so headed off to the pharmacy in search of some cough mixture. Now here in Peru, you don't need a prescription to get medication and you just ask for whatever you want. Don't be fooled into thinking, however, that the pharmacy staff have received any sort of training whatsoever, so you must ask for the description to go with any drugs you buy to know how many and how long you should take something.

'I have a sore throat' - Mark says to the lady at the counter, whilst Daniel is trying to grab at anything within reach. 'Do you have anything for me? A bottle of cough medicine?'

'Si, Si' - the lady replied, disappearing into the shelves, and reappearing. 'That'll be 22 soles'.

She showed Mark two packets of tablets.

'These are for a sore throat?' Mark said cautiously.

'Si, Si' - came the reply.

With Daniel threatening to destroy the money tray with one karate whack, Mark hurriedly paid for the tablets and left.

Later on that day...

Feeling his throat getting worse, Mark heads for the tablets, downing the paracetamol-looking one, whilst throwing me the instructions.

'Why did you get tablets?' - I asked reading the description. 'I thought you were getting some cough mixture.'

'I was' - Mark replied. 'That's what she gave me'

'Mark, did you actually read the description?' I retorted, not believing what I was reading. 'Why have you got tablets for chronic bronchitus and pneumonia??'

Alameda de Crepúsculo (Twilight Boulevard!!)

Just a quick note to say that we may have finally found a house.

YIPPEEEEE

That's the good news!!!

The bad news is that the street name is unpronouncible and is going to potentially cause us much grief with taxi drivers and friends alike!! It's in Alameda de Crepúsculo (Al-a-MAY-der/ day / Cray-PUSS-ka-low)

In addition, the current tenants have yet to move out (they are due to leave in December) so we probably can't move in until after Christmas.

We put an offer in for how much rent we could pay and that offer has been accepted, so for those of you would like to, please pray that God's will would be done and that things would go smoothly trying to sort out everything legally!!

In other news...

Mark and Jono (our very pleasant host!) got stopped by the police again today for going through a green light. (yes, a green one). They delayed them for half an hour trying to get a bribe off them (probably fancied a posh lunch). They were disappointed.

Trip to the zoo

Last Friday we decided to get out of Lima for the day and spend our day off at the zoo. We travelled to Huachipa, half an hour in land (where the sun shines!!) and spent a lovely day looking at all the funny animals.

It's such a hard life.

That guy's got faith.

Esther and Baruj by the giraffe.

Daddy and Daniel

Us.

Is it God or madness?

Our friend Alfredo, who we are mentoring, (strange but true) is at the moment starting on one of the most ambitious projects I have come across. His vision is to reach people who are in the poorest parts of Peru, planting churches and starting schools in areas that are new and so currently have no churches or schools. Often in these areas the children are left alone in the house during the day whilst their parents work in Lima's centre, 2 hours by bus away. Alfredo by his office (!) on the new plot of land in Nuevo Pachacutec

Alfredo has recently been given money to buy to plots of land in the areas he is currently working in. One area is called Oasis which is about 2 years old, and some houses have electricty, but no running water, and the other Nuevo Pachacutec (New Pachacutec) which is only a year old, and has no running water or electricity. (Pachacutec was the name of the last Inca Leader, of the 14 leaders, before they were defeated by the Spanish Conquisators in the 1500s).

Julio (a new Christian) and Geane outside their house in Nuevo Pachacutec

I (Mark) went to see these plots (both about the size of a football pitch each) in Ventanilla on Wednesday after my Spanish class. (It's the same place that we went to in the previous post) The 2 areas are about 2 hours away from us, and was a challenge to get there on the dust tracks, but well worth when I got there.

Plot of land in Nuevo Pachacutec and the view out to the sea

In March 2008 Alfredo's vision is to open 2 schools, one on each site alongside two churches. This time was very inspiring because currently both of these plots are just sand! This is absolutle madness in normal terms, but Anna and I feel that this is not madness. Miraculously (especially in Peru!!) everything seems to be coming together, and he has managed to acquire the land at a reduced price. He has also found an experienced headteacher who is prepared to oversee the two schools and prepare all the syllabuses just for a financial gift each month. (Normally headteachers would receive 3000 soles a month (£500 a month)) All the money he has received for the plots of land has been by faith and he and his family also live by faith, receiving only a small gift from his covering church in Lima.

Alfredo now needs to build 2 schools, find the money to do this, find teachers, and sort out all the legal documents, before March. (the legal things need to be done before the end of October, so finding a headmaster so quickly has been a real miracle)

If you want to help in anyway, please let us know. Anyone fancy coming out to do a building project before March?!!

A traditionally-dressed lady walking down the path in Nuevo Pachacutec, which is soon going to become a road, as the community are coming together to build it on Sunday so that the church can be built. At the moment trucks can only come so far down the road, so the water truck will also be able to come down to the houses and fill up the large tubs (see below). This is their only water source.

Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite.

Last week we watched an episode of Charlie and Lola (one of Daniel's favorites from Cbeebies) which was all about things people say that aren't actually true. Like 'if you watch too much tv you'll get square eyes' or 'Don't jump on the cracks in the pavement or the bears will get you'. One scene showed Charlie telling Lola at bedtime, 'Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite.' and Lola having nightmares of little bugs biting her. Charlie told her the next day that it was just a saying and that they don't really exist.

Well it isn't just a saying.

Ironically I had been laughing at Mark and repeatingly this saying to him each night as he has been moaning about being bitten night after night. I too had got a few bites, but just assumed they were midges. 'Oh', said Jono, returning from his holiday last night. 'Yes, we did have a problem with bedbugs before - brought in from the Shanty towns. I thought they'd all gone.'

Well they hadn't.

We have the bites to prove it.

I have, however, found out a lot about bedbugs, courtesy of bedbuggers.com (yes that site really does exist!!)

Interesting facts about bedbugs which I didn't know before:

1) they are about a size of a lentil fully grown.

2) they can lay upto 5 eggs a day.

3) they don't just live in beds - they can crawl up to 100 foot to the bed every night, attracted by bodyheat and CO2.

4) they also like sofas, bedding, clothes, in fact pretty much anything you have in your house.

5) they suck your blood and then leave it on the sheets. (nice.)

6) they are very difficult to get rid of. (great.)

Anyway, we bought some powder today which may work and I covered the mattress, floor, skirting boards with it and changed all the bedding and our bed clothes - we'll let you know if it works!!

Just think of us as you sleep in your beds tonight... hope you sleep tight and the bedbugs don't bite.

Hi, my name's Jimmy

Mrs Trunchbull and chicken soup

4 Strange cultural things we have noticed since being here...

1) Any car with a taxi sign is a taxi. These signs can be put up on the dashboard at any moment and taken down at any moment too.

2) Taxi drivers thank you for coming to their country as missionaries, even if they don't agree with your theology.

3) Chicken from the local shop is sold by the kilo, including the bones and innards and feet, which are placed separately into the bag, even if you don't want them.

4) Chicken soups comes with legs, hearts, and other unknown entities floating in it. (Do they put them in because they're given them, or are you given them to make the soup???)

Second the language is different, obviously. However sometimes we can understand something 100%, and still have language difficulties. For example last night I (Mark) was talking to our friend Esther about someone who had a ‘blindspot’ for someone else, and was trying to explain this. In my ignorance I forgot that the idiom 'blindspot' may not exist in Spanish, and after explaining it to Esther, (miming being in a car and looking in the mirrors!) she still had no idea what I was talking about. This morning I recounted this story to Anna, who then told me that Esther was very unlikely to understand as she didn’t drive! Oops.
Finally, on a personal note, despite no officially doing any ministry before Christmas whilst we taken the time to observe and adapt to the culture here, we have still been asked to do some inner healing sessions and marriage prep with a young couple getting married in November. In addition I have been asked to help our friend Alfredo interview prospective head teachers for the new school he is starting in Ventanilla! (When I say start, I mean, build, plan, sort out a syllabus, employ teachers, advertise...- he has only just got the land at the moment, but hopes to start classes next year!) Life here is never dull! Should I go for strict yet fair, super-friendly, or Mrs Trunchbull?!

Who says you can't put a price on health?

The Peruvians seem to be just like all those old ladies who stop you in the street in Britain in the middle of the summer and tell you to put a hat on your poor baby so he doesn’t freeze. They seem to be so over-cautious about health that they want to rush Daniel to hospital as soon as he sneezes, so we had been holding off taking him to the doctor until we would have taken him in the UK. It's only a cold we kept saying to ourselves. Anyway, yesterday the poor thing was very docile and had a temperature that didn’t seem to be going down with Calpol so we tried to take him to the doctors, only to find it was shut on Saturday mornings. Looking at our white skin a helpful taxi driver took us to one of the most expensive clinics in Peru to see a doctor who charged us 120 soles for the privilege of 10 minutes of his time. (About £20, but the equivalent of £120 for the Peruvians!)
“Yes, he's ill,” he tells us (in Spanish of course). “He has an upper respiratory infection.” and proceeds to write out a prescription for some antibiotics in case it’s bacterial.
‘Oh good,’ I think, ‘I’m glad I brought him.’

So I decide to look up Upper Respiratory Infections's on the web last night and what does it say?!
Upper Respiritory Infection, also known as THE COMMON COLD!

PS. Daniel was back to his smiley self this morning, the worst of the cold seems to have passed.

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.