Kidz Klub video

We have recently met an lovely American missionary family who live just a couple of blocks from our house. They have 2 lovely children who Daniel and Joel love playing with.
Anyway, John Mark joined us as part of our Kids Klub team last Saturday, as 'Nacho' and we thought you might like to see his video on the event. (And his face getting covered in shaving foam!) Click here!

Kidz Klub

On Saturday we had our first Kidz Klub in Pacifico de Villa, the place where we did the kids event for over 600 children at Christmas. To not be too overwhelmed with kids we only invited 50, but 83 arrived! Fortunately we had a great team and we were well organised so it went really well and the kids responded really well! We are planning to carry on the club once a month and visit the children and their families once a month too.

Kids waiting outside when we arrived

Daniel helps to sweep the room before we let the kids in

Our team

Getting the children involved with an activity

Mark as Hombre Pegapega (Velcro man!)
Ivania gets shaving foamed and cheesy puffs thrown at her face for the girls team The children listen to an object lesson

Cute

Well, it is nearly June so we are meant to be in the middle of the Peruvian winter, but still Lima has sun nearly every day! (normally it leaves some time in April and doesn't return until at least September!) But being Peruvian, Joel has to keep in line with the Peruvian tradition of wearing hats when you go out after 3pm as otherwise you might get a cold. It is a chilly 17'C you know.

Teaching Art

This year due to now having a car and Anna no longer being pregnant, we can travel to the school in Ventanilla more regularly. We have committed to going every other Tuesday during term time and Anna is their art and music teacher! So she gets just under an hour to do some art or music with them. So far she has been concentrating on art, the first week looking at portraits and getting the children to draw round some of their class mates and do a group collage. The second week Anna taught them to draw a face in proportions.Lili helping some of the younger children with their faces

Both times we have been since the beginning of the school year we have had a few car problems. First time we got stuck in the sand. (Note: when you get stuck in sand, don't try and drive out, the wheel just works like a digger and digs you in further!). The second time the car overheated on the way back going up a hill and we ended up in the middle lane of a highway, just after a bend. Rather hair-raising. We managed to back the car up slightly and in to the fast lane. (couldn't get to slow lane!). Fortunately, Peruvian drivers are used to being cut up and breaking suddenly and doing quick manoeuvres. I think we may have been dead otherwise!! The best bit had to be the helpful policeman who stopped by us and said "you know you can't park here? Someone might hit you".

Of course, silly us!

.

Servolution- the results

A month ago we did an event as a church called ‘7 days of Servolution’ (see previous posts). This was a week organised by Healing Place church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA. We were one of over 250 churches (mainly in the US) spread out all over the world that ‘served’ people outside the church.
When I heard about this initiative I felt this would be a great thing to start the church as a whole to think about mission. For me mission is a way of life and not just an event, but as I have been taught and learned, event leads to process, or should do!
Therefore I encouraged every small group in the church to do at least one hour of service in this week.

The teenagers cleaning some of the local parks.
Overall the week was a real success even though some groups didn’t capture the idea. The great thing is that many people in the church and some cell groups are now continuing to serve in different ways outside the church.
During the week one group visted the ‘hospital of the child’ and gave out free nappies and other things for babies at 7.00 in the morning!

The teenagers giving out water to people passing by. (Their t-shirts say i'm here at your service)

Other groups were cleaning parks, and the beach, while the ‘Servinators’, also known as the teenagers in the church went out all guns blazing and gave out free water to people in their cars passing by, cleaning the parks around the church and also helping in Pacifico de Villa doing surveys. Another highlight was 2 small groups clubbed together and bought over 70 packets of school equipment and stationary, something which costs a lot of money here in Peru, every year. 70 packets of school stationary
These packets were then given to Alfredo and the school at Ventanilla, which was an incredible blessing as many of these parents cannot afford to pay the monthly fee, never mind buy books and pens.

Alfredo and Violeta (leader of the 2 small groups) talking about the work in the school.

23rd May

Well just to update you all I (Mark) went to Pacifico de Villa this Saturday to have a 'meeting' with the wife of the President of Pacifico (not the country as one Peruvian asked me!) in regards to talk about our plans and ask for their co-operation, help, and permission to do start a kids club in Pacifico.

Mark and Natividad, the president of Pacifico's wife.

They have said 'yes' to us, and want to help us as well. They said to us that they have wanted to do things with the children and youth but haven't been able to do it so far. Therefore we are a blessing before we have started. We hope to be a much greater blessing. We plan to start the club on the 23rd of May and do the club once a month to begin with. The model is based on Bill Wilson's ministry in New York 'Metro Ministries' www.metroministries.org, and is also used in our church in the UK. www.stthomaschurch.org.uk/stomp. The secret of the club however is that the leaders of the club visit every house of every child. Our hope is that through these relationships we can get to know the families.

Monica and Natividad.

In other news we have bought 2 cheap buggies (strollers for our non bilingual American friends, sorry!) and tied them together with string (!) so Anna can take both of the boys out to the park.

Also Anna continues to teach Daniel the finer points of Picasso, below is one of Daniel's 1st attempts.

Joel loves his new walker...

...Can't walk in it yet, but loves being upright and watching Daniel running around or Mummy or Daddy cooking. Also started crawling (or rather, dragging!) this week - but has to be for something he really wants. (Like Daniel's train!)

Pacifico De Villa

As I've (Mark) mentioned before we were hoping to start a social action project in an area called Pacifico de Villa or in English a small town on the Pacific! Well we have moved into stage 2 of planning how we are going to tackle this job, after an extensive time of observation, reflection and discussion! We are planning to reach and help these people in several ways, but starting with a kids group, similar to the one we were involved with when we were in Sheffield, and also to start a mums and tots group. These will both be a challenge as people in Peru in shanty towns are not used to this type of thing. We want as a team to demonstrate the love that God has shown us.

How many of the residents live

Last weekend 14 of us from the church went to go and do interviews with some of the local residents, (it may take some time to interview all 3600 houses in Pacifico!) asking them about their needs and also telling them that we want to serve them. This was an amazing time (50% of the team from the cell groups in Chorillos, and 50% from the teenagers group) knocking on doors and sharing our wish to show the love of Jesus. The whole team was really encouraged and we had some amazing conversations.

Juan and Estrella (leaders of the youth) and Franco, Oliver and Lorrena talking to a resident

Many people were very sceptical to start with, but generally warmed to us, as we continued doing the survey. People didn't really understand that we were asking what we could do for them, rather than what can we get from them.

Ivania and Gershon talking to Roy ( a local resident about the problems in Pacifico.

The highlights must be Nilda praying with a lady for healing (who insisted on calling me Padre(Father) when she found out I was a missionary, and also the team being invited in to the houses of the residents to get to know the family and to pray. (a great honour in Peru)Nilda and team talking to the woman who wanted pray for healing

and members of the team having the opportunity to pray with them and/or drink a glass of Inka Kola (a bright yellow fizzy drink, which is the only competitor to Coca Cola).We hope to start work in May, so we still have a lot to do in April to prepare for the start of what we hope will change this shanty town.

Thousands miles on the other side of this ocean is Australia (maybe)

On Tuesday we went to visit Ventanilla school all together as a family - now we have our car (a ford 7-seater van) we can get to Ventanilla in just over an hour from our house (it took 2 1/2 hours before!)

It is the second week of school and we went to see how they are all getting on. So far there are around 10 children enrolled (more than this time last year - schools are slow getting started at the beginning of the school year in Peru!). I (Anna) taught the kids an English lesson - teaching them 'Head Shoulders Knees and Toes' (Daniel helped with the actions) and '1-2-3-4-5, Once I caught a fish alive' because the teacher wanted me to use a song to teach the numbers 1 to 10 and it was the only song I could think of in the moment! The kids in one of the classrooms Daniel and I leading them in 'Head, shoulders, knees and toes'!

End of school and the kids stay around to play.

One of the children was very caring with Daniel and Joel.

Currently there are hundreds and hundreds of flies in the classrooms because, rumour has it, one of the neighbours does not dispose of her rubbish properly. They are hoping to fumigate and put up fly screens next week.

One of the first-year students