Baptisms and Dedications

Today was our baptism and dedication service. We borrowed a pool from some friends and set it up on our patio in our house.
Lots of people came - probably the most people we have had in our house. Most of them are contacts through the Mums and Tots group we have been running.

The children and adults had a time separately to explain baptism and dedications and then we all came together after the adults who were being baptised gave their testimonies. Mark then dedicated 13 children.
We then got all the children and an accompanying adult up onto the balcony (out of the way of splashing hands!!) and the baptisms started below. 4 ladies - Melisa, Yayaira, Belen and Jesse were baptised. They are all mothers from the Mums and Tots group.
Belen being baptised.
Melisa before her dunk.
We made baptism and dedication certificates for them all which they were very proud of. Above is Melisa with her mother Inés and son Thiago.
Jesse (purple and grey stripped jumper) with her family and son (and Mark!)
Yayaira and her brother and son with Mark
We had a scrummy chicken and chips lunch and spent time together. José Manuel is in the photo above with Llida.
Yayaira and Julio Cesar.
Towards the end, Daniel suddenly stripped off and jumped into the pool, much to everyone's amusement. Fortunately, he knows how to swim so we weren't too worried!! He did not seem to mind the cold!
All in all, it was a great day! We are so thankful to God in how He is working in the lives of these people, and it is great to hear people's testimonies and confessions of faith! We pray that it will be the first of many events like this!

Family time

Okay, so we felt it is time to update the blog with a few family photos to prove that we do have fun too!! This last month, as you are probably aware by now was obviously a memorable one, but it has been a really special one too.

Mark got the opportunity to go to Toronto, Canada for 5 days for a 'Father Heart' school, which he really enjoyed and really benefited from. It was through a series of miraculous circumstances that he got there in the first place, after Anna hearing God telling her that Mark should go to a Father Heart conference there in August not even knowing if there was one on. God also told her the money would come in in parts and bit by bit, various unexpected gifts began arriving from the very next day, the final amount coming in just a week before the conference!

Two days after returning we found out that our beautiful baby, who we found out a couple of days later was a little boy, had died several days earlier. It seems that it was due to a detached placenta. We called him Solomon because of the peace that surrounded us during those days, and since as well. Perhaps if you spent a day with us this week you would not think we were still affected by what has happened - normal life has resumed and we are joyful, hopeful and excited about the next steps God has for us. At the same time, we remember Solomon and face frequent (not always painful) reminders of him, and of loss in general as we work with people who have very broken backgrounds. We do not avoid mentioning him or what has happened. For us, it is important to just be honest and open about it all. His life still goes on in heaven and our lives go on without him a physical part of them. But the thing about losing someone, especially one who was so young when lost and there are few shared memories, the life of the person is lived out in the imagination instead.
Thank you to those who sent kind messages - we really appreciated your prayers and thoughts and felt upheld by them over the last few weeks.

We have had some precious memories in the last few weeks with Daniel and Joel. Daniel flew his first kite on Monday. He was so chuffed to be holding onto it as it flew. What is it about kites, however, that you never want them to come down and when they do, you just have to get them back up again?! It makes going home very difficult, but the wind was cold and we were shivering, so that was a good persuasion!
We also visited Huachipa zoo on Monday, a zoo 45-minutes out of Lima into the hills. The boys were really excited at finding the animals, and loving the full-size pirate ship they could climb all over. We enjoyed the chance to get some sunshine out of the Lima winter fog - both Mark and I getting sunburned!


Here are some other pictures from this month from a children's play place called City Toys. Really an ingenious idea - a mini city built for kids, with different houses in different themes. Here is my little soldier and policeman enjoying a quiet read in the town library...
Joel loved the baby dolls until he found Barney...
A soldier-policeman on a horse with Barney. Only in a child's imagination!

Our little boy - Solomon Paul

Today we named and buried our little boy in our back garden. We included the boys and had a short time where we announced the name to Lili who lives with us and Mark said a short prayer to thank God for his life. The boys helped fill in the hole and Daniel said 'This is a happy day!' when he had finished organizing the soil. When asked why he said 'Because we have buried Solomon Paul. We are not sad any more.' It is true that there is a sense of finishing all the details of the last few days - we certainly understood what he was trying to say even if it is not true that we are not sad anymore! Later on today we planted some flowers of top of where he was buried.

We have named him Solomon Paul.

Solomon because it means 'Peace, wholeness, completeness (shalom)' and because we know that he is at peace with Jesus in heaven now and because of the peace we have felt over the last few days.

Paul because a friend of ours had a dream the day I found out I was pregnant (before I had told anyone!) and she said that he was a little boy called Paul. Paul means 'little man' and that seems appropriate.

Little Solomon we never got to see you grow up but we know we will meet you again one day and that you are in the best hands!

Bushmead Team Week 3

Week 3 was again a real blessing, which was also really packed. The final week of the team had several highlights, and lowlights. The highlights were the arrival of Charley on Monday night, Charley outside Walter and Judy's house.

more painting over graffiti, birthdays of Artu and Jose Manuel ,(children in our church and children of single mum Llida (pronounced Gilda) who works with us) Colin and Peck with Llida, her son Artu (10), daughter Joana (6), and son Jose Manuel (1)

and the on the Tuesday the birthday of my beautiful wife Anna, and building and virtually finishing Judy’s juice bar at Judy and Walter’s house. The lowlights were the departures of Dan and Jude on Friday (come back soon) and the team leaving on the Sunday and going on holiday.

Jude with Shirley 13, and her nephew Julio Cesar.

The painting was amazing time as we saw a shift in how the neighbourhood looked upon us. The people were asking who I was, the one had organised such an event, and was in charge. I noticed from this point how the neighbours have greeted me so much since this time. Also these walls have still remained clean as well.

Before and after!

Anna’s birthday was celebrated with over 22 mums, all the team, Dan and Jude, Charley, and all the children as well. Getting all the toys from the pinata a Peruvian tradition. Much more aggresive than the first day of sales!

It was a really fun event and everyone seemed to really enjoy the time together.

Singing A pea bird day toooo youuuuuuu to Anna. (read it phonetically)

Wednesday to Friday involved us getting into the Burgess van (which continues to run when it is not in the workshop)and driving the 25 minutes to Villa Salvador, a 25 year old shanty town, to the house of Walter and Judy. Floor built, but everything else to be done.

Peck had to rebuild the wall, as it had been damaged. With the help of Giancarlo they managed to build the English style wall, using Peruvian materials. Peck really grew as a leader as he did something relatively simple (for him) as building a wall, but was growing as he led Giancarlo who struggled with building a wall in a different way from he had always done before.

Peck building the toilet wall.

While Peck was building inside the rest of us were building the juice bar

outside. Daniel making sure no-one steals the sand.

This meant many of the guys learning to do carpentry, Dangerous Colin with his new toy!

more painting, and my highlight putting up a metal calamine roof. The team all raised to the challenge and we managed get so much done, and the juice bar was opened on the Sunday the week after the team had gone. It was great to see a completed job. Mission accomplished. We look forward to our next short term team, presumably next year. All offers welcome!

Bushmead Team Week 2: Jungle Part 2

The guys outside Luz Divina church.

Wednesday was a very similar day to Tuesday as we went to another Shipibo community called San Francisco. Arriving there was done by very beaten up taxis which could crash at any point, as I have witnessed. We shared the same messages in covenant and kingdom, identity and obedience to our Father, and the authority and power of the King. The Shipibo ladies singing and dancing for us.

To an untrained eye the Shipibos didn’t seem to be connecting with the message as they were not reacting in any way, and appeared to be unemotional. However we were again showered with gifts, their livelihood, as a way of thanking us. Another message I am learning about different cultures, and their reactions. Lili with one of the Shipibo girls in their stall of Shipibo crafts.

Again we seemed to offer so little to them but we were received with an amazing welcome and thanked for being there.

Daniel and the Shipibo children in San Fransisco

Thursday was more of the same but in the wonderful church where we had been sleeping and eating, Luz Divina, and again we had the chance of sharing and then ministered, which was wonderful as we saw God showing his people how he loved them, and wants to heal them.

Anna translating for Dan on covenant, and Peck, Dale and Stuart making a human 'triangle'.

We finished our time in Pucallpa on Friday which involved a trip to the Lagoon Yarinacoha and the Jungla Zoo, which was a wonderful time to relax and meditate on our jungle trip. The two highlights for me were firstly were the big cat who decided Peck was on his territory and took matters into his own hands and let him know who was boss by marking his territory in the feline way!! Peck's best friend!!

The second highlight was taking a walk with Dan and Daniel in the jungle and seeing the trees, the butterflies, experiencing the smells and the sounds that you see on David Attenborough’s films.

The afternoon was spent treasure hunting. In treasure hunting you pray for clues about people and places and then in teams you find these clues. Well my team was myself, Jude, Peck and Colin. We had many strange clues including market, centre of town, Pocahontas, blue tree, blue door, rudder on a ship, mermaid, and many others. Well we set off for the central square, but when we arrived after passing the markets nearby, we found that the central square was closed for renovation. Well we looked around for a cafe to stop and reanalyse where we supposed to go next. The cafe we found was called centre of town, round the corner from the market. We thought ‘we’re in the right place’. Well we sat down and ordered drinks and saw the massive life-size wooden carving next to the table which was a jungle lady in tribal costume!! We then saw a picture on the wall with a house with a blue door, next to the wooden ship next to the mermaid. I then saw the man on the table next to us with is blue t-shirt with a tree on it. Who says God doesn’t speak today?

Bushmead Team Week 2: Jungle Part 1

I love my mummy!

Week 2 began with the Sunday services, Spanish, as usual, in the morning and English in the evening for the visit of the team.

Monday started with last preparations for our jungle trip. We arrived in Pucallpa with our team of 14, including Daniel and Joel, and we spent our first day in the jungle relaxing, the boys enjoying it in the pool, and we all got an early night ready for the boat trip on Tuesday.

Jude and Elizabeth at our impromptu toilet stop in the 'back garden' of an unsuspecting landowner

Tuesday was a dawn start, getting to the boat and travelling down a tributary of the Amazon, the river Ucayali (the name of the province as well) and we arrived in a small river port about three and half hours later. Hey what's happening?

We arrived to a bustling port filled with moto-taxis waiting to take us the ‘twenty Shipibo minutes’ to the church awaiting us. After a forty-five minute journey we arrived to the amazing Shipibo welcome, this again blew me away.

Nuevo (New) Ceylan was a place that will stay with me for many years as we were received as family and treated as that. Huts in Nuevo Ceylan

These people had had no white visitors in 36 years and felt very honoured for us to be there. This gave a real openness to a message of covenant and kingdom that Dan and I shared, which was illustrated by using two triangles of the Father and the King, using branches from the Amazon jungle, when in Rome!!

The beautiful Shipibo children.

Following ministry we donated the suitcase of clothes that we had gathered from various people, and this was received with the most grateful tears I have ever seen. To me it was a old battered suitcase full of used donated clothes. To them it was love from foreigners, and clothes that are so desperately needed.

Preaching in the Amazon Jungle

Following prayers of thanksgiving, they gave us lots of gifts to say how much they appreciated us being here.

They have so little but they give from their hearts. Do we do this in the West?