Exciting or Completely Bonkers?

I am no expert typist, narrator, author, or really anything. Regardless of those inevitably obvious facts I intend on trying my hand ( or, more accurately, fingers ) at blogging. I’m sure there will be plenty of typos and errors. Feel free to automatically assume I meant for them to happen, for your enjoyment and to make sure you are still paying attention.

I don’t exactly know how or where to start so,I guess I will start at the beginning.

“We are planning on going to Peru!” These are the words we shared with our family a few months back. We being my wife (Belinda), my 1 year old daughter (Ashlyn), and myself (Caleb). This was met with various reactions and mixed feelings. Our friends said “We’ll miss you, we think. But there’s only one way to find out”. Our moms said “It’s probably not God’s will.”, our dads said “If you must.”, and our siblings…well they said what all siblings would say, “How long will you be gone?”. We did our best to ignore the joy in the siblings eyes while trying to reason with, console, and convince our parents. The majority of that I mean in jest, but I’ll let you decide what is or isn’t. In all honesty, I am very thankful for the support our families and friends have shown.

Living in a South American country has been on my wife’s and my bucket list for years and now we have an opportunity. I currently have a brother (Shawn) and his family, along with a single sister (China) living in Peru where we will be living. It is a huge relief to know that we will be with family while going through the process of learning a new language and culture. Though I’m sure they will laugh at our clumsy endeavours at adjusting as much or more than the locals. Regardless, my wife and I are very excited about the whole thing.

Shawn and his family have been living in Peru for around 2 years. They have a small but growing farm that they stay busy with along with the mission work that is very close to their hearts. The mission there is relatively young and at times, I’m sure, seems like there has been very little progress to them. But Shawn’s continue to share God’s love and gift of salvation to the ones there, knowing that God works in mysterious ways. The interest that has been shown from the locals is very exciting! And if one soul is led to Christ, it will be worth it all.

Our plans for going down are very jumbled at this point. We are aiming for this fall, possibly the end of September. The whole moving prospect has been quite daunting at times. It’s very likely it will be the end of October or November before we have all our ducks in a row and are ready to hop on a plane. There are so many things to pray about, decide on, talk about, get rid of, etc. If it ever crosses your mind, whisper a prayer for us. I’m sure Shawn’s would very much appreciate your prayers as well.

I make no promises on prompt or frequent posts. I am not very good at just sitting down and puting my thought to words. Also we will be very busy getting ready for the move. I will try to some extent to keep everyone updated on our progess. We are currently waiting on Ashlyn’s passport. I also have some paperwork to do regarding a POA here in the states. We will also be deciding what action to take with our house sometime this month.

Shawn has a blog of his own. He does very good about posting and keeping everyone in the loop. juandavidschmidt.com