I’ve been saying since a couple weeks after the last post that I really need to post again. If it were the thought that counted than I would have written half a dozen posts by now. That isn’t the case but here is a little bit of an update.
We are in a pickle. Our residency paperwork was rejected and we were told by our lawyer that we have to leave Peru and re-enter after a few days to start the process over again. This would not be a huge issue if not for a couple things. One is, the flight will not be free. The airlines just refuse. And another is, the lawyer is not very certain of how long we need to be out. And possibly the biggest reason, we may be rejected on re-entry and have to stay out of the country for up to 6 months. Thankfully we have friends that have friends. One of our friends in southern Peru has a friend in immigrations. They were able to get some information, and it looks like our paperwork was rejected because of a outstanding fine. We had 15 days after the refusal to appeal the rejection, so we were able to pay the fine and resubmit the paperwork within those days. ( I say we, but Shawn is the unsung hero. He worked very hard on getting everything ready for resubmission.) Now we wait. If we are rejected the second time we will need to try a re-entry. We pray this isn’t the case because of all the risk involved. We shall see what God has in store for us.
We are making progress in Spanish. I haven’t been working at the hardware store for a bit now so I don’t get as much practice on a daily basis. But I work on Shawn’s farm and still get to, a couple times a day, have some Spanish conversations. Belinda has been trying to interact with the neighbors around our new place so she can practice her Spanish. She is braver than I am. She bakes and then goes from house to house and sees if there is someone interested in sharing some pastries and teaching some Spanish. In the last little bit her Spanish has made great improvements. We have both learned enough of the language that we can carry a conversation on our own, we think. I’m sure a native listening in would find great humor in our pronunciation and grammar, but it feels great to us.
The little church here has made some great steps. Esmeralda has decided to follow Christ and has been a challenge to each of us. She has dealt with a lot of resistance from the man she had been living with, especially regarding their youngest daughter. He has tried very hard to have her for Saturday and Sunday. We believe he is trying to keep her away from the teaching of the Bible as much as possible. Right after her initial decision to follow Christ, Esmeralda received a lot of pushback from her older children as well. It seems as though they have come to accept her decision now though. Hopefully it can be an example for them to follow. At first everyone in her family thought she had gone crazy because of the change they saw in her life. They even considered having her sent to an asylum. What a sad world we live in when a person deciding to follow Jesus is considered mentally ill. We pray that her family’s hearts would be opened to the truth before it is too late.
That pray is for the whole valley here. We continue to see interest when we go out to talk to people. But very few are willing to leave behind the things pulling them away from God. We have the promise in the Bible that if we do our part in carrying the Gospel, God will do His part of convicting and saving. So we will continue to share what God has done for us and what He can do for others.
Some of the mission board was able to come down a little while back and officially establish the church here. Shawn was ordained as pastor and the rest of us were taken in as the charter members of the church. It was a very great step to take. We want to be able to hold the excitement that we felt that day about the work here in our hearts every day.
We have all been taking turns being sick the last month or so. Percy’s had the monkey-pox and were out of church for a number of weeks. Shawn’s and we have had some stomach viruses. It seems like we are all fine and then someone gets another something. We’ve heard it’s just that time of year here, but hopefully we will be coming out of that soon. I think most of us are feeling pretty well back to normal now.
Shawn’s were out of water for…a very long time. I’m not even sure how many weeks or months it was. We started hauling water from the community where we live to Shawn’s but then we were told we weren’t allowed anymore. So we hauled out of another community about 10 minutes away. (The president of the community there is a friend of ours.) It was quite the task but we made do. Shawn decided to put in some wells at the farm. It was a bit costly but there was great success. Two wells were put in and they are both close to 30 meters deep. There is enough water and then some now.
The farm is doing well. I believe we have only lost one pig since we started raising them. We are hoping in a few months we will have another batch of piglets that we can sell. I purchased a young bull to butcher in 6 months or so. He seems to be fattening up well. We also have gotten some chickens and have been able to gather some eggs from them. We really enjoy being able to live off of our own farm a bit.
Ashlyn has been growing like a weed and is starting to try to talk in full sentences. It gives me a bit of an idea of how the native Spanish speakers must view my efforts at trying to carry a conversation with them. She really enjoys her video calls with the grandparents and is constantly asking to “do hello”. We really enjoy watching her interact with the animals. She has a great fascination with anything that flies. She tries very hard to make a friend with every person she can too. Hopefully she’ll be able to pick up on the Spanish language soon. We’ll have to make sure to do our part and talk it with her at home.
I believe that is all I have for now. Sorry there are no photos this time, but maybe I can include some on my next weekly update. hehe
Keep us in your prayers. Blessings to all.
Benji AKA Me 