God Opens Doors

Jail Time

I was able to visit the jail this afternoon and share with the ladies there.  They were having a party for the ones who had had a birthday over the last quarter.  They also included birthdays for the kids who are there.  In Peru, the government allow mothers to keep their children in the jail with them until they turn 3 years old.  One mother there had her child taken from her yesterday.  Understandingly, she was having a bad day.  Hopefully, she will be released soon.  Many of the women are in jail in Tacna for taking drugs across the border.  The majority of the women do not sell or take the drugs, but they transport them. 

We had a great time sharing, dancing, and singing.  I tried to avoid dancing, but some things you just have to loosen up to do!  I think I will be doing more jail time in the future!

PRESS IN

We are still pressing in to Jesus! We have had a lot of struggles, but we are still encouraged because we know our suffering is only for a little while. Saturday we crossed the border to renew our visa for our vehicle. We were hit from behind in a taxi. Once we returned to Tacna, we were told we could not keep the vehicle in Peru due to residency issues. Our friend returned to Chile with the vehicle! One of our bookcases came up missing in our move across the border. We are unsure who lifted it.

On the positive side of things, I was able to share in church on Sunday evening and I get to share in the jail on Thursday at 2:00 p.m. We are determined to persevere despite the obstacles which life brings.

Thank you for your prayers and keeping up with this journey. It is all for Jesus!

Early Mornings in Tacna

We have had some interesting mornings here in Tacna.  This morning I awoke between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m. with the windows rattling and the floor shaking.  The ladies in the market were discussing the strong earthquake we had.  It didn´t make it on the U.S.G.S. map, but it still happened!  Everybody else in my house slept through it. 

Normal mornings are starting between 2:00-3:00 a.m.  The garbage truck picks up that time several days a week.  Dogs bark all night long - not sure why as the streets seems to be very quiet.  About 6:30 a.m., the bread man comes through honking his bicycle horn selling fresh bread.  A little after 6:00 a.m. one morning this week someone came through with a cart and a loud speaker selling fish! 

We are slowly adjusting.  Our house is pretty much set.  We did have some drama with our washing machine, but discovered through the repairman that the pump for Chile doesn´t work in Peru, so he just switched it out.  It is working great now and was relatively cheap to fix .. much cheaper than buying a new one.  We are heading to Chile tomorrow to renew the VISA on our vehicle. 

Our goals for next week are getting internet and started our residency process in Peru.  Thank you for praying!!

We are here

We arrived last Thursday evening in Peru.  The border crossing was eventful to say the least.  Our things we moved sat in immigrations until this morning.  We had to complete a lot paperwork and jump through many hoops, but finally, we will all sleep in beds tonight!  We have been sleeping on the floor in the house we are renting.  Tacna is a large city and it is more difficult to get to places which offer internet.  Hopefully, we will have it in our house soon.  We bought meat for the first time yesterday.  The nice lady at the market cut the feet and head off of a chicken for us.  She was kind of surprised I asked her to cut them off.  It was obvious it had been freshly plucked! 

We have had lots of opportunites to share with people.  We will write more about that later as my time on the internet is limited...we covet your prayers and need them!!!

Eventful Day

Today has been LONG!  We are hoping and praying to get all of our paperwork ready by Thursday morning, this is a short summary of our day - most of these places are across town from one another!:

• We went to the agency who is handling our paperwork to get through the border.
• Off to the notary to leave some papers.  (Everything needs a stamp to be official!)
• Returned to the hotel to redo some papers which were incorrect for immigrations.
• Took the pin-drive to make copies of my correct paperwork.
• Returned to the notary to pick up papers and leave more papers.
• Went to the Peru immigration office in Chile; they said we had to pay a fee before they could give us a stamp we needed.  We left to pay the fee - by then they had closed for lunch.  (Lunch here is 1:00-3:00p.m.)
• Picked up Dokey for his shots and paperwork to cross the border.
• Returned Dokey to where he is staying.
• Traveled to the immigration office for animals which needed to approve Dokey's paperwork.  The vet said he needed to SEE Dokey, deep breath.
• Took a quick lunch, by then it was 2:30.
• Returned to pick-up Dokey and the nice vet person looked at him less than 15 seconds.  Then we waited about 25 minutes for the paperwork.
• Dropped off the dog - again.
• Ran by the Peru immigration office and realized we paid the fee in a place where they take money for all types of agencies - and - the immigration office would have to first CONFIRM the deposit with their bank (of course the bank was closed for the day here - banks close at 2:00 p.m. daily).
• Stopped by our friend's house who has our stuff to pick up a few suitcases.
• Returned to the notary for the second set of papers - that took another 40 minutes.
• Walked over to the immigration office with our notarized papers where the man asked me how much our 30 boxes + loose items weighed.  Hmm.  I said, "And how would I know that unless I go weigh them one by one?"  He agreed I had a point.  Then called the person who is supposed to carry our things on Thursday- he said they would know about how much it all weighed as they put them in the truck.  Huge deep breath.
• At 7:00 - returned to the hotel.

And this is a day overseas when trying to move across the border!  The final paperwork will not be completed until Wednesday evening and we move early in the morning on Thursday.

Great part of the day was seeing some people we used to go to church with here.  And a lady at the notary's office we didn't have time to talk with earlier in the day.  On our evening visit to the notary she was there and shared with us about her son who lives in the States who is a Mormon.  Very interesting talk with her about religion. 

Tomorrow we travel to Tacna to take a few things across the border to lighten our load for Thursday.  Pray all goes well!

Moving Thursday

Looks like we will be moving Thursday. We appreciate your prayers for a smooth transition through the border. Here are some things to pray about...

Pray our witness shows Jesus, first! Beyond everything that has to be done, we want to keep our eyes focused on Jesus. We don't want to miss the person in front of us and be attentive to their needs.

We need wisdom to know what to take now, and what to bring over little by little.
Pray every piece of paperwork is completed and nothing is missed. One missing stamp could delay the entire process!

We need favor as we cross, that the person we are supposed to connect with is there on Thursday a.m. and we pay what is fair for border taxes without prejudice.

We are having issues with our vehicle, pray the Lord will bring light to what we need to do.

Pray the process getting through the border is quick and doesn't take hours.

Pray for Dokey as he'll be with us! :). He is fat, but looks great.

Pray for our unity as a family. Moving is stressful especially international - we need to be Jesus to each other.

The Lord has already moved by giving us some sweet people to help us with this process. We are so thankful for what HE has already done.

Traditions

"Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the JOY set before him ENDURED the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  CONSIDER him who ENDURED such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.  In YOUR STRUGGLE against sin, you have NOT yet RESISTED to the point of SHEDDING your blood."  Hebrews 12:2-4 (emphasis mine)

May our lives reflect a RISEN savior by overcoming the sin which so easily entangles us.  We pray our lives will show how Jesus is still personally involved in our lives and the lives of those we serve.  We must strive to look more like Jesus and less like ourselves.  The resurrection is one of the most precious gifts we have which sets us a part from other religions.  Our God LIVES!!!  He is not idly sitting, He is preparing a place for us.  We praise our RISEN SAVIOR today.

On a side note:  Our lives can't be divided or balanced between the Easter Bunny and Jesus.  I am not trashing the bunny, I am just saying we should always be open to changing our traditions.  Sadly, many of our traditions reflect another reason to focus on ourselves and giving to ourselves versus giving all of our focus, undivided focus on Jesus where it should be. In the cultures we serve overseas, they observe many pagan traditions of which we do not participate.  As we re-enter our own culture, what's pagan we 'have always' observed becomes clearer.  And we don't have to compromise to reach the culture around us.  If I am really living for Jesus daily, I don't have to give away Easter eggs and candy to reach people who do not know Him.  I want them to know Christians are different.  We celebrate a risen Jesus..the only God who was ever resurrected from the dead.  The one who sent His Spirit to LIVE in each one of His children.  We should allow nothing, not even eggs and bunnies to divert the attention away from those facts.  Sure, resurrection eggs teaches the story of the resurrection - what about that?  Again - the problem is if our lives really reflected lives of THE RISEN SAVIOR, we wouldn't have to resort to using eggs to teach a culture about Him.  Living testimonies.  Again, not hating on the bunny or the eggs, just saying, lets make sure our traditions really, truly reflect Jesus and not observe traditions because they are not 'bad traditions'.  The question is, are our traditions godly and do they point others back to Jesus?  It is a fair question.