I'm Engaged!

Dear Everyone,

I’ve been back in Peru for almost two months already and, as usual, time is flying by!  Here’s a brief update on all that’s been going on…

MINISTRY

I guess you would say that my job titles here in Pucallpa are MK (Missionary Kid) discipleship and camp ministry.  I’ve been working mainly with the Brock family who are independent missionaries that have lived in Pucallpa for eight years.  They are working on developing a camp that they will call PETRA (I can’t remember what each letter stands for, but it’s a really cool acronym, I promise!).  Since they live so from town, they home-school their kids; but, unfortunately, since Vanessa (the wife/mom) has Fibromyalgia and is not always in the best of health, that becomes a little difficult.  That’s where I come in.  Walter’s been driving me to their house four days a week to home-school their two oldest kids Corynn (9) and Ethan (8) who are both in the 4^th grade (Vanessa home-schools Clara, the 6 year-old).  Below is a picture of Corynn and Ethan doing school-work.  Usually Walter sticks around to work on building or other projects with Vann (the husband/father).  After I’m done teaching I sometimes help out Vann and Walter, but usually I go with Corynn to work with the three horses they are trying to break to use for future camp activities. 

 

I still see the other MK girls that I fell in love with while teaching at SAM Academy last year.  I get to see them at church and playing Frisbee on Sundays as well as at prayer meeting at the SAM base on Wednesday nights.  For now I have too much going on to teach dance classes, but they still want to do things with me.  This Sunday they just asked if we could do a camp-out soon and I was invited to one of the girls' 13^th birthday party.  I also go to some of the events the school puts on like bon fires, movie nights and plays.  Even though I am not with SAM anymore I was told to keep my key to the gate and that I was welcome anytime J     

I’ve also landed a job in a Peruvian Catholic school teaching English to 4^th, 5^th and 6^th graders.  I go for an hour and a half three days a week.  Sometimes it’s tricky commanding a classroom in another language, but I’m finding that with prayer and guidance from the Lord, it can be done.  When the administrator, who is an evangelical Christian who attends my church, hired me, she made it clear that she would like to hire more evangelical Christians to infiltrate the school specifically for the purpose of incorporating biblical truths into the lessons…”stealth evangelism”, I like to call it J  I’ve attempted to do this so far by having a bible verse each week that we discuss and I give them the opportunity to memorize it in English for extra credit.  This week’s verse is Psalm 119:11.  Below is a candid shot of my 4^th grade class…they were too fascinated by a man fixing the leaky roof in the classroom to look at the camera.

 

PERSONAL

If you haven’t heard it yet, I’m telling you now: Walter and I are engaged!!!

There’s still a lot of logistics to figure out before we can set with certainty a date for the wedding, but it will at least be several months if not a year away.  We are actually in the process right now of buying a piece of property to build a house.  We talked with the current owner and then went to some official looking place to pay to research the property to see if it was “clean”.  Here in Peru, there’s actually a law that protects people who invade private property that is vacant.  The irony is, the Peruvian army has a large property in Pucallpa that was vacant and it just got invaded by hundreds of people who, with legal representation, split it up into lots of 10 meters by 30 meters to build homes.  The government is protecting these people from paying penalties for stealing government land.  Oh Peru!  You make no sense sometimes!  But if it is invaded land, the new inhabitants do not have the title to the land, which might cause problems for them in the future.  That’s why it’s important here to really investigate before purchasing land.  Below is a picture of the land invasion of the army’s property.

 It turns out that the property we want has a title and is debt-free to the bank.  Once we purchase it, we’ll have to work on tearing down an old small wooden house that is currently there and after rainy season is over in March we can begin building our small three-bedroom home we designed.  I think Walter intentionally designed a small home to ensure that I don’t really have the seven kids I always talk about having.  I tell him I’m joking but I think there’s still a very scared part of him that is just a little unsure, haha. 

 Even though I’ve been super busy since I’ve gotten here, I’ve still had plenty of time to have fun.  Below are some pictures from Walter’s 25^th birthday on October 12 and of us and some friends at karaoke night at our friend Caleb’s house. 

 

Thanks for reading this novel, haha.  I hope you enjoyed.  God bless!