We Have Arrived!!

It's been a few months since our last blog post (ACK!), and we've been in Peru for 2 months now, which seems hard to believe. We recently got internet hooked up at our house so we're finally able to post this long-overdue update.

We ended up having to wait longer to leave for our mission post than most of the other new missionaries because we were waiting on a certain document that we were going to need for the visa process. We ended up flying out on February 26^th and arriving in Lima on the 27^th.
 

At the airport in Tarapoto with the other FMC missionaries.

We had a one-hour connecting flight into Tarapoto, which is in the San Martin region of Peru.  We were very warmly greeted by all the other FMC missionaries serving this area (11 people at the time, however 2 more families have come since then. The total number of FMC missionaries here is now 30, including us).

After loading up all of our stuff, we went out for lunch together and enjoyed time with this awesome community of missionaries. The single guys team then drove us out to Tingo de Ponaza, the pueblo that we now call home. We marveled at the beauty of this area during the two hour drive from Tarapoto. Along the way, we stopped briefly in Picota, the main town under which we serve. This is where the priests and the church are located.

Coming in to our pueblo, God gave me a sense of peace and gratitude for being in this particular place and community that He has called us to serve. We had been praying for these people ever since we found out that we had been assigned to “Tingo” and now we were finally here!

Looking at the road from our house, which is at the end of the road.

We walked into our new home (which requires its own blog post...stay tuned.) and were soon greeted by tons of the neighborhood kids flooding into the yard to see who all these white kids were. They pulled coconuts down from the tree in the back and opened them up for us to have coconut water, and then proceeded to play with the kids, asking their names and how old they are. Their immediate kindness and excitement meant so much to us.

Since then, we've been busy trying to get settled in here. One thing we were told during our 3-month intake was that we should approach our mission as a marathon and not a sprint. Since we're here long-term as opposed to a brief mission trip, we don't need to hit the ground running, saying “yes” to every ministry opportunity that presents itself. Instead, we should give ourselves time to adjust, to really make our house a home, and to set up a healthy schedule and routine for our family. That way we can serve more freely and generously knowing that our family life is in order and thereby reduce the risk of burnout. We have taken this advice to heart as we do intend to be here for at least the next two years, quite possibly longer.

It's been a longer and more expensive process than we thought it would be. We have had to buy everything to set up a home all over again: beds, mattresses, pillows and sheets, a kitchen table, pots and pans, silverware, a fridge and “stove” (a 4-range cooktop), things to store food and dishes in (to keep out bugs and mice), etc. The hardest part for me, being the thrifty person that I am, is that there are no second-hand stores here so we're having to buy everything brand new and I wasn't expecting things to cost as much as they do. Some things, like the sheets, were even more than what we'd pay at Target or Wal-Mart! I don't know how the average person here can afford to buy some of these basic household items.


After a trip in to Picota on our second day here to get mattresses, fans, and other necessities. 
The vehicle is being loaned to us from the single guys' team. Miraculously, all nine of us can squeeze into it!
 

We had one big family bed in the living room until we got beds for the kids.

 

Our backyard with aforementioned coconut tree.  The structure is a
huge chicken coop that houses our neighbor's chickens. 

Before coming here, we were told that this area has a great need for catechesis as the parish itself is less than 50 years old. We are beginning to see this for ourselves as we learn that some (most?) of the people in this area think it's more important to attend their own pueblo's Liturgy of the Word service on Sunday than to go to Mass, even if one of the priests comes to celebrate Mass in a pueblo just down the road. Few (if any) people from our pueblo make it to Sunday Mass. We thought it might be because of the expense of getting a motorcar (a taxi service) to take them, and while that is a factor, we are learning that the primary reason is that few (if any) don't realize that they should be trying to get to Mass on Sundays. Although many people identify as being Catholic, it seems there is little understanding of what that means. We are hoping to buy a truck soon so that we'll have the ability to transport some of the people from our pueblo into Picota for Mass on Sundays. So far, just our neighbor has come with us a couple of times.  



Motorcars and motorcycles are the most common modes of transportation. There are very few cars.

 

What a motorcar looks like.  It's a motorcycle with a seat in the back that fits about 3 adults.

The type of truck we hope to buy soon.  "Cages" on trucks, like this one, is very common to see.
Lots of people pile into the back of them to get around.

Our little pueblo's chapel
 

Speaking of our neighbor, she is a God-send!!! I'll write more about her in an upcoming post about our house, but I just want to say briefly now that she has been the biggest help to us in getting settled in and figuring out how things are done here. She has patiently put up with our very little Spanish-speaking abilities and sometimes has gone out of her way to show us things or point us in the right direction. I thank God for her daily.
 

I hope to start writing posts more regularly now that we have internet. Please know that we are incredibly thankful for your prayers for us and for this mission. God is so good to have entrusted us with this particular mission – and when I say “us,” I also mean all of you back home who are praying for and sponsoring us! Your participation in the work of foreign missions through your prayers and sponsorship is a very important and critical part! We could never be here without the prayers uplifting us and the people we are here to serve, nor without the funds to even come in the first place. So we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

 

St. Rose of Lima, pray for us.

St. Martin de Porres, pray for us.

 

Helping out at a medical mission trip with students who came from Benedictine.
The line on the right are the people who came to be seen by the doctors.

The kids' job at the mission: playing with the other kids! 

Getting a lesson in Spanish by one of the girls from our chapel.

Baby Aaron gets a lot of attention wherever we go.
Many people have no problem taking him out of my hands to hold him and make over him.
These teenagers are part of a youth group in Picota.

Robert with our neighbor Roberto.  They're just a few months apart in age.

Learning which caterpillars that crawl in and around our house are poisonous. 
This one is.

Buckets of water that people brought to Mass so Father could bless it for them.

A few of us with the Bishop in Moyobamba, the capitol of the San Martin region.

John Paul walking to our chapel for an unexpected Friday night Mass.

...And immediately following Mass was an unexpected Stations of the Cross around the plaza.
We've come to realize there's no sense in gauging how long things will take
because there's always something happening that we don't know about or aren't expecting.
It's all God's timing anyways.

The elaborate and beautiful palms that people made for Palm Sunday

People always point to our legs and exclaim, "Zancudos!!"
Robert's responded a couple of times with, "Zancudos amor gringos,"
which garnered lots of laughs.

When a motorcycle is your only means of transportation, you get creative.
I wish I could have pictures of all the things I've seen people holding while riding their bikes.
The craziest was a children's bike.  I think I actually have a picture of it.  I'll add it if I find it.

Alaina (5) loves to draw.  She has now started drawing people with brown skin and black hair.

Alaina, Michael, and our neighbor Jherson in a group hug.  He has become an almost constant companion.
He likes to draw pictures and then show them to me and say what they are in Spanish.
It's his way of building our vocabulary.  I've learned quite a bit from him!
This day he taught us the word "abrazo" (hug).

Our neighbor, Cimy, and her sister taking the feathers off 3 of the chickens in our yard (we share our yard).
This was the first time any of us had seen chickens being killed and de-feathered (is that a word?)