Update

Just thought I would give a quick update. It has been a week since the short term group left and it has been a whirlwind. We have pretty well gotten the 40/40 house furnished and comfortable for living which was our priority. Our house is still lacking furniture but it we should be better settled next week (I am hoping:). The 40/40s have been visiting their communities and meeting new people and there have already been decisions for Christ! Daniel & Andrew left yesterday for their community which is quite a ways away. Please pray for safety and logistics for them. They left having a vague idea of what to expect but fully willing to go for it. They will stay up there until Sunday or Monday and then come back and this will happen each week. We are looking to hire someone to help shop and cook for the 40/40s so please be praying we can find someone good and trustworthy. Currently everyone is pitching in on cooking and I am learning the art of shopping at the market...I bought my first chicken at the market (and promptly asked them to cut off the head & feet:)! Kai is adjusting well and actually loving life at our house. There is still construction going on for the church so he is in a little boys paradise...equipment and a huge pile of sand to play in...he is constantly dirty but beyond happy:) Tyson and my main focus right now is to get everything settled for the 40/40s and make sure they have what they need. I will also be teaching the 0-5 year old Sunday School and Tyson will be helping with worship. Well, there is a little update...there will be more to come but just wanted to let you know we are settling in but could sure use your prayers through this process. Thanks and God Bless!

Thank you, thank you, thank you

I really don't know what to say except "thank you" a million times. The short term group of missionaries who built our home and kick started ministry in Puerto left last week. We were beyond blessed to have 9 friends from our church back home down for the trip. They worked so hard...seriously, really hard, in ridiculous heat every day getting our house finished. And can I just say, wow, amazing...the house is wonderful and beyond anything I expected. Here are some pics of them working...mostly doing tile...our house is filled with tile...so much work! My camera battery was dead and I couldn't find the charger so I am using pictures from the Moens' camera. All that to say I am missing a picture of Debbie who most likely took these (and grouted tile for days) and of Jan who was working with the Impact group.

This is where the house was at when they arrived...

And when they left after 10 short days...It really meant so much to have this group here. To see them working so hard to complete our house, to see them experiencing Puerto and the people here. Over 300 people accepted Christ during their time here...amazing! It was not just getting to see friends (which in itself was a treasure) but they were here as we started our ministry here and it was so incredibly special. On top of building our home and serving our community they also brought us a ton of stuff to start out. Thank you to everyone at Church on the Hill for blessing us beyond, beyond what we could have imagined. Our kitchen is stocked with things we have been missing from home (brown sugar, baking soda, spices, etc), we have utensils, measuring cups, tupperware, towels for our kitchen, toys for Kai, supplies for ministry, I could go on and on. Shoes for Kai...not used shoes like I asked for, but brand new ones (he walked around proudly showing everyone his new shoes by the way). Oh and on top of all that (of which I am leaving out a ton) they brought us an a portable air conditioner! I know! Amazing! Thank you, thank you, thank you. Really, we are so incredibly thankful and blessed by you all!

Beyond our group from Church on the Hill there were a ton of other people who worked so hard during their time here. It was wonderful to meet everyone and get a chance to work along side them. Thank you to all who poured their hearts into this project. Thank you to those back in the US who prayed, sent items and supported those who came. God bless you all and come visit again soon:) We love you!

We Made It!

We made it to Puerto Wednesday and were so excited to be welcomed at the airport by Abby & Daniel (you can see our excitment below)

We then were able to go out to the jobsite to see all our friends from back home in McMinnville. It is really so wonderful to have them here and see how hard they are working. The house looks amazing and they are all working so very hard to get it all done and doing an amazing job. I was in tears not only seeing everyone, but seeing them work on our home...it makes it so much more special.

There is a lot going on with construction and then there are impact groups going to schools, women's jails, and communities. People are coming to know Christ and experiencing His love through this group. It is amazing to have this going on and there is so much for our 40/40 team to come in and follow up on...Praise the Lord!

Prayers: Please pray for the work the impact teams are doing and for the hearts of the people in Puerto to be open to Christ. Pray for the construction team, for safety and for everything to be smooth and to finish on time. Pray for our 40/40 team that will be arriving next Tuesday...that they would be ready to hit the ground running and for safe travels here. Thank you for your prayers for Wendy. She is in Arequipa still but everything is healing well and she will join the rest of the team here on Tuesday. Please pray for Kai, he has had an eye infection for the last 5 days and they are very red and swollen. We are very thankful to have Rhonda from our church here who is a nurse...if this had to happen I would pick now:)

Thank you to everyone for your prayers...God Bless!

Lima...and on to Puerto!

So we left Iquitos Sunday night. We came with Olivia and Andrew who continued on to Puerto Monday morning. The rest of our team is finishing up school and will leave Iquitos next Monday. We have spent the last couple days in Lima. We finished up Kai's residency process so he is now a Peruvian resident along with us and it is great to have that done. Other than that we have been enjoying things like hot showers, fast internet, American food, starbucks and driving in cars. I actually said these words to Kai today: "Tomorrow we go on another airplane but while we are here we get to ride in cars which is just as fun." And to him, it probably is:) It is so funny what becomes exciting and amazing when you have been away from it for so long;)

Tyson and Kai in front of a fountain in Lima (the big city)

Tomorrow morning we fly out to Puerto, our new home! We are filled with excitement and anticipation. We can't wait to see friends from our church in McMinnville who are on the short term trip working on our house. We also get to see Extreme team members we haven't seen since leaving Arequipa! Mostly, we are excited to finally be in the place we have been praying for, preparing for and thinking about for so long. Thank you all for your prayers and we look forward to sharing pictures and stories of our new city soon! God Bless!

Lasts & Goodbyes

Well, the past week was filled with lasts and goodbyes. Our last week in Iquitos. I am at a loss for words to express how thankful we are for these last 5 months in Iquitos. We were welcomed with open arms and the people there shared their lives with us and loved us and taught us much. Here are a few picture a few goodbyes and lasts.

Kai's last day of school with his teacher Miss Ruth.

We have been so grateful for Kai's school and his teachers. He has learned so much Spanish in his time there and he really loves his friends and teachers. He comes home singing songs or talking about shapes and colors. It was so refreshing knowing that he was in good hands and that he was learning a lot in the time we were away from him.

Last Monday Night Dinner

We have loved having Monday night meals at our house. We will have many more meals and even more time with our team now that we will live right below them. This is a tradition that will continue, but for our last Monday night dinner/study in Iquitos we did foot washing, communion and worship. It was a great night and we look forward to beginning the work with our team in Puerto!

Last church service. Pastor Antonio, Jim, Tyson and Kai

It was hard to say goodbye to the families we have become close to. Pastor Antonio, his wife, Melena and son, Jim are a very special family and we will miss them a ton. Tyson and Pastor have a special bond as the dads of two special boys that are great friends. We have so much respect for Pastor and his church is a wonderful example of a church family. Kai would run into their house almost every day to play with Jim and they always welcomed him and loved on him. It was hard to say goodbye. I don't have a picture with the Correas but we are going to miss them so much. Cristobal and Noemi Correa were in charge of the training of the 40/40s. We had many meetings, conversations and prayer with them. These last 5 months would have been so much harder without them. They are an amazing couple and we are thankful for their love, wisdom and patience with our Spanish:) They will be having a baby girl in February and we can't wait to meet her when we see them again next summer!

Kai and Jim riding around the house...

Kai and Jim. This was a hard one for me. Jim and Kai have been amigos since the first day they met. He and Jim ran around the church grounds pulling Tonka trucks on shoe strings and learning from each other. Every single day we would have lunch at the church and Kai would barely want to eat so that he could be done to go play with Jim. When Jim would see me leaving class to go pick up Kai he would run after me "Hermana, hermana donde esta Kai?" And Kai would cry a good portion of the time when playtime was over and it was time to go home. But through his tears he would always shout "Chow, Amigo" and Jim would yell back "Chow, Amigo". It was precious. Jim and his mom came to the airport to say goodbye so that Jim could watch the plane fly away to better understand that Kai was leaving. My heart about broke when I watched them stand face to face, both open their arms up wide and give each other a huge hug. Jim was Kai's first best friend, the first friend he was old enough to decide for himself that he loved and wanted to be with. Their time together was precious for me to watch as a mom and I look forward to some day coming back and letting these two amigos reunite:)

There are many more goodbyes and lasts but these were just a few highlights. We were touched by so many people and I can't name them all but we are thankful for each and every one of them. We thank the Lord for these last 5 months and the people he placed in our lives!

Prayers Needed!

Hello All,

We are asking for your prayers. Wendy one of our 40/40's has had an infected bite in her leg for the last 4 days and the doctors here in Iquitos have not been able to improve the condition. So the consensus is to have her flown to Arequipa where the medical facilities are much better and there are Extreme staffers that have medical know how. There are two bites and poor Wendy has been enduring incredible pain with amazing grit, at the hands of the doctor who have been squeezing her leg for 4 days. She even endured a volcano of hydrogen peroxide coming out of her leg. She is a tough one that Wendy. Please be praying that the doctors and staff in Arequipa will be able to know what to do. Thanks.

Right now, there is an Extreme Volunteer Mission Project taking place for the next 2 weeks in Puerto Maldonado to finish our home and prepare the soil in Puerto with impact events to reach out to the community. Please pray for the safety of those volunteers many of whom are from our church in McMinnville. Who, by the way we can't wait to see. And pray for the hearts of those in Puerto that they would be softened and that many would come to know Jesus Christ as their savior.

Also please be praying for our family as we pack up our house into suitcases for the final time and head to the location that we have been praying about for the last year. This is an exciting time for our team because Puerto has been in our hearts and minds from the beginning, this whole time of preparation in language school and missionary training is for this place. Pray that God would use us in a mighty way, that his hand would be upon every one of our team members and that we would be able to see how God has already been preparing Puerto for his handiwork. Thank you all for your prayers and please let us know how we can be praying for you all. God Bless.

My New Guitar Friend and Mentor

So I met Luis about 3 months ago when he was playing at a local restaurant down the street from our house. He plays with two friends of his nearly every night. I happened to notice that he wailed with a really cool smooth jazz at 72 years old. I asked him where he learned to play and he learned in Brazil about 55 years ago and he´s been playing with the same guitar ever since. I then asked him if he taught lessons which he did for 10 soles per hour(which is about $3.15) and 4 soles for the taxi ride. We set up a date to jam at my house and began our lessons. Following our first lesson he asked me if I had any vitamins around, which seemed a little odd around. But he has says he can't find good vitamins down here, he needs American vitamins. He was obviously very interested in them so I tolk him I would look into it. I then asked my wonderful parents who thankfully sent down a bottle of Centrum Silver and Cardio. So we decided right there to trade lessons for vitamins. It´s been a wonderful experience and he´s taught me some great harmonic chord progressions and a great spanish worship song. It's the sweetest thing, whenever we talk about Jesus, he just get´s up and jumps around like he´s a little child describing the greatest thing in the world. He puts his arms out like Jesus dying on the cross and then acts out his resurrection describing it with such conviction. It is so wonderful to meet and spend time with this man who loves his savior. Also it is great to see how much he loves to see Kai, they have a great time together, they both are just gitty. We´ll that´s a little about the Luis who has blessed our lives and taught me some great guitar.

Adventure on the Amazon: Raft Race 2009

The adventure began the day before the race when we found out one, we could bring extra construction items to use in building our raft and secondly, that one of our team mates couldn´t get the time off to participate. So the night before our race Andrew and I headed to Ramon´s house (a friend of ours from church) to see if he would have the time and then to see if he would even be interested. Sure enough he was up to the challenge, yet I´m not sure he knew quite what he was getting into but neither did we. So following our late night trip to his house we went and fetched a few nails, wire and extra rope and then headed home to pack.

The next morning we left for Nauta, 2 hours by bus where we were greeted and introduced during a ceremony and then we were boated across the river to ¨Fisherman´s Island¨ where we arrived and began gathering our 8 balsa poles. After a few hickups by the organization finally began constructing our raft about 2 hours later. We really had no idea how to go about constructing a raft that would last us 3 days and over 21 hours on the river but what the heck we went for it. It began getting dark around the point we started fastening the middle and back braces and then a fantastic lightning storm started and then the ¨rainforest¨ worthy downpoor quickly followed. We were about the only team that continued on our construction throughout the rain but we were in a groove. After we finished and were drenched to the bone we headed into our shanty tent where there were already 4 other competitors laying out. So if you can picture a tent with muddy sand trounced throughout our sleeping area, the rain dripping through the tarplike ceiling and no space to lay down because the other team took up most of the room. Oh yeah and then add the fact that the mosquitos were horrible and then to add insult to misery, one of the other team members says, (in english) let´s sleep sitting up. Yeah, great idea genius with the whole mat to himself. So Andrew and I ended up sleeping literally shoulder to shoulder on the wet sand floor trying to avoid the drips. Sufficed to say I slept probably less than an hour.
The following day we woke up around 5am and began preparing our raft for the journey and at our danty breakfast of one slice of bologne and cheese. So we put it on the water and it passed the float test, but would it pass the whole trip test, we had yet to know. At 8am sharp every group put in and the bell sounded and we jetted off, ramming about two teams trying to get started which put us in dead last place. It took my body at least about 30 minutes to work out the kinks and then hit my stride, but it was great to pass a ton of teams to start out and then finish Day 1 passing another 5 more teams close to the finish line. However, we finished about 30 seconds behind the ¨Mormons¨ or so we thought. We ended up gunning for them the whole 3 days and then on the last day we figured out the weren´t mormons at all. But anyway, it was a good goal to shoot four. Day 2 we just cruzed and beat the ¨the mormons¨ and at one point there was no team in sight behind us and one team in front of us. We got another danty portion of supper and breakfast in a small pueblo and then headed out again for Iquitos which was going to be another 8 or 9 hour day on the river. We paddeled and made really one mistake in reading the current of the river that cost us some time but we were quite pooped at this point. Daniel´s shoulder ¨wasn´t responding¨as he said and Ramon was as dark as a raisin. The final 200 meters was upriver and really killed us, it probably took us 25 minutes to move that small distance. Anyways, it was a blast, I hope to do it again in the distant future and there is much more to write and explain which I do not have time. It was great fun and a great time of bonding for Andrew, Daniel and myself. Thank you all for your prayers, we felt safe the entire time even though we were inches off the water the whole time. One of the Peruvian competitor told me he had seen a Boa during one of the smaller windier sections and was mortified. But we only saw Dolphins and lots of jumping fish. That´s it in a nutshell even though there is much more to say, I´ve included a website here to read a short article (in english) from one of the journalist spectators. http://www.livinginperu.com/travel-920-amazon-adrenaline-rafting-great-amazon-raft-race-2009.

Construction Video of Puerto

Here is a video that was put together by Extreme that shows the construction of our future home in Puerto. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi3ouzGwhr0. They happened to use a pretty great back up song as well.

Puerto

Our time in Iquitos is quickly coming to an end...and we leave for Puerto in about 3 weeks! I am filled with emotions--sadness because I don't want to leave this place we have called home for the last 5 months, but excitement about what lies ahead. We have anticipated, talked about, prayed and planned for Puerto for the past year...and we will finally be there!

Right now there is a short term team in Puerto working on building our home and doing outreach in the communities. Please join us in prayer for this team--for safety, for good weather, and for impact on the people in Puerto. We are so thankful for them and the work they are doing to build our home and prepare the community for the work our team will be doing! You can keep up with all that is happening during this short term project at http://www.extremenazarene.org.