5 years in Peru: On October 1, we celebrated 5 years in Peru! Praise God for the way we’ve been taken care of, through you our supporters, through our friends and teammates, and through the Peruvian Christians and not-yet-Christians who we now call coworkers and family.
International Congress on Domestic Violence and Child Sexual Abuse: At the end of September I helped a German friend (who directs a children’s home here) during an event to raise awareness for sexual abuse and to train social workers, psychologists, and other professions here in Arequipa who work with victims of abuse. Dr. Bob Geffner from San Diego California presented twice on Friday and twice on Saturday, and I stretched my Spanish vocabulary to include neuropsychology and trauma.
Connections: At the beginning of October I went to the Connections Conference outside of São Paolo for the first time. This conference is hosted by Great Cities Missions and is oriented toward missionary care, with a whole team of spiritual directors, professional counselors, and mentors. There were over fifty English-speaking missionaries from South and Central America who were part of the conference. It was an enormous blessing to be a part of it and I’m so thankful for the special time spent with other missionaries who work in Peru and other countries, and new connections I made. Special thanks to Gary Green who has become a mentor over the last couple years (along with his incredible wife and teammate Frances), and Jonathan Hanegan who encouraged me to be a part of the conference. The conference is hosted for men during odd-numbered years, and for women on even-numbered years.
SPECIAL REQUEST - Rotary club sponsor: I have a special request on behalf of CUDA and our executive directo Alfredo Oporto: “My club Rotary club Colca de Arequipa (club number 88284, district 4455 Perú), is looking for an international sponsor club for our project of Reading Comprehension in poor schools in Arequipa, as we seek a Global Grant.” If you are part of a Rotary Club that could be an international sponsor club, as soon as this year, or even for next year, please get in touch.
Fiesta Familiar: Peruvians love anniversaries and they love to celebrate. You may remember that last year I practiced for an entire month to perform a traditional dance for Adileen’s school anniversary celebration in which I entered dancing with a live sheep on my shoulders. This year there wasn’t a live sheep, and mercifully we only practiced every night for two weeks, but I performed by second traditional Peruvian dance with parents from Adileen’s 3 year-old class. If you missed it on Instagram, you can see it here, along with Adileen’s super-cute and also impressive almost 8-minute choreographed traditional Russian dance. For Peruvians, to celebrate is to dance traditional dances. (The link will only work if you open it on a phone/tablet and have Instagram)
Thank you: At the end of our special edition of our last newsletter for the 10-year anniversary of CUDA, tucked away at the bottom, I shared that we lacked $8,000 to make budget through the end of 2019. You all responded in a big way—by giving $11,000! Thank you so much for your immediate action which allowed us to start focusing on securing funding for our work in 2020.
