Liliana is someone we came to know through Alfredo, a friend in the church. She is someone we have gotten to know over the past 10 months or so. As a lonely person, she has found a refuge in the church here. She has a complicated and difficult past. God has used some of my fellow missionary coworkers and me to reach out to her even though it has not always been very easy to do so.
Arequipa’s parks fill up on weekends. A busy work week gives way to a day or two of rest in which parents and grandparents take their kids to the park to enjoy Arequipa’s beautiful, springy climate. On Sundays in Arequipa, the park is one of the places where life happens. Naturally that’s where we want the church—God’s presence as reconciled family—to be.
I went to the store today to buy bread. I was in a hurry. I had a lot of other things to be doing and to be preparing. I wanted to run in, ask if they had bread, buy the bread, and then hurry back home so I could get on with what I needed to do. However, I arrived at the store, asked if she had any bread left, only to be answered with, “Buenos Días!” This was my reminder that I had forgotten to greet her. My mindset changed immediately. I then returned the greeting, asked her how her family was, she asked how Jeremy was and what I had done that morning. THEN, I asked if she had any bread.
Great Cities Missions is an organization that equips and sends mission teams all over central and South America. They host a missionary conference called “Connections” every two years for men and on alternate years for women serving in this part of the world. Even though we aren’t associated with Great Cities, they graciously invited us to participate in this conference. Chase, Justin, and I were able to go to Sao Paulo, Brazil in early October and were greatly blessed by our time there.
The adults on our team have done extensive pre-field work and have had numerous conversations on spending dedicated time on culture learning (especially the first two years) and being prepared for culture shock and its effects on our families and our personal selves. We did, however, leave the kids out of these conversations. Maya was five months old when we moved here and has suffered no visible culture shock. Lorenzo and Evan did go through periods of adaptation, each at their own pace. It has been beautiful to watch how natural and theory-less their inculturation has been.
October 2015 will mark one year in Arequipa for the Blairs and Daggetts and about a year and ¾ for the Frouds and Morgans. This past month our team was able to step away for a few days to regroup and refocus on our work here in Arequipa. It was a wonderful three days together. We spent the first part of the day focused on worship and team meetings. During the evenings we ate dinner together and played games.
Many of you who have been following this newsletter for the past several years may have heard of Paty before. She has been a servant within the house church groups here and also works with CUDA’s (the Christian Urban Development Association) microfinance projects and takes care of CUDA’s accounting. She has such a beautiful story to tell.
I love the experience of climbing mountains and being high up. In some way I experience God’s greatness and power when I go far away from where the hustle and bustle of the city is. The air is clean and it is quiet and peaceful. I can think better and praising God just seems so natural. Climbing for me, as strange as it sounds, is a form of worshiping God. I realize how great He is and I praise Him along the way to the top. Psalm 19:1-6 is one of my favorite psalms. It really resonates with me when I read how the beauty of God’s creation testifies of His greatness and glory.
Since 2002, Holly and I have had the privilege of accompanying Harding University students to Peru and Bolivia. That first summer we were in Arequipa for the very first time! It is encouraging to see all that God has done in Arequipa since then! We have taken the occasional summer off from travels to do other things (we were in Greece in 2008) but I believe we’ve traveled to these South American nations ten times, accompanied by students on all but one occasion. In 2014, we faced our greatest logistical challenge, traveling with up to sixteen other individuals to Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile.
