What do we do every day?
We have been living in a small apartment at this hotel since March 16 when the quarantine lockdown went into effect. At that time we had the HULA group here with us until they left two weeks later. After that Jeremy’s parents and siblings were with us for another two weeks and then headed back to the US on a repatriation flight. For the last 4 months it has been us and the Spanish teacher that came with HULA, Debora, and her daughter, Sira (7 years old). Also living at the hotel is the owner, Zenet, and her daughter, Nathalie (17 years old), and one hotel worker, Yulisa. We have become a family seeing as we have been locked in the hotel grounds together 24/7 for 5 months now. We have celebrated 4 birthdays, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Peru’s Independence Day together. Arequipa’s birthday, August 15, is right around the corner.
What We’re Reading These Days - August 2020
Here are a few of the books we've been enjoying and learning from lately. Note, these all link to the book on smile.amazon.com. If you don't support a charity through Amazon yet, please consider supporting CUDA with your purchase.
CUDA Update - First Half of 2020
It’s mid-March. The school year is about to begin after January and February’s summer break. Families spend what they earned in February to buy school supplies for the beginning of classes in March. For CUDA, new libraries are in place. We have geared up for our biggest year yet, ready to work with 4 new schools and 2 second-year Living Libraries schools: 55 teachers and 1300 kids. And then the world falls apart.
Unexpected Gifts
In 5+ years in Peru, we have never lacked anything. You have supported us, prayed for us, sent us birthday cards and Christmas treats. You have visited us or sent a representative group to bless us. CUDA, our non-profit, has grown and some of you support that kingdom work there with monthly or end-of-year donations. When it looked like CUDA might not make budget in 2019 and I asked for help at the end of a long newsletter, we had $8,000 by the end of the week. God has been faithful. Your Epaphroditus-style generosity and sacrifice is beautiful and glorifies God. Every so often we get an email that leads to an unsolicited gift.
House Churches Launch into the 21st Century with a Virtual Connection
A Weary Thankfulness
It’s hard to summon the energy to write. We have a routine, and we’re doing well, but anything outside of that routine is difficult to reach for. Yesterday Peru’s president announced an extension to the current lockdown situation, effective now through June 30. So for now the plan is to stay here, our home away from home. We pray that in this waiting, God will be at work. Most of our friends are doing ok. But this country is hurting. Many who live life on the edge in regular circumstances are now in dire ones. This collective holding of our breath continues. Our prayer is that God would breathe life, healing, and hope into this place.
Quick Updates and Pictures
We're just a family living in Arequipa doing our best to follow God's lead as God's family experiences reconciliation, new creation, justice, wellbeing, and joy. By the way, the “we” here is: Jeremy, Katie, Adileen, and Kinney Daggett. We work with two small house churches. We try to build community around shared faith and hope in the neighborhood. We work with the Christian Urban Development Association helping vulnerable communities break cycles of poverty in education. And we direct Harding University Latin America.
House Churches: Raising Funds Arequipa Style
If you read through the book of Acts (as we’re currently doing in one of our discipleship reading groups), you can’t help but notice the incredible things that the Holy Spirit moves the young, small house churches to do in their communities. One of my greatest joys (and part of what gives me constant hope) is seeing the small house churches here serve. At the end of August, they came up with the idea for, led, and implemented a service-oriented fundraiser in order to be able to give food and personal hygiene products for an orphanage with 60 kids.