Wonderful Day

Holly had an awesome weekend. We had a great night Saturday with some friends. We made it a date night. We took our good friends Laura and Vico out to Jockey Plaza where we had a nice dinner, and then we went to see the Mummy 3. We had a really good time with them. It was Vico's first time at a Chili's. He really loved the American food. He got a steak, and Laura got the Cajun Chicken Pasta, which she really enjoyed. Anyway, it was a really nice night, and I wish we could do something like that every weekend. It just takes your mind off of work when you get to spend time with friends.

Today was a great day at church. Holly and I went to the 11am service at the sector 3 church this morning. When we first got to the door, we were asked to attend the 2 year anniversary of our sector 10 church. We currently have 12 churches that we work with here in Peru, so it was a real treat to go to the anniversary service. They really do it up here too. We had some praise and worship, a special dance, and some other special music. After that, they had a nice dinner prepared for all of us, and some cake of course.

Time for Work & Time for Play

It's always good to get away and have a little time off. Since Sunday was the Super Bowl, and Holly's from Boston, we had to find a way to watch the game. We have some other missionary friends in Lima, and they invited us to a Super Bowl Party. It was a first to watch the game in Spanish--definitely an interesting time. Holly was unhappy because her team lost, but we had a great time.

Monday was even better for me, as I went hiking in the mountains with Greg and Bridget from our orphanage. They are going to the U.S. next week to spend 9 days on the Appalachian Trail and wanted to get some training. We hiked along four or five different mountain tops. It was a nice hike and took about eight hours. We started at 8am and got back about 5:30pm or so. It was so beautiful at the tops of these mountains. There were no cars honking or dogs barking, and the air was great. We hiked about eight kilometers or so, which wasn't bad considering we hiked up to a height of 1700 meters at the peak of the highest mountain. I am hoping that in March when we all get back from the U.S., Greg and I can go out for a weekend trip to hike some of the higher mountains around. Along the hike, we did find two intact human skeletons. I will send pictures once I get them from Bridget. Apparently, these two skeletons have been there for a while, because they are nothing but bones now. Greg had reported it to the police here a couple of months ago, but they could care less.

While I was out on the mountain, Holly was at home working on this week's classes. The students have now finished one month of classes and have their four-week test this week. She has been busy, but hopefully with some help she is receiving in the classroom, things will get a little easier for her. We have hired two of the older girls from the orphanage to help us out with a couple things. One of the girls, Valeria, really wants to learn English, so she will be helping Holly on Wednesday and Friday mornings with her classes. The other one, Yessenia, will be taking care of our apartment twice a week. It is nice to have someone help us clean and get some things done around the house, and it allows us to bless her for her work as well.

We hope everyone is doing well, and we can't wait to see many of you in a couple weeks. ~Alex

More than a Full Time Job

As we have have learned over the past couple weeks, ministry is more than a full time job. This is something we were both aware of before we set out on our journey as missionaries, but as the weeks go by, it is reality and not just awareness. We love our jobs and thank the Lord everyday for allowing us to be here.

The past 2 weeks have been extremly busy for us. Holly has been working 7 days a week to plan lessons, teach classes, and grade homework. I have been working on getting the construction of our new Church and Sports/Medical Center started. Things here are always complicated. I was able to work with the contractor last week on the plans and made some small changes. The plans are now in the hands of the architectual engineer, and they are literally drawing them. I should have those soon, along with the total cost for this part of the project, which is huge. There will be a church, medical center, sports complex, and a boys orphanage. I can tell you that when it all is said and done, I am expecting it to cost nearly a million dollars. The Lord is bringing the money in, so I am not worried at all. The first phase of the project is the church and medical center. We want to get that going as soon as possible, so that we can start helping more people with our medical clinics.

Next week we have planned a littl night out for the missionaries that we know here in Lima. I am trying to set this up once a month so that we can all get together, relax, and not have to work our brains so hard speaking Spanish. I never thought that speaking and understanding another language would be so tiresome. ~Alex