We are in Trujillo, Peru! We have spent a day here now and are loving every minute of it!
Travelling here on Wednesday was a bit nerve racking! To begin with, we drove to the Houston airport in a torential downpour. As we were nearing the parking garage, we hit a dip with a lot of water in it that splashed up and knocked a hose of the mini-van which caused the car to heat up and lose power steering as we were pulling into the parking place. After spending about 45 minutes at the checkin counter trying to get Heather, Erin, & the kids tickets straighted out (the weather was causing all sorts of delays), we finally got them sent off an hour later than originally scheduled. My plane wasn't leaving until 4pm, so I stayed behind with Heather's parents to take care of the van & get it towed to a shop.
My plane ended up being delayed for two hours and didn't leave until after 6pm which put me in at around 12:30am. After about a 30 minute wait in line at immigration, I went and gathered my luggage and processed Alyosha the Cat through the Dept of Agriculture. I got to the hotel after 2am and slept for about an hour and awoke at 4:30am to get everyone ready for our ride back to the airport at 5am.
For various reasons, we didn't catch our ride until 5:45am. Took our 1/2 hour ride back to the airport, got checked in, paid for Alyosha the Cat's ticket, paid the airport tax, ran through the screening area, answered questions by an employee at the screening area about Alyosha the Cat (he was enamored with her), and made it onto our 7am flight with about 5 minutes to spare. Whew!
When we arrived at the airport in Trujillo, the missionary families were all there to greet us and welcomed us with open arms. We spent the day with them, including a nice lunch at a park in our neighborhood.
We are thrilled to be here and are so grateful to all our friends back in the states who are making this possible with their support and prayers. We already miss everyone and wish that you all were here with us. Hace buen tiempo. The weather is nice. I'm writing this sitting outside in the shade on a sunny day with a cool breeze blowing. The temperature is probably around 70. Nice, I know!
Friday, July 28, 2006
We made it!
Thursday, July 27, 2006
We're in Trujillo, Peru!
Hey Everyone,
We wanted to let you know that we made it into Trujillo, Peru in one piece. We had a few delays, and made our plane from Lima to Trujillo with only about 5 minutes to spare, but we are here nonetheless.
We spent the day with the missionaries, and our kids are having a blast with theirs. We just put them down for bed, and I'm heading there myself.
Thanks for all your prayers and encouraging emails.
We'll post some pics and more details shortly.
Friday, July 21, 2006
Aggies Up! Longhorns Down!!!
On our recent trip to Austin, Grandpa took us out to eat at Jorge's near the campus of t.u. (btw, if you ever want to eat the best cheese enchiladas in the world, look no more!) Of course, Jorge's has to cater to their demographic and we realize that. But we couldn't leave without making a fightin' Texas Aggie statement! "Aggies Up! Longhorns Down! Whoooooooop!
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Pastors that Rock!
Every Tuesday morning, I ate breakfast with my pastors Wade Coleman and Jon Anderson. We laughed a lot, shared life together, and encouraged each other in the callings which God has given us. I'm going to miss these guys, but I'm glad that technology can keep us close. Thanks for all the prayers and counsel over the years. 
The Scandalous Party
In case you might be interested, I preached a sermon recently at Redeemer Pres in San Antonio pastored by my friend, Tom Gibbs. The study was entitled, "A Scandalous Party", which is from Luke 7 in which Jesus was invited to a dinner party by Pharisee which was crashed by a prostitute. I love this story. Click here to listen.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Two Weeks To Go, That's All Folks!!!
Lord willing, we'll be on our way to Peru two weeks from now. It's hard to believe, and even though we have shipped our container to Peru, and even though our house is a wreck as we prepare for a final garage sale to get rid of everything else, it still doesn't seem real in many ways. It will probably hit once we close on the house and jump on the plane.
As we wind down, please join us in praying for these final things:
*Everything with the closing on our house here will go smoothly (we close on the 24th).
*We still don't know where we will be living in Peru. There are a couple of options that are being pursued, but pray that God will provide the right place for us.
*For the remainder of our funding & support to come into place.
*Final goodbyes, and all that jazz.
Friday, July 7, 2006
The Container Is On The Way To Peru!!!
The day finally arrived. Today we loaded up the container and it is on its three week trek to Trujillo, Peru! I was a bit pessimistic that we would fit everything in it. I had a "must go" list and a "nice to take if we have room" list. But as it turned out, we had an outstanding cast of packers from our home church that we ended up with plenty of room. In fact, we took extra stuff that was on the "garage sale" list! It's a bit weird thinking that our most prized possessions are on that container, but hey, life doesn't consist in the abundance of possessions! Check out these pics:
And special thanks to our other awesome friends not captured in the pics above: Sharon Wells, Jon "brother" Anderson, Adam Mikeal, LuAnn Dotzer, and Stephanie & Dayna Wells who watched our kids for us. All of you are great. Thanks so much for taking time out of your day to help us.
Thursday, July 6, 2006
Well, we are up to our necks in boxes wondering how in the world we are going to fit all this stuff into our 20ft. container which is supposed to arrive tomorrow morning. I (Heather) thought I'd put up some pics of how things are going and looking.
