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.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
The Date is Set: July26th. Peru or bust!!!
Since we hit the 85% mark, we went ahead and purchased tickets to move to Peru. The official date is set for Wednesday, July 26th! Yes, it was weird buying one way tickets out of the country. We're excited, but there remains much to be done, including packing up our house to ship down on a 20ft. container, as well as to have a garage sale or two before we go to sell off everything else.
Almost There....
Well, the latest report is in and I am thrilled to report to you that we have 85% of the monthly support we need pledged! This has been a long haul, but God is good. As most of you know by now, our work with RUF at Texas A&M was over at the end of May, so we are on board with RUF-Peru! Thanks to all of you who are standing with us through financial & prayer support. We couldn't do this without you!
Sold!!!
Well, things keep happening that keep us on the road to Peru! For example, we sold our house in 2 1/2 weeks, and I sold my truck yesterday (which was arguably more sad than selling my house!). We close on the house July 24th, so hopefully everything will go smoothly!
Monday, May 22, 2006
Anyone want to buy our house?
We are going ahead and taking a huge step by placing our house on the market. We have our sights set on moving to Peru on July 26th. We have a lot to do between now and then, including working on the remaining 25% that we need for monthly support. But we are going ahead and moving in this direction because it seems wise to us and to our couselors to do so. {Big breath in, exhale out....}
So, if you know of anyone in the market, we've got a great place for them! Please pray that our house would sell quickly! {P.S., We really love this place!}
RUF Summer Conference 2006
Well, we finished off the school year with a great RUF conference at the snow white beaches of Panama City Beach. Students from various RUF chapters across the nation converged here for a week of fun, relaxation, and some serious study of the Scriptures. 
Every morning, students attended seminars taught by various campus ministers on everything from pop culture to evangelism, apologetics to dating, and everything in between. Then they had the afternoon off to soak up the sun, play beach volleyball, build sandcastles (Texas A&M finished 2nd this year; of course, we were robbed!). Then, we all gathered for worship and heard a week's worth of sermons on the topic of Justification. John Stone taught the first week, and Brian Habig the second. You can listen to the sermons via podcast as well as messages from previous conferences.
The sun rises and the sun sets. It is setting on our time here at TAMU. It has been an amazing ride, and God has been so good to us. We trust the sun will rise & shine on our next step in Peru.
Friday, May 12, 2006
What Others Are Learning, & We With Them
One of the joys of this whole endeavor is watching God work in the lives of our friends as God stirs hearts to join us in this effort. I received the following letter from one of our students here at Texas A&M as he joins us in sacrificing for the sake of the Gospel. His letter was such an encouragement to us that I wanted to share it with you (with his permission, of course):
"Learning to trust in God in all aspects of life has been and continues to be a struggle for me. Yet our great God has proven Himself faithful whenever I have trusted Him above all else. I want you to know how instrumental you both have been in God's work upon my heart to learn to trust and obedience to His will and His calling.
"I have been praying for you and your family as you prepare for Peru and wait upon the Lord to provide money to go....I have been thinking and praying about it now, and though it has never been a question of whether or not to give, I have struggled with how much to give.
"Tomorrow is guaranteed to no one and the Lord calls us to give out of the generosity of our hearts in accordance to the needs of others. I cannot, no that is wrong, I am without the faith to give you all that I have to give, trusting that God would provide me (a huge sigh has just been exhaled). But in small faith I hope that my gift will be increased by God's grace and your faithfulness.
"Perhaps one day I will sell all my possessions and walk by faith alone, forsaking earthly cares for eternal vision, as the prophets of old. Or maybe my measure is something less grand, yet of good use. Whatever becomes of anyone like us, may God be glorified in our living this life we have been blessed to receive.
With Love and Hope,
XYZ
How we are blessed and challenged to walk by faith as we watch our friends do so!
Friday, May 5, 2006
We're at 75%!!!
The latest tally is in and we are pleased to report to all our friends and supporters that we have 75% pledged toward our monthly support!!! A huge mile-stone, no doubt! We still have a ways to go, but the summit is in sight.
Please be in prayer for these four specific things...
1) Obviously, that God would continue building our support network of folks who want to be a part of this mission. We are amazed at the ways in which God is bringing this together right before our eyes. God is granting us favor in the eyes of our fellow Christians and churches. May He continue to do so.
2) We also need wisdom for all the details that need to be attended to that make my head spin. For example: when do we put our house on the market? We'd like to put it up for sale somewhere when we have between 80-85% pledged, but this entails knowing a departure date.
3) Along with this comes considerations about having a moving sale, as well as shipping a container to Peru with some of our belongings (and the all important books!). We need to ship stuff there about three weeks prior to when we want them to actually arrive in Peru.
4) We are praying specifically for a move-to-Peru date of July 26th. (That's the day after Kevin's 9th birthday: "Happy Birthday to you / you're moving to Peru!") Ambitious? Perhaps. Impossible? Nah! Don't forget Who moves mountains....
