Friday Night RUF

This past Friday night, I had the privIilege of preaching for the first time at our RUF meeting (known previously & locally as the Society of Saint Augustine, or SSA). I taught about the Lord Jesus & the forgiveness of sins from Luke's Gospel and Bill Bradford translated for me. We had about 25-30 students for the evening. Pastor Geraldo has done a great job of gathering students here, and we are excited about what the future holds!!! Here are some pictures of the evening:

Language Mistakes

I'm sure that it will not be the last, but I made my first (at least that I'm aware of) embarrassing mistake in speaking Spanish. I took a taxi the other day and told my taxi cab driver that I am new to Trujillo and I am anxious to learn much. I said that I wanted to learn about his city, his people, his language and his "país" which means country or nation, but what I said instead is that I wanted to get to know his "pies" which means feet. When I saw his face drop, I reiterated it thinking that I just didn't articulate it well.

I'm just glad he didn't make me get out of the car right then!

Colton Boy is 7!!!

I can't believe it. I no longer have any young children. On Wednesday, Colton turned seven years old, which just makes us feel very old now. All the Peruvians are amazed that we have 5 children all between the ages of 7 & 11!

Here are some pics of the bday party we had for him. We had a great time for the special boy!

A Friend, Brother, & Father in the Faith

Knox & Ginger Chamblin
One of the great privileges of my life was to study at Reformed Theological Seminary--Jackson under Dr. Knox Chamblin. I studied Pauline Epistles, Greek, and the Parables of Luke in Greek with him during my years of study. Knox and his lovely wife, Ginger, have come to Peru for the week to participate in our first ever Spiritual Life Conference for the mission team.
Our Mission Team at a Retreat Center

We have had a great time studying the Scriptures, reflecting on life and mission, and the cause of the Gospel in this world. Knox and Ginger have been great examples to me and my wife, and we hope that the Lord will find us faithful as the Chamblins have been faithful in serving Him throughout the years. They are such a great inspiration to "fight the good fight" and to finish well.

John & Heather get some quality time with the Chamblins
Knox is also teaching a module this week on the Parables of Matthew for our churches, seminarians, and other believers in the area. Last night, we had 50+ in attendance. Please pray for the endurance of the Chamblins, and for the fruitfulenss of their minsitry here.

John, Heather, & Alonzo Ramirez listening to Knox teach on doing what is necessary over what is urgent (cf. Luke 10:38-42)

A Glorious Mess!!!

We wanted to let all our friends back home know that we finally got our stuff late Thursday night (around 9pm) after spending all day trying to get it released from the port. It was like having Christmas in September. Our kids definitely thought so! And although our house is a complete wreck, it is absolutely beautiful.


I think the most beautiful thing was being able to sleep in our own beds. It's like being on vacation for a while and longing to get home to sleep in your own bed, know the feeling? We went approximately 57 days without our belongings. Second to the bed was our couches, and how can you rank long lost books (I still can't find a few that I was particularly looking forward to holding again. I'm sure they will show up.

At any rate, thanks for your prayers and encouragement. We finally feel like we can settle down and begin a routine.

Please Pray for our Stuff

This seems on the one hand like a very silly request: would you all join us in praying that our possessions will arrive here? Actually, it is sitting in the port here in Trujillo and has been since a week ago Monday (at least we know its not at the bottom of the sea!!!). As we are finding out, Peruvian red tape is very thick. We initially shipped our stuff here on July 7th hoping it would arrive here the day after we did (July 27th). But we still don't have it and we're coming up on our two month anniversary of living out of suitcases.

So, pleas join us in praying that our stuff will be released on Thursday (today is actually a holiday for Santa Rosa so no one is working today).

Our New Church at Arevelo

Peru Mission aids in the work of three churches here, Wichinzau, Larco, & Arevalo. This past week, I had the privilege of preaching from Luke 7 at the new church plant in Arevalo. This is the same church that our Spring Break mission team from Texas A&M RUF and Westminster Pres worked on. Please pray for Pastors Eduardo and Percy (who works with the youth as he attends seminary). These brothers are working hard to bring the light of the Gospel to neighborhood of Arevalo and to city of Trujillo. Here is a picture of the newly painted inside of the church.

Justin's Bday!

I can't believe it, but I now officially have an 11 year old kid! Last week, we celebrated Justin's 11th bday with all the missionary families and some of the SALI interns. We went to Rokie's, where the kids played on a big playground (like you'd find a McDonalds) and we ate chicken. Justin drank his new favorite soft drink, Inca Cola, and had a great time with all his friends here.

Jason & Justin with his new Inca Cola tshirt
Justin with some of the kids here

Learning Spanish

Ever since we made the decision to move to Peru, the necessity of learning Spanish has always been on our minds. While we had time here and there to learn some Spanish while we were in Texas, we never could devote a lot of our time and attention to it. Well, that's all changed now. I'm very grateful for what I have learned so far, but we need to grow so much more in the months to come.

I thought I would take a moment to tell those who are interested what we have found helpful in terms of resources. First and foremost (and most expensive) is the Rosetta Stone Spanish program for use on the computer. This program mimicks immersion, doesn't translate anything for you, and I have enjoyed it immensely. One resource that set us to speaking Spanish right away was a book that Heather found in her homeschool resources called Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish. This book makes learning Spanish enjoyable, and has lots of practice examples to help get the feel of the language.

One surprise find I came across while doing a search on Amazon for Spanish CDs. Behind the Wheel Spanish Vol. 1, Vol. 2 & Vol. 3 are all very useful to train your ear to hear Spanish as well as to practice speaking. You can listen to them while driving, excercising, showering, etc. The English speaker asks, for example, "How would you say, 'to eat', is Spanish?" And the Spanish speaker will repeat twice with an ample pause for you to repeat, "Comer. Comer." To my surprise, the Spanish speaker on Vol. 1 is actually a native Peruvian. What are the chances? as Calvin might say.

Of course, one must master verbs if one is going to communicate, no? There are multiple spanish verb books out there, but the one I like most and chose is called, simply, "Spanish Verb Workbook." The explanations are very simple and helpful. Plus there are lots of practice drills. Other books in the same genre that we have found useful are Practice Makes Perfect: Complete Spanish Grammer and Spanish Verb Tenses. And you simply must have The Big Red Book of Spanish Verbs which has 555 of the most common verbs fully conjugated for you.

And of course, no student of Spanish should be without their dictionaries. Our desktop dictionary is the Oxford Spanish Dictionary and the handy pokect guide we have is Random House Webster's Handy Spanish Dictionary.

As I tell folks here, "Yo puedo hablar español un poco, leer mas, pero no puedo eschucharlo muy bien." I don't know if I'm saying that correctly, but in my mind what I'm saying is, "I can speak a little Spanish, read more, but I cannot hear it very well." But the good thing is that many people here are understanding and patient and encouraging. Heather and I will start with our tutor our mission's San Agustin Language Institute, either next week or the following, depending on how quickly we can get our stuff out of the port and unpacked at our house.

At any rate, that's enough procrastinating. Back to studying Spanish. ¡Chau!

The Good News...& the Bad (sort of)

The Good News
Let me start by issuing an apology for the silence on our blog. We have had limited access to the internet, and we finally got our internet set up at our house yesterday. Yes, we finally found a house and moved into it this past Wednesday. It took a bit of time to get it. The landlady showed it to us the first Saturday we were here, but didn't bring the contract, so it wasn't until a week later that we were able to sign a rental agreement. After cleaning it for a few days, we moved in last Wednesday. Here is a picture:


It is a nice two-story house with four bedrooms. We have essentially the same setup as we did back home in Texas: Justin & Kevin share a room, as do Colton & Jason. Miranda has her own room which was conveniently painted Pepto-bismol pink, which is simply too much for me, but if you know that Miranda's middle name is "Pink" (no, not really, but it might as well be), you know she couldn't be happier with it. I, of course, share a room with my most favorite person in the world, which is just the way I like it.

As you can see from the picture, the houses here are built against each other, and everyone has security bars on their windows. We have one of the few houses in our whole neighborhood that has a front porch. Heather and I sit out there often, saying ¡Hola! to whoever passes. Yesterday, a man from Scotland stopped by and told us (with a great Scottish accent) that he is the headmaster of a private school here!!! It is ,however, hard to get to know the neighbors since most houses are built behind 10-12 foot walls with broken glass & other sharp objects protruding from them designed to impale would-be intruders. But we are doing our best to meet and greet the folks that walk around the park that is our front yard essentially.


This is the view we have looking out the front of our house. It is a little slice of paradise in the middle of the desert coast of Trujillo. Our kids love playing freeze tag, hide & seek, and let's-roll-around-in-the-grass games. They are loving having this space to play in, especially since we have a tiny backyard. You can see the foothills of the Andes Mountains in the background which is often hard to see because of the hazy skies. We are in the middle of winter now, which means that the highs are in the upper 60's and the lows are in the upper 50s. I'm tempted to say that it gets chilly here, but I know that all my friends back in the states, especially in TX, would kill me for saying that. So I won't.


Another great benefit to living here is that we live right across the park from the Bradford's. They have four children. Their oldest, Mollie, is 9, and they have a son, William, who is right in between Jason & Colton in terms of age. They have two other kids, Hannah, and Andrew, and all of our kids have a great time with each other.

The Bad News (well, really just "frustrating" news)

I said earlier that we moved in. That is technically correct in that we are sleeping in it, but we haven't "moved in." The reason for that is that the container that we shipped to Peru has not arrived yet. Actually, it is due into the port in Trujillo today, and it will probally take a few days to get all the paper work in order. It was originally supposed to be here on Aug 5 (10 days ago!), but it sat in a port in Panama because of an accountant's error. This annoyance is mixed with blessing because it has allowed us the benefit of cleaning and painting the inside of our house (the living room was mustard yellow!!!). But we are really eager to get our stuff. Heather and I would simply love to be able to come home and sit on our soft couches!!!

Once we get our house set up, then I think it will be easier to get into a routine. If my watch didn't tell me the day of the week, I would simply be lost. We have been filling our time getting things we need and studying Spanish on our own as well as practicing with anyone who would be willing to talk.

Let me tell you, it is so frustrating not being able to speak the language well. For example, one of the men working on our house today saw a book on the table that I have been reading called, Reinventing Jesus [which is a good book about the modern insanity among so-called scholars & the popular media which is reinventing Jesus after their/its own desires]. He asked about it and then asked us about what we believe, and together, my wife and I fumbled through the Gospel in our broken Spanish. We invited him to our church, so we shall see. But nevertheless, it is very frustrating knowing what I want to say and not being able to find the Spanish words to speak them (yes, that is a prayer request!!!).

Having Fun & Being Silly in Peru

Beware of Missionary Kids!!!

This is what could happen if you let your children play with missionary kids! The other night, we were over at the Baker's house and Colton "I- Can- Never- Get- Enough- Attention" Ferguson allowed himself to do the unthinkable...



And yes, I was mocking him. It's part of the strategy to set things right.

Note: Lest there be any concern that Colton wasn't enjoying this, he even came back and asked to have his picture taken.

We made it!

We are in Trujillo, Peru! We have spent a day here now and are loving every minute of it!

Heather, Erin, & the kids at the airport in Trujillo
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!

A view of the Andes Mountains peeking through the clouds as the sun was peeking over them. We had this magnificant view all the way on our one hour flight from Lima to Trujillo
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.

Some of the missionary kids playing in the water of a pool 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!

Colton, William, & Jason

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.