Construction Team Trip to Yurimaguas

Last week I spent the week in Yurimaguas. An amazing group of men came from the United States to work.  They worked on the new building at the Hogar Materno Hannah installing drop ceilings, painting, and installing tile floors. Here are some of the highlights of the week:

On Saturday, after a long day of work, the team and I went to a local market. We saw monkeys, deer meat, and grubs. The grubs are a local delicacy. 

 On Sunday morning we traveled to a village for church. It was about 11 miles from Yurimaguas and took over an hour to travel by van. We had a combined service with a couple of villages. This is a video of the worship.

This amazing team has been in Peru 11 times mostly serving the women and children at the Hogar through construction projects.

But more importantly these men of faith love the children, encourage the staff, preach the word, and minister to men and women in prison. Their dedication over the years has had a profound impact on the people of Yurimaguas and the Shawi people. It was a great week full of faith, sweat, and laughter.

"Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to."   ~ Deuteronomy 15:10

                                                                                                                ~ Josh

Necessity is Indeed the Mother of Invention

When we moved to Arequipa, we came prepared to live with what we brought in our suitcases.  We originally thought we'd take all our belongings with us on the plane when we leave but have found a shipping company which will be cheaper and easier for us.  At any rate, we rented a fully furnished apartment and haven't bought much which has led us to be creative in some ways.  Just for fun, here's a look at a few.

When Josh went to Yurimaguas in February I got the itch to organize.  Our furnished apartment has furniture and bedding, but not much else so when I decided to organize the kids toys, I used what we had - water bottles.  They work well for keeping things sorted and helping the kids find their items.

Josh got the itch to plant when spring in the Northern Hemisphere rolled around so he took some water jugs and water boxes and got some dirt from the empty lot behind our apartment.  He planted some tomato seeds from a tomato we had on the counter to see what would happen.  The shoe strings are the water wicking system he created when we went to Lima to keep them alive - the climate is so dry here they need watered daily.  We also have kitchen scraps in a trash bag on the porch composting to fertilize them.

We have found many uses for suitcases.  When we first arrived, we built a fort for the kids with them.  The photo below on the left is our laundry hamper, although it also doubles as a play pen for Maggie sometimes!  The photo on the right is Maggie's closet.  The other 2 bedrooms have a set of drawers in one closet but Maggie's room has only hanging rods and no dresser.  So, we stacked up some suitcases and 'tada' we have a drawer for her clothes.  We'll be using the suitcases again as suitcases as the end of July.  Josh and the kids will finish school on July 22 and we'll be moving at the end of the month!

Fresh coconut is common here and quite delicious.  We have enjoyed several.  However, when we brought the first one home, we didn't know what to do with it.  No problem, Josh got on You Tube and found a video of how to open one with common things you'd have around the house.  The problem was, we didn't have any of those common things around our house - no screwdriver, no hammer - no tools.  Josh misses his tools!  No worries though, Josh has always been good at finding solutions with the resources available.  So, a large knife to poke holes in the eyes and a concrete window ledge to bust open the coconut and we have a delicious snack!  We have acquired a few tools in our time here - a wrench to take the crib apart and move it into another bedroom and a screwdriver to replace handles that were falling apart on the cabinets.  Josh looks forward to getting settled in Yurimaguas so he can go tool shopping!

I'm thankful for a resourceful husband, a gift I think we'll be using even more in the months ahead!
                                                                                                                             ~Jennifer