Market day

Market days have become less exciting from what it was in the beginning. I remember marveling at all the vendors and what they had to offer. You would feel almost obligated to buy at least a little bit from all of them in an effort to help them all out. But there are well over a hundred of them so that's not an option. Climbing the side walk steps up the steep hill to "the upstairs market" you pass a gentleman with a scale shouting "a sole for your weight" and then the elderly lady who's too weak to work holds out her hand, and she smiles as we approach cause she knows there's some pocket change and perhaps an encouraging word coming her way, and of course the bright blue eyes of Mateo that the ladies just can't resist. At last at the top it gets crowded and it becomes necessary to hold the kids hands as not to lose them. Today I need a new broom stick. I will get the good wooden one for S/.3.50. Walking down the crowded street a stranger walks up with obvious intention in his eyes and a held out hand gives it away, he wants money. At a glance I wonder why, he seems fine. His other hand catches our attention as he lifts his shirt to reveal a disturbing sight. A hole has been ripped in his skin and intestines are protruding out of it. I have never seen anything like it. My hand reaches for money in my pocket and my wife says "we need to pray for him". Thoughts of my limited spanish run through my mind. But being urged on I ask "permiso orar por te?" He nods his head and I start to pray in English for healing and peace. His face becomes a picture of satisfaction and peace. He moves on before we have the chance to find the words to say next. We don't normally go to the "upstairs market" anymore unless we have something in specific that we need but I think I will go next Monday and ask God to lead me to him again for another prayer and hopefully a talk about the gospel. We need prayer for stuff like this. For God to bring us people to pray for, and for God to heal them. In whatever way they need healing.

Favorites

One of the hard things I face is to make sure none of the kids feel less favored than the rest. All the kids come from something broken, but for some it was much worse than others, and some handle it different than others. It's often hard to practice the discipline side of love, the hugs and good feel side of love just seems easier. But God reminds us that if you spare the rod you spoil the child, God will not hesitate discipline us for our wrong doings for the salvation of our souls.
I remember a particular night one of the older boys became angry over over one of the smaller ones, and he was determined to beat him up. I am sure that both where guilty but the truth rarely comes out. I was determined to teach the older boy that violence was not the way to solve a fight. I tried reasoning with him that as the older one he needs to be an example to the younger ones. Nothing worked, I had to physically restrain him until he calmed down. He was steaming angry with me. How my heart hurt during that time I can not explain. My spanish was next to none existent so to have a real talk with him was almost impossible, this made it all the more difficult. After a while he calmed down enough that I could leave him to his thoughts and I could ponder what to do next. After all the other boys where finally down I noticed that he was restless and came out waking around in the living room. With the help of my translator app on my ipad I asked him if he was still angry with me or the younger boy, "no" he shook his head. iPad in hand I asked if he would sit down with me on the couch. Desperately searching God for what to say I started typing and translating sentence by sentence, he would read the translation and wait as I worked on the next one. As I spoke to him in this way I could see his heart was growing warmer, I told him I know how alone he feels and that it hurts my heart to see it. I told him how I can bear pretty much any physical pain without shedding a tear, but seeing him hurting I could cry for hours. He never responded with words, only nodded after reading my words. After a while he said he was tired and would like to go to sleep. I said good night and went into my own room and prayed for him. The next day and every day since then has been a new day. He helps me out with the younger boys, he does his best to tire them out to get them to bed early so he can spend some time with me personally. My heart melts every time. Today just me and him went into town to and I bought him a music cd and a set of head phones for his disc man. At the end of every day he will say "thank you, mucho thank you mucho thank you Jake for every thing" I can't tell you how that melts my heart. Only God can do that for some one, I may have been a body that God used but it has nothing to do with me. God touched his heart in a special way. We need to pray for God to do this for more people. Is he perfect from now on, not even close. But that's not what it's about, he now knows that he is loved by God, That's what it is about.
I love you in the name of Jesus. Bless you.

Bit about me.

Truth is I have no idea what I'm doing, which makes me so glad that God does know what I'm doing. All I want is to follow his lead and so often that means not knowing what's around the next corner, I speak for myself.
Most of you who know me know that I'm not exactly an expert writer, if you don't know yet you will find out soon :) I am ever thankful for two things, my ipad and my wife, they both correct my spelling for me lol. I am in the minute type of a person, in real life I'm timid but behind the keyboard not so much. So often after I've updated my status on Facebook Maggie will ask "Where did That come from!" And I'll shrug and say "I have no idea" I have a thought, I share it. It usually has nothing to do with me or anyone else. I spend very little time looking back and proof reading. I am aware that I'm quite jumpy, jumping from one thing to the next, so I am sorry if I don't make any sense. Maggie on the other hand is the complete opposite, she's a great writer and yet worries a great deal about how it's worded and how it sounds and all that other good stuff, she is so self conscious. Like I said I'm thankful she likes to proof read my stuff.
My hope is that through this blog you will not only see the events of us and the orphanage but also that you will get to know us on a deeper level and to feel connected to the children that we have the great privilege to share Gods love with. God is not to be underestimated, I am not fooled into thinking that this is the Hieberts mission, it is GODS mission. We are uneducated low lives who should be working at McDonald's living a paycheck to paycheck type of life, and yet here we are. It is Gods mission not ours. God breaks our boundaries when we submit to His will.

Another giveaway that I'm not a writer, I don't know how to end it....so I just sort of end. :)

No Espanol

That awkward moment when someone says something to you and you have absolutely no clue what they just said and all you can do is stand there with a dumb blank look on your face.. Yep we have had all too many of these 'awkward moments' since moving to Peru.  "No espanol", "No comprende" words we have over-used lots.  Jake and I laugh now as we remember how confidently we talked before coming here about how 'quickly' we would pick up the language. "We'll be fluent in Spanish in no time!" we said.  Well, it is definitely going a bit slower than we first thought, but, we are learning "poco a poco" little by little, and we do have to keep reminding ourselves that we have only been here 3 months and that is not a lot of time to learn a whole new language.  The casa de paz kids get a kick out of our Spanish speaking attempts and love to correct us too, which is very helpful ... and a few of them are just as eager to learn English as we are to learn Spanish, so we've been having fun doing lessons with them. I thank God for hands and arms to motion with, and translator apps!
 Going to church on Sunday's and not being able to understand the message has been tough though.  I remember one Sunday in particular when I was feeling very dry and empty spiritually and just so hungering for a good filling message, and as we sat there through the seemingly long service I just prayed and asked God to translate the message so that I could understand.  Well, He didn't translate it... but, right after the service as we were getting ready to leave, one of the kids came running to me and she took my bible, flipped through the pages and pointed to a certain scripture, then walked away.  The scripture was a parable of Jesus - one that I had never quite understood.  But as I started reading God gave me a revelation of the scripture and for the first time I completely understood this parable!  It was also exactly what I needed to hear that day.  So, God did answer my prayer to help me understand, just not in the way I thought, and I walked out of church that day filled up, knowing that God does not leave us empty when we come to Him.

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled" Matt 5:6

How we got here.

There is much to say. But in my first post I would simply like to share a few things on how God brought a family of four (and a half) to Peru. At age 26 I landed in Drayton united church with my family, (how I reached that point will be in another post). It was a dry, un-God filled, unsatisfying time of my life. For a while God had been trying to get through to me and my wife about getting back into a church and replenishing our relationship with Him. Our daughter was sick with a bad case of tonsillitis  not eating, throwing up anything we did manage to get into her including medication. God had our attention. On a particular Saturday on our way back from visiting my parents, God simply reminded us "I can not guide you to the right church unless you start moving towards one". We had been praying about Gods guidance to help us find the right church, but had never actually gone to one. So that night we drove around our small home town and started looking for churches. It wasn't hard to find a few church buildings, but there was one that had the times of services marked on their sign. Not having a clue on the background of any churches we walked into the United church. Hearts pounding we walked in on Sunday morning, and at once we felt like this was family, We laugh at it now because from the first day on we walked in the back door as if we belonged there. I don't think once did we ever use the front door. We learned that they had a regular trip each year to Peru. So once again with heart pounding I signed up, went through the interview and I still remember the phone call from the church. "Congratulations Jake your going to Peru". The next year my wife joined and only weeks after our return it was like God released my desire to go back for long term with my family. And I was allowed by God to send pastor Jeff an email stating my desire. The next step was to talk to Avis Goodhart the founder. "Hallelujah!!" And we had her approval. It took us about three months to sell our house and everything we owned through public auction. This was a huge step of faith for us, after trying to sell it privately on our own we became almost hopeless that we would receive our asking price of $175000 that we would need in order to pay off the mortgage and have enough left to support ourselves on our mission. The auctioneer assured me we only needed two bidders to make the sale. I will carry the image with me forever I think when he stood with his loud speaker and started his auctioneering. At this point all the household items had been sold, so to not sell the house now would spell out disaster. Curious onlookers watched as he rattled on for a few minutes about all the good reasons to raise a bidding hand. At long last one hand went up, what relief, the bid has started at $125000 surely it's on now. But on he went with his chanting and not another hand raised. Taking a small break the auctioneer stood with confidence and said I will get you $175000. I desperately wanted to believe him but in my mind it was not possible. After another few minutes of convincing the small crowd that this was a good buy, Nothing. "Time to speak privately to the one bidder". I don't think it matters what was said between the auctioneer and bidder because God was all over it. It was like waking up from a dream and realizing that in fact you did not just smash up your vehicle, it had only been a dream. When he came back to tell me the final offer with the same confident look on his face, his hand now reaching to shake mine. "You got $175000" not a cent less, not a cent more. God showed as all that day he could do it with only ONE bidder. Closing date was three weeks after. Just enough time to get ready to fly out of the country two days after closing date. There are many more details to this story and I can assure you it was not all roses, there was the thorns that come along with growing a rose. God bless you, I look forward to sharing more story's of Gods guidance in our lives.

Welcome

Wow, we have a blog! We're so excited to start sharing about our adventures in Peru, how the Lord brought us here, and how God is working in and through our family and all here at Casa de Paz orphanage.  Our hope for this blog is first and foremost to bring glory and honor to our Awesome God, hopefully inspiring others through Him as we share both blessings and struggles of living and serving at an orphanage and what life is like for the children here; the heart of an orphan ...

We will try to post regularly and hope you enjoy hearing our story!