Blessings of New Opportunities

Beautiful day in Trujillo yesterday, a trip filled with beautiful events. We are very blessed indeed. A few weeks ago I was invited to speak at Maggie Guerrero's church on Sunday, so we made a trip of it. I invited my small group to come with us and they jumped at the chance to see something other than Pacasmayo. We packed the van full and we were off for the long sweaty ride, our van does not have air conditioning and with the Peruvian sun beating down not even opening the windows makes that big of a difference. Maggie and her husband just moved their church to a new location that is bigger and better suited to fit their growing church, Maggie speaks fluent English and has been a translator for our church from Canada on their yearly mission trips. So she has been a good friend for a long time.

After the service I had the great honor of dedicating a beautiful little baby girl to the Lord. A couple from my prayer group had asked me for a while already and we thought this was a great opportunity. 

                           

                         

After church we headed over to the mall, you just can't go to Trujillo and not go to the mall, especially if you have people with you that have never seen it before. We took the group out for pizza, one of the ladies just kept marveling and saying "wow this is so good, I have never had this before". It was hard to believe that in all her 60 something years she had never had pizza before. 

Afterwards of course we had to take them to the escalators, it's always fun to watch them giggle nervously as they hold on for dear life when they step on. After walking around marveling at all the things, and testing out a portable sound system, it would often be nice to have small events, but we could only look since we didn't have the money to buy it. Before we left Trujillo we stopped in at Auden and Wendy's place, they just got back from a long trip to Mexico, US and Canada, so it was awesome to see them again. I can't express how grateful and blessed I am for the people in my life. God is so good all the time, and it's so much fun serving him, even in the hard times when it seems like everything is against you, it's still fun, because you know the the outcome will be to His glory. God bless you, in the name of his son. 

Celebrating a Special Woman & a New Book

Today we celebrate a very special lady. It is Avis' 70th birthday! All the kids and staff at Casa de Paz wanted to wish Avis a happy birthday, so a few of the older girls put their artsy skills to work and created this huge birthday card with everyone's signature on it. Isn't is beautiful? They did an awesome job! We took photos of the kids, staff, and our bible study group with the birthday card, and sent the pictures and card to Avis as a birthday gift from all of her Peruvian family.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AVIS! We miss you and love you!

Happy Birthday from the Casa kids & house mama's, and the Hiebert's!

Happy Birthday from the Casa de Paz staff!

Happy Birthday from Tammy, me & the Bible Study Women!

Happy Birthday from the bible study kids club!

Avis has been busy speaking in churches all over the United States over the past few months to promote her new book, Out of the Dust. She has also been on a few radio interviews, and will be appearing on the Canadian TV show 100 Huntley Street sometime in January.
 Out of the Dust tells Avis' life story and how she came to be a missionary in many places, including Pacasmayo, Peru where she built the church, orphanage, and school that are here today. Her story is truly inspiring, and I would encourage everyone to read it! The book can be found on Amazon, and all proceeds from the book go to Go Ye Ministries to help the kids at Casa de Paz. 

God has used this amazing woman to help the lives of many, and now He continues to touch many more lives through her story in Out of the Dust. 

All by God's Grace and all for His Glory

the Babies of Casa de Paz

It has been such a joy having babies around for the past few months. Genesis and Angelita both came to Casa de Paz as tiny newborns, and are both doing well, growing and gaining weight and stealing the hearts of all those who meet them!

 I remember mama Martha sharing how frustrating it was trying to find clothes small enough to fit Genesis, and how she burst out laughing when I suggested lending my daughter's doll's clothes for Genesis to wear. Well as funny as the idea was, the doll clothes turned out to be a perfect fit! and she looked as cute as a doll :)

            

                         Well she quickly outgrew those doll clothes; look at her now!

                        

                         

Genesis' time here seemed to go all to quickly, and last week we said good bye as she got to go home with her new mom & dad, Amy and Marco. Genesis not only has a new family and a new home, but also a new name! She is now known as Angela Rose, a name that has special meaning to the new parents.

Amy & Marco on the day they took Angela Rose home

To celebrate the occasion, Amy and Marco invited the whole Casa de Paz crew to their house for a BBQ cookout.  We all had our fill of burgers and hotdogs, potato salad, watermelon...and for dessert - ice cream cones and chocolate cupcakes. Yummy! The kids got to enjoy horseback rides, futball, Wi, and a pinata for the little ones.

The kids loved playing the Wi

           

If all goes well, little Angelita will also be going home to her new adoptive family very soon!

Angelita with her soon to be mommy and daddy

And today we welcome yet another precious baby to Casa de Paz. Naomi is a beautiful, one month old baby girl.

Naomi

               

Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from Him. Psalm 127:3

Another addition to the Familia

Amongst all the hustle and bustle of one of the busiest days we had last week, (same day as all the events written about in the previous post) we had another new addition added to the Casa de Paz family. At first we almost thought he was part of the group from Lima, but we soon found out that he is one of ours. Thank God for Gina, our orphanage director, who does an amazing job keeping up with kids' coming and goings!

José Fernando fits in well at Casa de Paz.  He's in the same age group as the majority of our boys, and has already made friends. I'm proud of the Casa kids for how well they welcome in new kids.  They all know what it's like to be abandoned and hurting and be brought into a strange new place with no familiar faces. They know because they have been there too. 

It seems to be common for the new kids to make friends with other new kids. It didn't take long for José Fernando and Miguel Angel to become fast friends!

Please continue to keep all these precious ones in your prayers. We know that our Heavenly Father has a great plan for each and every one of them, and part of that plan includes people with compassionate and generous hearts; those who are willing to to be the hands and feet of Jesus for these kids.. those who are willing to bless and care for them through constant prayer, and in whatever other ways the Lord leads.

Then the King will say to those on His right hand, 'Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you visited Me.' Matt 25:35-36

'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'  Mat 25:41 

Bless, and be Blessed! :)

Loving people living Jesus

Its a good day to be alive! until Jesus returns in the clouds, shining bright as the sun, with the angels sounding their trumpets, their will be a war in the realm of the spirits, every day we battle against principalities of  this dark age. (Rom 12:9)  Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. This verse wraps it up good doesn't it, there are days when I can hardly stand to be in this wicked world, I hate the evil that is in it with all my heart, the beauty that God has created is being abused by people who in their arrogance chose to live in sin.
It is no wonder then that the angels in heaven dance when we profess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord of Lords. (Rom 10:9).
I had the great privilege today to pray with a 86 year old great grandma and watch as she professed Jesus to be her Lord and saviour. When I asked if she believed in God, "yes" she replied with enthusiasm, "do you believe Jesus is Gods son and He came to earth to die on the cross to pay for your sin" "yes I do" "have you ever asked him to live with you in your heart" she fell silent. "Would you like to" "Yes" After praying and professing Jesus as Her Lord, repenting and asking to be washed in the blood, we also prayed for her back pain to be removed. The day before I was called over to pray for her, I went and when I saw her she was lying on a sofa half passed out, she was breathing heavy and could hardly move, after praying for some time there seemed to be little difference. We decided that we needed to take the next step, I went home and did not eat, their whole family also started fasting in the morning and did not eat until 2 o'clock when I again came to pray. This time by the time I left she was laughing, moving her hips and raising her hands giving glory to God. What a feeling! On my way home I noted a woman sitting on the ground resting up against a wall, at first I walked by but the spirit would not leave me be until I turned around to go and pray for her. When I walked up and asked if I could talk to her for a bit, she asked. "what ever for!!" With almost a chuckle I explained how the spirit had lead me to go and pray for her, "o well of course you can pray for me" assuming she was not from around here I asked "where are you from" "just a few houses down the block" I actually only thought about it later (I'm not very smart that way) but she happened to be sitting maybe 50 yards from her house right where I would be walking filled with the fire of the Spirit! pretty sure God put her there on purpose. I prayed for her and no sooner did I say amen when they called her back to her house.
I say I love God, I need to start showing more frequently through taking the time to love people. I'd like to challenge you with the same. In what way has the spirit been convicting you to show your love for God.
God Bless you in the name of his Son.

A Happy Heart makes a Cheerful Face

(Pro 15:13)  A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit.

Well we lived the first part of this verse yesterday :)

What a busy day! As usual with peruvian style scheduling where 1 o'clock means 4 o'clock and where yes means "we will see how things go" we left for our adventure only two hours late. Arrangements had been made with a huge agricultural/crop farm just over an hour north of us to, to go for a tour. I had driven by their many times and wondered about the line of trees along the road which you couldn't see past and the many buses parked in front of them. They took our ID cards as we drove in and from there we were escorted from spot to spot by one of the workers, our first stop was their avocado patch where the man in charge explained the process of growing avocados, it was acres of perfectly uniformed trees, they were in blooming season and he explained about the pollination process, we where later given a jar of honey that looked much too dark to be a regular honey, but the man explained that honey from avocado trees comes out looking a kind of dirty brown.

Avocado trees to the right.

Next we stopped by the vineyard, and it truly was something I had never seen before, not only were the plants in perfect uniform in space between each other, but every plant was shaped and molded to grow exactly the same way, the vines which lay stretched out on top of bail wire acted like a beautiful ceiling with leafy green and sparkles of sunlight peeking through here and there. even the bundles of grape did not grow randomly, they grew in a perfect straight line almost as though they were hung like a decoration, this was done for easy harvesting explained the man in charge and was done by careful pruning. 

After this we went for another drive and reached a spot where the van could no longer go further because of the loose sand, and after pushing and shoving to get the van back to where it again had traction, we all jumped on the back of a pickup truck, with the wind in our hair and a cloud of dust trailing behind us we anticipated our arrival, with every bump in the road getting us closer and closer. Finally after wizing past fields and huge piles of sheeps wool we saw them, 20 beautiful horses each in its own pen, except one little baby following its mother around. The men in charge picked three of the more calmer ones and started giving everyone a ride, some of us were more nervous than others but we all had our turn.

For anyone who has never seen this before, this is not fake,
this is how a pineapple grows.

At the end of the day we went to their meeting room were they gave us a snack and introduced us to all their head employees, each one explaining their role as person in charge, in total they  employ 1000 people in their slow season to 1500 in their busy season. before we left they presented us with six bins of avocado and three huge tubs of other food goodies. What a day, what an opportunity to see something more than sand blowing in a sun scorched dry land, there is something fight for, with hard work and dedication the opportunities are endless. Energy drained and on the road back home, laziness set in, with the son pressing in sleep would come easy, if this would have concluded the day there would have been no complaint, but wait, we live in Peru after all do we not.....

As the door to the orphanage came into view, in pulls a huge bus full of young teens just a few metres in front of us to beat us to the gate. A school from Lima had showed up to throw us a party. (This was planned but you see what I mean with Peruvian style planning) We had arrived home three hours late but this didn't seem to bother anyone, everyone quickly grabbed a bite to eat (in the kids houses this time) and gather up in the dining hall where the teens were waiting with boxes and boxes of gently used toys, books, crafts and games. Because of the now short time frame, they simply put the boxes in the center of the room and let the kids loose, free for all each to their own, what a riot! I started talking to the leader of the team and after stumbling through my spanish for about twenty minutes, he asked me where I was from, the stunned look on my face was not because of the perfectly normal question but rather because he asked it in perfect english! "I just like to see how good your spanish is" he says. After playing with the toys some and playing volleyball as usual, they packed back into the bus to leave. 

At this time I was running behind in my preparations for bible study, a small group that gathers in the church, we sing songs, read a little lesson and discuss it, we pray a lot and talk about our lives. I can't think of a better way to end the day. by the time I made it back in everyone was in bed, except of course my little Tahlia who was wide awake on my pillow waiting for daddy to put here down, she will have it no other way, tired as she may be, she will resist sleep without making a fuss until daddy can put her down, and gentle kiss and "night night" is not returned with "night night daddy" but rather with the most beautiful little grin and "chau, daddy chau" this cracks me up every time, Her pinky may be tinny but I'm wrapped around it completely. 

God bless you in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Three new faces at Casa de Paz! Late last night we welcomed siblings Miguel Angel, Mileydi, and Hector. Thankful to say that they are adjusting well and seem happy to be here!

Miguel Angel

Mileydi

Hector