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

Rosita

"I look at my daughter and I believe" A line in a song I used to hear on the radio, but now that I have a daughter of my own, I often think of that song. Kids have a way of giving you gray hair (or no hair in some cases :) while at the same time keeping you young. I remember working with a "middle aged" man and one day I found out he was actually sixty five years old, when I exclaimed at how young he looked He just said "well kids have a way of keeping you young" (his youngest was 13 at the time)

Rosita was definitely one of those little girls that when you looked at her you just knew there must be a God, for who else could create a beautiful angel like her, when you looked at her you couldn't help but smile, and the best part is with little kids, you get away with staring, they don't mind, you can look as long as you want at their innocent face. Rosita came from a very broken home, as many are it seems, with men turning more barbarian instead of more civilized, where love grows cold and lust turns hot. And just after a month of being here you could see so many positive changes in our little Rosita, her self drive moved from almost zero to a hundred and her almost one year old body was gaining rapidly in muscle tone and strength, she was not thin coming here but it was obvious she was missing a lot of stimulation. Those moments where you need to watch them leave to return to an uncertain life is difficult to say the least, but we are here to serve in what ever manner God chooses, and if that means giving a little angel one month of love and then saying good bye then thats what it is. God knows His plans, and His plans include good things for his children, so our faith remains in him. We Love you Rosita, may God ever protect you and bring you peace and happiness, may you never feel alone, and may you grow to love your God and Father, a Father who will not abandon you. We ask this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ amen.

Playtime at the Hiebert home

Rosita`s best friend, Rosa

Peace that comes by faith.

You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. (‭Isaiah‬ ‭26‬:‭3‬) There are plenty of things in our lives that would give us reason; or should I say excuse, not to trust in The Lord. I don't know about you but there is rarely a day that goes by where I don't worry about anything, and very day I have to remind myself stay steadfast in The Lord, to trust I have heard him correctly, and because I have heard him correctly I am in the right path even if I can't see around the next corner, God can and if he is leading on this path than it leads to victory, God does not send us to destruction but rather to victory in him, even tho at times it takes us through tough times.

Our Pastor, Pastor Willy has had some real issues with his eyes lately, I won't go into too much detail mainly because I understand very little about the human body, but he has had several surgeries done, a few weeks ago he had what should have been the last surgery, but last week he went in for a routine checkup and they found his retina had detached itself again. So he is in Lima right now on complete bed rest so there will be no movement that can further damage his eyes.  So please pray for him, that his eyes may be as good as new and that this experience would bring him new insight in the word of God. God doesn't work without a purpose, He's always planning into the future much further than what we can see. So I trust that God has a plan in this, and I pray that his will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Update on the Washer

I just realized we haven't done an update about our laundry situation since the post about our only washing machine breaking down and having to wash by hand.  So here is what's happened since then:

After about four months of phone calls trying get the repair guys to come out, and no luck with having the machine repaired, we were ever so grateful for a generous donation from someone who knew of our situation and wanted to help out.  Finally a new machine! Praise God!

I also got a big surprise when I came home one day to a new washing machine in our house!  My amazing husband, and Avis and Tammy had all pitched in to buy one that the three of us can share.  This works out great, and now we don't have to worry about getting in the way of the house moms doing their many loads a day.

The new washing machine is working great so far, but I have noticed that the house moms still often do laundry by hand in the kitchen sink.  This is because one washing machine is not quite enough to meet the demands, and with that machine running almost all day every day, we can be certain that just like the other washers we have gone through, this one will only last so long and before we know it we'll be needing a new one again.  We know now that standard household washers are clearly not made to handle this amount of laundry a day, so it was time to look into other options. After looking into prices for commercial washers, the kind used in laundromats, we found that they were a little (well actually more like a lot) out of our price range, and decided on a semi-commercial instead, which brings the price down to less than half of what a commercial washer costs.  The problem is that Go Ye still didn't have anywhere close to enough money to buy a semi-commercial washer either.  But, thank God, He always provides. And this time He provided through Tammy's church in the States.  Tammy went home to visit her family for a few weeks in June, and during that time her church family stepped in to help.  They decided that their VBS project this year would be to help the needs at Casa de Paz, and within a week they had raised enough money to buy us the semi-commercial washer!!  All I can say is THANK YOU LORD!! Not only did He provide us with the funds needed to buy a high quality washing machine, but He also gave us more family; another whole group of brothers and sisters who love and care for us.  We are looking forward to personally meeting and getting to know a few of Tammy's church members when they come to Casa de Paz for their January mission trip.

God is Good.  He is so Good, so so good to us. :)

On a side note I should add that we do not have the new semi-commercial washer yet.  We are in the process of trying to get a hold of the company.  But hopefully soon.

Bienvenida, Angelita

Another baby girl!  Welcome, Angelita!  Thank You Father for providing this place - Casa de Paz - a House of Peace, a place for Your precious little ones to call home. Thank You Father for the great plans that You have for Angelita's life!

Creating Hope

Exciting new things are happening at Casa de Paz. With Avis' book on the verge of being published, we are seeing a new light of hope for Go Ye ministries. Up until now Go Ye Ministries has been supported by Avis and her family, and donations. It is nothing short of a miracle that we are still here; God has been faithful to provide all these years. But since the original supporters of Go Ye, which is mostly Avis' family, are all getting older and may not be here for much longer, it was now time to move forward and find new ways to keep this ministry going. As Avis says "We don't always want to be holding our hand out" It would be so great if we could make a bit of our own income to help with costs, and Avis' book will help do that as all the proceeds will go to Go Ye. Our prayer is that as Avis shares her story with the world, God will touch hearts and inspire a desire for more willing hearts to support and be a part of His ministry here in Pacasmayo, Peru. I really have no doubt that it will; Avis is one of the most inspiring women I know, and I am blessed to work alongside her and learn from her. She is an amazing example of what it looks like to walk by faith and live life on fire for God.

Avis Goodhart - founder of Go Ye Min

Another exciting thing happening, one of Avis' long time dreams for Casa de Paz is finally becoming a reality. Years ago Avis had invested in high quality sewing machines in hopes of starting a business to help make a bit of an income for Casa de Paz, but only now is it finally happening.  Ysabel, a self taught seamstress, was hired about a year ago to sew and make things to sell, and also teach the Casa girls how to sew and crochet. Just recently, Avis gave her sewing business a name. Creating Hope. Everyone agreed that this name suits well as that is exactly what the goal is for this business; to create hope. Hope for a better future for Casa de Paz, and for our kids to learn good life skills. And hope for the people in the community; we can provide jobs for women to help them make an income to provide for their own families. 

Tammy, one of the full-time volunteers at Casa de Paz, is working on making a web page for Creating Hope, where people will be able to shop online and have the products shipped by mail. Ysabel has been teaching me how to sew and crochet, and I am excited to learn, and be a part of this new adventure. Ysabel is naturally talented and gifted; she makes most of her own designs and creates beautiful work, but she is not familiar with some of the bigger sewing machines. We are still looking for an experienced seamstress who could help teach us how to use the serger machine for better quality sewing.

The dresses in the picture below were all made by Ysabel. She also makes beautiful handbags, blouses, tablecloths and place mats, decorative pillow covers, slippers, and crocheted scrubbies for washing dishes. And more!

The girls modeling a few of Ysabels beautiful dresses.

Crocheting with Ysabel

Mom & Dad visit

I always say that blood does not make family, God makes family. But how wonderful when your God family just happens to be blood family as well. I can't pit to words the great week we had with my parents and nephew here. My kids got to see their grandparents, my dad got to eat ceviche,(lime cooked fish) on the street. We went for walks on the beach. But more than all that they got to see a little of what our life here looks like, our water tank broke while they were here so we started out our search for a new one and ended up spending an entire day looking for a tank we liked and in the end still just ended up with a small one that at first we paid no attention to. By the way thank you dad for paying for it. Our van needed some repair, so my dad got to see what it means to find a mechanic here that you can trust that he knows what he's doing and won't rip you off. Also we needed a new headlight ( o did you think the mechanic took care of that!¿ nope it doesn't work that way here) and of course we ended up at the store just after two, silly me forgot that all stores are closed from 1:30 to 4:00. Than we went to the Trujillo market, my dad bought a bunch of belts to take back, and after paying we got escorted to a safe spot by the guard because he feared we may get robed. But more even than all that we talked and shared our lives with one another, life is really good don't get me wrong but it isn't perfect and there is always something to complain about, and how great when you can share those things with your own dad. Reminds me that we have another dad that beats even the best of dads here on earth, and we may forget how awesome it it that we can share everything with him, he's never to busy or losses interest in what we have to say. Praise God. Bless you in Jesus name amen.