March Newsletter

In November Martin and I participated in a course in Lima called P.A.R.E about the prevention of sexual abuse of children. Some of the things we learned include factors that lead to abuse, how to talk to parents about this topic, and how to teach children that their bodies are important to God and that no one has the right to touch them in a way that makes them feel bad. We think the information we learned will be very useful in our work with the children in Huaricolca.

In December we held a workshop for parents and a workshop for kids in Tarma. It was good to be able to put what we had learned into practice right away. And the kids had a great time!

From the end of December until the end of January we were in Canada and had a chance to meet with many of you personally. We loved being able to sit down and share our ministry with you! We were also surprised by, and so grateful for the generosity of our church partners while we were home.Thank you so much!

In November a team from Newfoundland came to help us with our building project. They worked really hard in the rain, levelling off the ground and putting in the cement floors in the classrooms and bathroom. Thank you Newfies!

The building of the centre has progressed a lot since September when we got started. The classrooms have windows and doors and the walls are totally plastered inside. They need to be painted and filled with tables and chairs and materials for the kids. Our house is built and progress is being made so that we can move in sometime in the next few weeks (I hope!). We are still waiting for documents giving us ownership of the land! At the end of this post you'll see a few pictures of what things look like now. We still have a lot of work ahead of us!

(We’d love some help! Come and join us, or help us out financially. Money makes things move faster here!)

As it’s March, the kids are back in school so Sunday school is getting started up again. (School vacations are January and February). We would really love to be able to start offering homework help and English classes as soon as possible, but the building process needs to be more advanced. It’s too difficult to offer the programs we want to without tables and chairs to work at, and lights to turn on!

We are so thrilled to announce that Centro Ruhamah is officially an Association, recognized by the Peruvian government. We are finally finished that process and we have an accountant here, so legally we are all ready to go! Praise God!

January, 2010

Happy new year everyone! I have decided to update our blog a bit more often this year! I just posted October's newsletter in January, oops!

We've been really busy in the past couple of months as our building project has taken off! The centre, which is 3 classrooms and bathrooms, has walls, a floor, and a roof, and our house has walls and a roof too. Martin has been learning how to be a general contractor in the Andes, something that is sometimes fun, and sometimes quite stressful. We had a group from Newfoundland come and visit us, they helped us put the floor in the centre. We had a lot of fun with them! Here are some pictures of how the centre looks now:

Sunday school has been growing the last few months as well. One Sunday we had 40 kids surprise us, and the day we had a Christmas party over 100 kids came! A team from Lima came to do the Christmas party in Huaricolca, and they did a wonderful job. While we're here in Canada we're hoping that the people we asked to continue Sunday school have been able to. We'll start again in February when we return to Tarma.

In March the children will go back to school, and this is when we are hoping to start our regular weekly program. Since school finishes at 1:00, we are planning to offer lunch and a homework club three times a week. We plan to gradually expand our program to include English classes, Arts and Crafts, Music, and maybe further in the future workshops like carpentry and computer skills.

We will be in Canada until January 27, then we'll spend a few days in Lima before we return to Tarma. We're hoping to be there on February 1. In February we hope to finish the centre, (it needs toilets, sinks, windows, and doors) and be living in our house (it needs a lot of work still).

We have had a wonderful time here in Canada, and we have enjoyed all the visiting we have been able to do. We are so thankful to God for those of you who have blessed us with money to be able to finish what we have started. Thank you for catching the vision God has given us, and for partnering with us. Thank you for your prayers, your interest, and your insightful questions. Remember that we are looking forward to being able to show you this work in person. Come visit us!

Love, Denise and Martin

Hello dear friends,

We’re on our way! Although we still haven’t received a document stating that land was officially donated to us, we decided to go ahead with the building of the centre. We didn’t think it was wise to wait for the mayor to pull things together, especially since the rainy season is coming, which complicates the building process, especially since they’re building with dirt! Here is the progress so far...

The way they build is pretty neat; they fill that box with earth and water and pack it down tight. When it is dry they move the box on to the next spot. Buildings made this way are sturdy, almost all the buildings in Huaricolca are made from tapea, and they’ve lasted a long time! We’re hoping to put a second floor on this part in the future. The second floor will be bedrooms for visiting teams, or in case God decides to use this space as an orphanage. What you see them working on right now is three classrooms and a bathroom for the kids. Beside this they will build our apartment and in between will be a garden and space to park a car. The building you see in the background is the new church building for our friend Pastor Guillermo and his congregation. This building went up in July and recently the men worked on putting the cement floor in. Once the windows are in we’ll be able to start having our Sunday school class inside. We’re especially excited about that as rainy season is on its way and until now we’ve been having Sunday school outside on the grass.

We are also still in the process of getting our Association registered with the government. It has been a complicated process, to say the least. Please pray for favour for us and our lawyer as she struggles to help us with this essential step.

One bit of good news in the red tape department is that, after only three trips to Lima I finally have my residency card! This enables me to live in Peru for up to 5 years, and helps us in establishing our Association (which is the preliminary step to being an NGO).

We are planning to be home at the end of December, and for most of January. We would like to meet with many of you, and are hoping to visit some churches to give a more personal update.

Also, we would like to thank those of you who are our sponsors. Each month we have enough money for our personal expenses, and we know that that is because of your faithfulness and God’s goodness to us. So far, in our work funds account we have enough money to pay the builders to build the walls of the first stage of our plan (classrooms, bathrooms, and apartment). However we would like to have a roof, floors, windows, and doors installed before we leave in December, so that upon our return we can move right in and get to work. We will need about $2000 more to be able to do this. We know God will provide for this, we believe that the centre is His idea and we do not worry about this. We just wanted to draw your attention to it, and ask that you pray about your involvment with Centro Ruhamah.

May God bless you richly! Thank you for taking time to read this update!

Love,

Denise and Martin

June newsletter

Dear Friends,

Wow! It has been a busy three months! I’ll try not to tell all the details, because that would make this newsletter the size of a novel, but I’ll give a quick synopsis of what has been going on since my last letter in March.
At the end of March Martin and I were priviledged to be able to be a part of handing out Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes in Huaricolca. It was so neat to see all those excited kids; there were about 300 of them! Their faces shone as they opened up the boxes and examined the treats inside. Moms and grandmothers were just as excited as the kids!

April was a busy month. We were able to meet several times with our lawyer in Lima and we signed many of the papers related to the NGO we are forming. We also had a meeting with the director of the government department that concerns itself with the welfare of women and children. There is a missionary from Newfoundland, Sherry, who also lives in Tarma, and we have decided to help her start a project that is similar to ours in the city of Tarma. She will be caring for kids who spend a lot of their time begging in the streets, providing a place for them to do homework, to play, and to learn about God’s love for them. We are excited about working together with her. We celebrated Easter with an American missionary family, and enjoyed some North American style food, at the traditional Peruvian time for eating lunch! (Around 2pm) In April I also made a quick trip home to Canada for my grandfather’s funeral. What a blessing to be able to be with my family at that time, even if only for a few days.
At the beginning of May we had a visit from my pastor from Peterborough and some of his friends. Our friends Jason (from Canada) and Rocio (from Peru) got married, and we kicked off our Sunday school program in Huaricolca. Thanks to the GEMS girls in Chatham who raised money for us, we were able to buy treat bags for the kids and fill them with pencils and erasers and candies. We sang lots of songs and played some games, and we had about 25 kids come. Sunday school has continued every other week in Huaricolca while we have been in Canada, but we are planning to make it a weekly occasion once we return.
Also in May Martin and I were pajes (part of the wedding party) in our friends’ wedding in Tarma. It was a new experience for both of us, as weddings in the mountains are very traditional and highly coreographed! Our friend Pastor Omar had a visitor from the U.S. who lead a leadership conference for all the leaders in the community in Tarma, and I had the honour and challenge of translating for him in the mornings for the conference, and in the evenings at church. It was very tiring, but God was faithful and kept my brain from shutting down!
Thank you for praying about Martin’s visa. In April we received the news that he had been accepted, and in May we came home to prepare for the wedding. Things were a bit stressful and Martin had a bit culture shock, but we survived and in June the wedding was beautiful, even though the weather was a bit strange!

And finally, the best news yet... we just found out that land has been donated for the centre! There was a complicated mix-up regarding land for the church that our friend Pastor Guillermo is starting to build in Huaricolca, and the end result is that the town provided land for him, and for the centre as well! Praise God! We are looking forward to returning to Peru in July to begin building the centre and being Christ’s hands and feet right there in Huaricolca.

Thank you for continuing to support this project and may God bless you richly!


Please pray!
· For buildings materials and labourers

· For the quick finalization of our NGO

· For favour with community officials

· For a van to drive kids around

· That God would bless the efforts we make with these children and their families

Oh Canada!

Hello friends!
Since the middle of May Martin and I have been in Canada where we are getting ready for our wedding (which is just 12 days away!) and making connections with churches where we are planning to hold information nights. My mom has been keeping Martin busy in the garden where he is learning lots of new skills, and I am learning new organizational skills and making lots and lots of phone calls! We are enjoying our time here, but we are also missing our friends in Peru.
We started a Sunday school program in Huaricolca shortly before leaving, and it has been taken over by our friends Karina and Oscar, who recently got married! Karina and Oscar are both teachers and are members of the church we are working with. They are a great help to us, and also great friends. So even though we are here, the work we began is continuing, and we plan to jump right back in once we return to Peru, which will be on July 13th.
Thank you for keeping in touch with us, hopefully we will see some of you on this trip, some of you we may already have seen! If you'd like to talk with us while we're home in Canada, please email me, or call me at my mom's house!
God bless you!

Hello!

I see it´s been a while since I´ve written, and some interesting things have happened in that time. Last week we went to Lima to sign the constitution for our association. We have to go back again to sign something in the notary office, and then we´ll offically be an association, registered with the Peruvian government. Once we get there we will be able to buy land. We have tentatively decided on land that a lady from church is selling. I thought at first that it isn´t perfect because it´s a little far from the centre of the town, and it means little ones will have to cross the highway. It´s not an incredibly busy highway, but big trucks go flying down it. I´m a little worried about that, but we are also praying for a big van, so then we could pick up the little ones and drive them to the centre. The land isn´t really big, but beside it is another plot of land that is owned by the community and is not being used. Perhaps they will donate that land to us, and then we would have a great sized property to use. By this time next month we could be ready to start building!
In the meantime we have been talking with some friends here in Tarma about starting a similar project for the children of Tarma. There are a lot of kids who ask for money in the streets at night, and a lawyer who we met with to talk about our ideas explained that the police believe there are several adults who are exploiting these kids. Our idea is to feed them a big lunch, help them with their homework, and play with them. In the future it may be necessary to start a kind of children´s home where they can live here in the city. Or perhaps God will use our project in Huaricolca to provide a safe place for these kids to live.
There is so much need here in this region, but God is so faithful. This week is semana santa, and a lot of tourists come to celebrate here in Tarma. It is a very popular catholic festival. There is also a group of missionaries from Lima here this week, running an evangelistic conference. God has his eye on this place, and he is busy at work! It´s such a priviledge to be part of it, especially where kids are concerned.
If you´re praying, please remember us and the mountains of Peru. Pray that I´ll get good at waiting for God´s timing and not be discouraged. Also, we applied for Martin´s visa to go to Canada. We have a meeting at the embassy on the 16th of April, pray about that too! We know that God is always good!
Thanks for reading and following our adventures!

Arrived!

Yesterday we left Lima at 7 am with the car packed as full as possible! We arrived in Tarma at about 1pm after a long, winding, but absolutely beautiful drive through the Andes. (I`ll post some pictures soon!) The highest point we passed was 4,800 meters (about 15800 ft) where there is a crystal clear lake and snow. We stopped to take some pictures, and when we got out of the car we were really dizzy! When we decided to keep moving, the car stalled! We were a little nervous after that, but our little warrior car made it! We unloaded most of the stuff at the house where Xochi and I will be staying, and after some lunch and a very needed rest we unloaded Martin`s things at the room where he will be living.
Today we had lunch with Sherry, a Canadian missionary, bought some things we needed, and then went to Huaricolca to go to church with our pastor friend. We went early hoping to meet up with the mayor, but he had already gone home. So a lady who attends Pastor Guillermo´s church invited us to her home. As we were waiting for her we saw two boys go by with two donkeys. One boy jumped onto the bigger donkey and lay on it on his belly, hitching a ride Huaricolca style! The smaller boy jumped onto the smaller donkey to do the same thing, but his donkey stopped. He hit it on the rump but the donkey wouldn`t move. We all know donkeys can be a bit stubborn! So he jumped off and hit the donkey again, but this time the donkey took off running and the boy had to run behind it. We laughed so hard! I guess donkeys can be pretty smart too!
As we were waiting it started to thunder and there was lightening. We were waiting there with some kids and Martin was pretending to be afraid, but later he confessed that he was a little unsettled because it was the first time he had heard thunder like that. We got into the house just in time as it started to rain really hard. This home has a tin roof, so it was loud. Soon it started hailing, and then conversation was impossible! Once it calmed down outside we went out and saw that enough hail had fallen to collect handfuls of it. In the car the windshield was foggy and it reminded me so much of Canada! Since it had rained so crazily church was cancelled and we headed back down to Tarma.
Driving through Huaricolca (which takes no more than three minutes, and only that long because of the pot holes!) we saw so many kids. They are well behaved, they all say hello as they walk by, and we are so excited to begin getting to know them better and to work with them. We are planning to use the municipal building until we get our own place to run an after school program and have Sunday school. So the next investment we´ll make will be in school supplies and some books and toys and balls and things like that. Please pray that moms will let their kids come to play with us instead of dragging them to the fields after school.
And thank you for praying for our move! It went really, really well, thank you God!
Oh yeah, the day before we left Lima we had a meeting with Yois, our lawyer, and she is starting the process of forming an NGO. At the end of the month we`ll go to sign the first set of papers. We´re advancing! Praise God!
Thanks for reading!