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