March Newsletter

 Hey Everyone...It's newsletter time! March was full of travel for our family.  We started off our journey in Lima.  This was the first time that we have actually stayed in Lima other than airport stops.  After our hour and a half bus ride to our mission house that we were going to stay in, we arrived to an empty house with no one there to open the door.  After 20 minutes of sitting on the sidewalk (with 12 suitcases I might add), we were welcomed into the neighbor's house.  This family was amazing!  They were so hospitable.  They even bought us dinner...KFC!  We crashed their house for a few hours until we finally got a hold of the owner to our place.  It was a case of miscommunication...who would have thought... but we were able to get some much needed rest before we started the process for our paperwork for residency in Peru.  From the horror stories that we have heard from other missionaries, we were a little nervous about how the process would go.  To our amazement...it was relatively painless!  Thank you Lord for allowing it to go smoothly!  Now we are just waiting for everything to process and hopefully we will have our carnet's in June.

Plaza de Aguas in Lima

LarcoMar in Lima

Rock beach in Lima

After our week in Lima, we finally arrived in Iquitos.  Yay!!!! Friends!!!!  We have been so blessed with wonderful friends here to run this race together.  For most of March we just tried to settle back in to living here.  Of course we were so excited about our food options again...Trincherro's, Ceviche, Menu's, and a new Mexican place with real quesadillas!  Don't forget the daily trips to the pool, so that our bodies didn't drop dead from heat exhaustion.  Ok, that might be a little bit of an exaggeration.  And we FINALLY got our internet set up.


One of my favorite days in March was Easter Sunday.  We were able to have an evening service at our church.  This was the first time that we were able to take the Lord's Supper as a church family.  There were many of our close friends here in Iquitos that were able to join us.  After our service we had our very first church dinner...chicken and rice of course!  It is exciting to see what is going to happen through these people here in Iquitos!

Easter Sunday

We love you all!

8 Beautiful Years and Counting

I'm not sure why God chose me to be a mother of four amazing kids but He did and I am enjoying every minute.  Yesterday, we were able to celebrate one of those amazing kids...Miss Tailor Nicole Webb.  Eight years have come and gone.  Where does it go?  This beautiful, sweet, life loving girl always puts a smile on our faces.  You can find her dancing or singing most every day.  When she performs she captivates everyone watching.  My prayer for her is that she will use her talents to grow God's Kingdom and bring Him all the glory.  My sweet Tailor, remember that you were remarkably and wonderfully made by the Creator of the universe.  Praise His name and share His love!  We love you!

Just a few pics from the Birthday fun!

 Pep talk before Bowden jumped in on his own

Boys!

All around the world, boys speak the same language...

POW! WHOA! PUH! POW!

Super Heroes have been a favorite of Bowden for a while, and now he has a lot of boys to play them with.  Even though he doesn't know a lot of Spanish, and they don't know a lot of English, they can play for hours without a care in the world.  It is so amazing to watch children from different cultures come together and share the same likes.  I pray that eventually these boys will come to know The Lord and share the same Father that created them and loves each and every one of them!  And so for now....

POW! WHOA! PUH! POW!

We Are Here!

After a wonderful 5 months in the States, we have finally made it back to Iquitos. The trip down was a bit of a struggle, considering a 12 hour layover and a couple of missed flights, but we are here!

We were welcomed by so many people.  God is so good to give us such wonderful friends in both places!  Thank you to all who helped us get home.

We were able to take our boat out on Monday (sorry I forgot the camera so no pics yet).  Dusty did a great job driving us around!  We are so excited to get out to the villages and see our friends out there.

It has been a lot easier to get settled in this time.  We had a few setbacks (broken water pipe that is now fixed) but nothing major.  I love living in 900 sq. ft.  It's so much easier to clean!  We have had friends over and of course lots of play time with the kiddos.

I hope to keep you all updated throughout our journey.  I have a computer now, so hopefully it will be easier.  We love you all!

Blanket forts are fun in the jungle too!

God's plan is always perfect

We just returned from an amazing trip in the jungle villages.  Our God is all knowing and all powerful, so I am not sure why I am always amazed at how He works things out.  While I was journaling in one of the villages, I came across a verse that spoke the complete truth about how our trip had been going. It's Isaiah 25:1 and it says O Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you; I will praise your name, for you have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful and sure.

As humans, we are always trying to plan everything out and have control of what is going to happen. And that is exactly what we had done. It's good to have a plan and to be be organized, but we also know that the ultimate plan is in God's hands. From the time the trip started to the time we made it back to Iquitos our boat was plotting against us with satan. The only part of the boat that didn't mess up was the hull...sort of.  In that, we got to experience many different opportunities that would not have been possible without the crazy chaos of satan's schemes and God overpowering them.  I actually love the fact that God showed His amazing power over satan throughout our entire trip.

So, just like Isaiah 25:1 says "plans formed of old" " faithful and sure" God has already planned out exactly what needs to happen. I love His revealing Word and I love how it still speaks to us today!

And.........my favorite part of the crazy chaos throughout the entire week is.......the salvation of my first born baby girl Taigan!!!!!  We are so excited about what God has planned for this special girl! Love you sis!!!

Internet has arrived at our Casa!!!

It has arrived! The internet has arrived at our own house.  We are jumping for joy!  Hopefully this means that I will be able to keep you up-to-date on our weekly adventures here in Iquitos.  We have already been blessed so much by meeting several other missionaries that we can connect with. We have also been blessed to be able to go into a few villages in the jungle and meet more of God's people. I love being able to see the power of our God working in people's lives all over the world. He is the same God and will always be, Hallelujah!  All of that to say, I am just going to use today as a starting point for the post updates. Here are a few pics of what we have done in the last couple of weeks.

Happy Birthday to Daddy! 30

 

Playing with the neighborhood kiddos

We have arrived......I know, I'm a little late

We are here! We have actually been here a little over a week now, but it's taken a while to get everything set up so that I could log back into my blog. In saying that...God has already shown me so much and I hope that I can organize all of my crazy thoughts so that you can follow them without getting lost. So...here we go!
When we first arrived we were in our comfy traveling clothes that quickly turned into a sweaty mess. It was so humid! It was quite comical watching all of us try to get used to it. For the first 3 days we were here it was so hot! They told us that it was abnormally humid and that it usually wasn't that bad. I was ready for that to be true.  Sure enough on that 3rd night we had a wonderful rain storm that cooled everything down. Now, it gets a little hot every once in a while but nothing like the first 3 days. Actually as I'm writing this, I am under a blanket....we are going to FREEZE when we come back to the states!
Since so much has happened this week, I just want to share one thing that The Lord has been helping me work on.  After a couple of days of settling in we were ready to get the house hunt started.  We had looked at one and really liked it but we knew there were other options available so we wanted to look at all of them. We were suppose to see them on Tuesday but that didn't work out so we waited until the next day...and then the next...and the next. I wanted to get settled into a house and a routine so that we could start learning the culture and start figuring everything out. If I would have been back in the states waiting I would have been so upset and angry, but God allowed me to have patience. I hope that you caught that...I said that "God allowed" me to have patience. Patience is not something that I can do, it's a fruit of the spirit. God's spirit. Living in His spirit and allowing Him to work in me was/is the best way to have the fruit that he wants me to have.  I don't want to admit it because I would like to say that I was already depending on God, but moving to a place that is so different has made me depend more on God than I ever have.  And in that, He has shown me more fruit in one week than in months before. I am ready to wait on Him and allow his timing to be the best for me.

I do have great news on the house...we signed on the first one we looked at! We are getting everything arranged so that hopefully we will be in by the end of this week.  Pictures will follow. God is so good and His ways and His timing are always best, so wait on Him.

Be still, and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10
I say then, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of your flesh. Galatians 5:16