Making Wishes

Remember awhile ago I mentioned some of my favorite books.  One of those was Flat-Out Love by Jessica Park. In the book one of the characters has a Christmas tradition of laying under her tree and making wishes for the coming year. I told this to the kids and they decided that was a great idea. Josh says we are weirdo's but here are our under the tree photo's and even the cat got excited and she makes wishes under the tree as well.

          

Going to School

Katy and Z have been in homeschool basically since a few weeks after we settled into Lima. But over the past few months Josh and I have discussed how getting the kids into a school program here might be the best idea.  

Its a very hard decision to make especially when you live in a foreign country. The American english speaking school is pretty far from our house and we'd have to take a taxi every day to get to it or the kids would have to ride a tiny bus to it. Also the american school is rather expensive, like so high I wondered if it was actually a college. So after talking to several missionaries and discussing what we thought our kids could handle, together we decided on a small private school that is very close to our house, very reasonably priced, and has a great curriculum.

The school is very small, the staff is friendly, the students are exceptionally behaved, the programs that the kids will get to be a part of are pretty amazing, the classes are very small and a lot of the teachers speak english so when Katy or Zechariah are more extensively learning the language the teachers can help with explaining something to them in english and such.  They do have an hour of english class each day where they will be learning english, grammar, etc. 

There are opportunities for them to learn dance, music, tennis, swimming, etc. There classes go from 8 am to 5 pm and they are sent home without homework. 

The kids were able to go to classes for free this past week and they loved it. They are already making friends and such as well. 

On the second day I went to pick up both kiddos while waiting this boy kept peeking out of the kitchen/lunchroom at me and smiling. One of the teachers brought Zechariah out and then went off to grab Katy from her class. While Zechariah and I were waiting on Katy the little boy who had been peeking around the door came out and asked me "¿Eres la madre de Katharina?" Are you the mother of Katharina? I replied with Si/yes and he smiled really big and when Katy came down the stairs with another boy from her class he came back out to wave bye to Katy and both boys wished her a good afternoon and see you tomorrows, and so it begins.  :)

Time to Catch Up!

It's been awhile since I've posted anything and there is good reason for that. We finally found a place to live here in lima, and we've been getting settled in. Also a lot has been happening with the church in La Victoria, we've also found a school for Katy and Zechariah to attend.  We have also been exploring other neighborhoods and areas of the city as well.  Josh and I also were able to meet the US Ambassador at a town hall meeting in the US Embassy here in Peru. That was a fun experience.

We decided that for the family it would be best for us to live in a neighborhood called San Borja. There is plenty to do the neighborhood and the ones surrounding it and a lot of things are only a bus or taxi ride away. We can actually walk to a lot of things like the kids school, the park, starbucks, a mall with a huge arcade, etc. Josh can walk to the mission offices, and he can take a buss ride to the church in La Victoria.

Because we are living in another country our dollar can go a lot further. So we were able to find a nice apartment that has a roof top terrace, and a room for guests if anyone ever visits. Right now the area that we will use for guests though is home to a deaconess intern for a few more months.  The area is on the second floor of our apartment and it is sort of separate from the rest of the house. The kids each have there own rooms and they have a bathroom to share. My favorite part is a small but functioning kitchen and my huge red couch.

Our building we are the top left.

In Peru it is common for people to have someone to clean there house and often times that person lives in the house. We do have an area in the house that is reserved for a maid but we do not use it for this purpose.  I actually have a huge metal shelf in the shower in the servants bathroom to use as storage.  But we keep the bathroom open enough so guests can use it when we entertain on the terrace. The room that is meant for the maid to live in is really not that much bigger than a twin bed, we use it as a reading room. Over all we are blessed with and very grateful to have a wonderful place to live.

~~~La Victoria~~~

There have been several events that have happened in the church and school in La Victoria. We have had five services so far in the church and a few events for the school.

Church and School Sign.

Some of the students dancing a folk criollo dance. Click here to see them dance.

The Alter in the new church in La Victoria.

The Church right before our first service.

Job and his son Gabriel playing music at the lunch after our first service.

This is a recent school field trip. We went to a local fountain park for the kids to play in the water. Including 3 staff, the deaconess, and our family we had 79 people show up. What a turn out!!