Where are the moon and the stars?

Here in Lima, we have very little sun light in the daytime and in the night we never see stars or the moon. When we lived in Florida, where you can see the moon and the stars all the time, Kilaine used to love to look at the moon and the stars at night. Tonight we were sitting at the table and Kilaine says "Daddy, where are the moon and the stars? Maybe the stars went to bed early with the moon or maybe somebody took them and put them in a box so that we couldn't see them." Then she laughed her cute little giggle and said, "that's silly isn't it?" Ha, Ha!
I love how the Lord uses the sweetness of children to bring a smile to your face.

Robin

Yesterday was Robin's birthday. We went out and around the city by ourselves. We always feel a sense of accomplishment when we can find our way around with the bus system on our own. (which there's no paper or anything to look at to know where the routes go, you just have to figure it out somehow, which we are...) It's good. We didn't do anything big. Luz baked some seco de cabrito and a chocolate cake for us and watched the kids for us while we were gone. I realized we didn't have any candles when it was time to sing to Robin. So, I grapped the clicker lighter thing for the stove! We had a nice day together.

We finally know what our address is. So, here it is:

Robin & Tracy Shelley
Caminos del Inca 2373 Dpto. 301A
Surco, Lima 33 -Peru

Robin has been sick, but is getting better. We've had very little sickness for being here for 1 month. Praise the Lord. Also, another praise report: our house sold. The papers were all completed yesterday. Thank you for praying with us about the house.

Sunday (today)

Hanging out in the morning while we're setting up for practice... Liam likes to go and play the cajon (a box drum). He sits on it and hits it just like how he sees David, Paul and Alvaro doing it. He's so cute!

Paul and Ricardo

Brian is doing better. He didn't teach this morning, Jaime did, but he did teach the evening service.

There we are playing during the morning service. You can't see Paul and David. After service, everybody stays around and we eat lunch together. Today I brought all my candy from Mexico and shared it with everyone. All of it has chili pepper in it. I was cracking up when I saw some of their faces from eating it. Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!! It was a lot of fun. Then some of us hang around the church til 4 when we start our worship practice for the following Sunday. Sometimes we play some songs, last week we were teaching Rudy English while we dried the dishes. There is a lot of good fellowship in this church. It is rightly named Koinonia.

practice time..."?Me entiendes, Tracy?"(that means -do you understand me?) "Yah... sure, Ricardo..." Miguel is just laughing because he knows I don't understand. This is a regular occurance, but somehow it all works out.

The kids are having some popcorn and hanging out while we practice.


Robin goofing around. Hi Rudy!


These are some of the paintings that a guy in the church named David makes. He is almost totally blind. He reads by braile and everything. He paints these paintings based on scripture. They are really cool. Tonight I was listening to some music and I was reminded of David. Here's the lyrics from the David Crowder Band, talking about the Lord.

" Look how You shine so
The blind can see
And how You call
How You beckon me
The deaf hear
The voice of love
You bid me come
and the cripple run
You're the one

'Cause You're everything"

One day the Lord will come. He will take his bride (that's the church) home to him. The blind will see, the deaf will hear, and the cripple will run. And that is something to celebrate.

Brian is having surgery today, in fact, he may have already had it. It's to remove a gall stone. Please pray for him to have a quick recovery and for his family.

Brrr... it's really cold sometimes in our apartment. But, that's what Daddy's are for!

Jimmy leads worship sometimes and it's always nice. We have a couple meeting times throughout the week: Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Tue evening prayer, Thur eve service. At least those are the ones in Surco. Sometimes Jimmy leads worship and sometimes Ricardo. (and of course, Brian always has some wonderful teachings, which sometimes I can understand!) Tomorrow I get to help out, too, yay!

A team came this morning to help Lucho Garcia (he's the pastor at Gracia Calvary Chapel). So, we did some cleaning and little preparations to make them feel welcome. (one of which involved moving some bunkbeds around...)

Robin thought for sure the bed would fit this way, afterall he measured it by stepping it out with his feet... but it didn't. Brian gives him an example of why you don't measure with feet in Peru, you use meters!

So, we (I really mean they) tried it the other way. Did it fit, did it fit? I don't know, we decided to assemble it another day.

Mmmm... chocolate... Me and Luz gave up on the beds and started making some chocotejas. I know your mouth is watering (mine is too!) Yes, you too can have chocotejas of your very own! Bring some back to the states, share them with your friends, send them to your neighbors... I'm shameless, I know.

No, but seriously, some people in the church get together on Saturdays to make chocotejas. We sell them to raise money so the peruvians can go on missions trips. They are made with this really yummy chocolate, manjar (which is sort of like a really soft caramel) and pecans or coconut inside. Very tasty. (and yes, I believe they are on sell in the cafe at Calvary Boynton... shameless advertising)

There are, of course other stories I want to share with you. But, I'm going to save those for another day...

News on Ayacucho

Well, our trip to Ayacucho is postponed. There is some political unrest in Ayacucho right now. Apparantly there is some striking going on and the roads are closed to get there. Also, it is a bit dangerous (which usually means even more so for gringos-and double more for gringas!). I do not have exact info on what's going on there, and will write more when I know for sure.

Pray for the ladies in Ayacucho, they were really looking forward to this meeting and they were disappointed that we couldn't come. Also pray for their safety.

By the way, Ayacucho is really more like 8-10 hours away by bus.

3 week update

Yay! We have phone and internet!!!!!!!!!! Woo hoo!!! ok, so I'm a little excited. We have been in Peru now, for 3 weeks. It has been very busy, it hardly seems like the time has gone by, and on the other hand, we've gotten so much done that it seems like it's been much longer. We are getting settled. Right now, we aren't doing any regular ministries in the church, and we almost feel lost without doing them. But, all in good time.

I did get to participate in a ladies reunion on a Friday. We had bible studies, worship and some food, served by the guys. It was a nice time together. Betty and Silvia did the teachings.

It was good, although I didn't understand all of the teachings. After a while, my brain sort of shuts off and I have to keep reminding it to understand the language. It really is sort of like that, as funny as it may sound.

And the guys that helped out. Brian calls them "the sufferers." Ha ha. Thanks, guys, we really do appreciate these sorts of things.


Some days we take things at a little slower pace. We always have a lot to do, but we might stop at the park on the way to the grocery store, or look at the funny fish at the fishtank place. This day we went over to the little arcade place and let the kids have a ride on the motorcycle thingy. It's important for the kids. and boy, do they love it!!!

On Saturday, I went over some songs with Angie. Then playtime came. Kilaine learned "mi turno, mi turno," pretty quickly. That means "my turn."

This is a picture I took from my kitchen window. This is an indian lady walking across the street from my house. You can see many indigenously dressed women throughout the city, sometimes with a baby tied to their back, usually selling something on the side of the road. I have been wondering where they live and how to reach out to this people group. Something to pray about.
This is my lovely little cute kitchen. And I mean little. But, once Robin found the perfectly sized small bookshelf, I had just enough space for things. And the coffee pot doesn't have to live on the floor (which I'm sure Robin greatly appreciates!)

This is Ayumi. She lives at the church with her mom, Karla. She came over today so Luz could watch my kids (Luz watches her throughout the week while Karla works). She's such a cutie pie! She's 2 years old. We'll probably teach her more english than she'll teach us spanish!

Luz cooked for us today, too!!! She's been helping us a lot. She helped us clean the apartment, shop for food, and she's teaching me how to cook. Well, she cooks and I watch and write feverishly. Cooking has definitely been an adventure for me so far. I keep burning things because I'm not used to a gas stove. Eventually I'll get the hang of it.

Missions is definitely more than just street evangelism. It's life. Regular life. Every couple of days I carry my clothes down to the lavanderia that's right by my house. That's a place where they clean your clothes for you. Sometimes it takes a while to drop off your clothes and to pick them up, because they have to weigh them and count them and all of that. But, I've been talking to the lady that runs the store, and getting to know her a little bit. It's good. I'm hoping to continue to build a relationship with her, and maybe I will have an opportunity to talk to her about the Lord. We shall see.

Robin gets up every morning and walks to the church to meet with Brian and Jimmy at 5:00 in the morning to pray for an hour. It's awesome. I'm so glad he has the opportunity to do that. And I'm really glad it was on Brian's heart to do that, too.

We are both getting to know people little by little. On Sunday afternoon, I got to practice with the worship team. I'm going to start playing with them on this coming Sunday. I'm looking forward to it. They are already teasing me about my spanish, which is good. You just have to laugh along with them (besides, sometimes, it really is funny!).

Tomorrow I am going to Ayacucho with 5 other ladies. That's about 3 or 4 hours away up in the mountains. I'm really excited to see some other parts of Peru. We will come back on Saturday. It's a short missions trip. I don't really know what's in store, but I'm ready to do some worship along the way. Maybe next time I'll be more ready to teach in spanish.

Well, that's the update for now.

Lots of fun making mistakes...

Robin's take on things...

...We make a lot of mistakes right now and feel like zoo animals as all the people stare at the cute white family rushing down the road. Everybody tries to take advantage of you with prices because you are white and getting a taxi at a decent price is nearly impossible for a gringo who can hardly speak the language...

Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!

Yes we make mistakes. The other day I made a beautiful batch of aguadita, a peruvian soup. But, I neglected to wash the peas first. I thought they looked clean enough, they were in a nice little prepackaged bag... The rest of my cooking time I was stirring and picking out small black unidentified objects. While I was eating my soup at the table, I found an ant in there. (the other black things were not ants, I don't know what it was...) Added protein, I suppose. So, I learned my lesson: always wash the food before you cook it.

Here's some pictures of the last 2 weeks...

Zach and Kilaine hanging out at the Russell's before we left.

We had a really great time staying at the Russell's house for 5 weeks before we left. Thank you guys for adding us to your family.

We went to say goodbye to Tim and Jamie, our dear friends.

This is the crew that came with us to the airport. Erin, Kelly, Kaulana, Kathi and Dominick. (Dan was taking the photo). It was a blessing that they came with us to the airport. The last wave goodbye was a little sad.

And the wait began. Our flight was at 1:30 in the morning. So we tried to get a little shut eye in the airport. Liam, the monkey that he is, was running all over the place going crazy.

It was awesome at the airport. Brian, Betty, Ana, Marco, Alicia, Jose, Luz and Jimmy came to pick us up. It was good to see them.

One of our first nights there, we went to Pepe's for some anticucho (Kathi's favorite! Not really... I guess beef heart on a stick isn't everybody's favorite food...) The kids were glad to cram into the van like they did in Mexico.

On one of our free days, we went to see the beach. We went to this place called Punta Hermosa. It was pretty awesome. The waves were pretty big. Brian said this was small because it's winter here. It would be awesome to do a surf outreach in the summertime (which I think is around January).

We went exploring for the day...

Our 2nd week we found an apartment. It's on the 3rd floor, 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, small kitchen. It's nice and pretty close to the church so we can walk back and forth. Jimmy came and helped us one day. We have had lots of help getting around to buy the things we need for the apartment.

Kathi helping out.

Dan and Robin figuring some things out.

It's been good. Some days are harder than others. At times we get to feeling a little overwhelmed with such a new life. Especially when my shower turns ice cold about every 3 minutes! =) But, things are getting there. Poco a poco.

Por fin

Hello everyone. Sorry we haven´t been able to update the blog for a while. Things are a little crazy here. We are pretty busy trying to get everything set up. We have an apartment, praise God! It´s close to the church so we can walk, it´s small but very cute. We finally got some furniture and appliances and things. There are still a few more things we need to do, but hopefully we´ll get those taken care of this week. Dan & Kathi Whisman came with us to help us out in the beginning. Thanks guys, it was good to have you around. On Friday I got to play worship for a ladies reunion. It was sort of like a ladies conference on a small scale. It was really nice, I am glad I got to participate a little. I am praying about going on a missions trip on July 11 to Ayacucho with about 5 other women in the church. That would be awesome if I get to go. Mabe in another week or so, we´ll be able to start getting involved in some of the ministries. Poco a poco (little by little). One of the things Brian asked us to do is to prepare some Bible studies and translate them into spanish. It seemed like a daunting task at first, but the idea is to help us learn the language. Soon, we will have a language teacher. The kids are doing well. They like their new house. They are really excited to have a bunk bed! We are getting to know the people in the church and learning the language more and more each day. (Sorry if I´m rambling, I´m at an internet place and trying to hurry!) I can´t get pictures up yet. It won´t work. So, I need to wait until we get our computer working. Thank you for all of your prayers. We love you all. More later...