The more native stuff =)

So I said I'd put the other items on the blog that are up for sale. As opposed to Chana, Josafina is an older lady and she makes all her stuff by hand. So it takes a lot longer to make. I'm not sure if she's interested in making multiple items like Chana. I just know these are for sale. If i get multiple people wanting the same thing, I can ask her. But I know these will take a lot longer to make, so besides these I don't know what would be ready by the time my parents come. Please let me know if you are interested! First come first serve =)

Josafina is part of a family that lives just outside of Puerto Maldonado in a little town called Pastora. You can see parts of their houses in some of these pictures. They moved several years ago from up the river, but they travel frequently. None of them have a steady job. They take jobs as river guides and sometimes these women's husbands are gone for weeks at a time. Keep in mind that a day's wage for a job here is about $8. You can see why helping Josafina or Chana is a tremendous help!

Below is a native tunic that is the traditional garb of the Yene tribe. Remember they are all handmade so they're a little more pricey. The price of this is $135. It's a heavy material and really nice quality. Both of these tunics are for men.

This is $135 as well.

This is a woman's traditional garb. The pants are about size 4. The shirt is about a medium. The cost of these together is $17. If someone is interested in buying them separately, let me know and maybe we can do that. She just gave me a joint price.

This vest is $25. It would be great as a fishing vest for someone perhaps =)
These are placemats. It comes with 4 that look like this. They are $5 each. So for the set is $20.
This is a backpack type bag that Bryan is modeling haha. The cost of it is $12.
This is a bag or purse that has a long strap. So you'd wear it over the shoulder across your chest. It's a neutral and can be used by boys or girls. It's $14.
This is one of the same types of bags. But the design is just a little different. This also costs $14.

And this is Herman Josafina who made all of these. She's a very sweet lady.
Please check out the entry below as well to see Chana's if you haven't already seen them. Thanks for helping us help some precious sisters in our church.

Purses!!

Hey everyone! I'm sorry it's taken me a while to update. I've been waiting for some pictures I wanted to show ya'll. There is a girl in our church who is 19 years old. Her name is Chana and she can't hear or speak. She uses sign language (which is really tough to understand for me when she's signing out words in Spanish - like a triple translation!) and she does not let her disability get in her way. Since I've known her family, I haven't seen a father. She has three younger brothers and her mom that she lives with. Chana is has to work. There isn't any programs to help people with disabilities here. It's just a fact of life, but she has to work to help provide for her family. She is a very hardworker, and as you are about to see, a very creative and talented individual. I wanted to show ya'll some of her work:

This is for a square pillow. She designs these herself.
Another pillow except its a sideways picture with my foot in it too =)
These are the purses she makes. You can tell this one doesn't have the straps yet. It's in progress.
Another design
And another
And another with the added bonus of my feet again.

I asked her about sewing or putting "Puerto Maldonado, Peru" on them and she said she could definitely do that. She is just starting this business, but I know many of you have asked how you can help. This is a great opportunity to help a family of believers that we're working with here and get a pretty souvenir in the process. My parents are coming in December, so they would bring them back with them if you buy one. Please, please let me know if you'd like one asap because she will need to be working on them. I'm hoping this will help kick off her business really well. The prices of the pillows and the pink purse (or that material) are $10. The prices of the others are $15. Please consider ordering one of these to help her out. They would make great gifts =). Any questions please email or comment on the blog.

Just a few pictures more since I took the time to upload those others:

Moises, Octavio and Luz's grandson. He'll turn 3 this month.
Luz, Moises, and his mom Mari
Bryan carrying our "compras" for the Saturday morning food program. It gets really heavy.

Much love!

Some New Pics

This is the church in Tres Islas where we go every Tuesday to have church there.
This is the outside of the church building.
This is the girl who made my card in the last blog. She's always at the church if the doors are open.
This is the lady we usually buy our chicken from.
On the top left is the ground beef that we now have in our refrigerator. Below that are fish.

Just some pics of around town I thought ya'll would like to see.

Grateful

The other night we went up to the church to do some publicity about the English classes we are hoping to start on Nov. 2nd. Everytime the church doors are open, our kids from Sunday mornings come running over (at least a few of them anyway). They sat with us and colored, but this is what they ended up drawing and coloring and giving to us:

Translates: A card for Professor or Teacher Elena (which is easier for the kids to say than Delana). Sister Elena, you have taught me very well and because of that I'm telling you you are very nice. I love you a lot and I want to go to Tres Islas. Thank you Sister Elena. Bye Sister Elena.

This explanation to the Tres Islas thing is that we were going to have church there one Sunday and we invited all the kids. But when we went to reserve a soccer field and spot to have it there, it was already going to be used. So we decided to do it in January instead. But the kids were really excited and are still excited. They had to bring their parents to us to give us permission to go, so I guess that work got them invested in really wanting to go. Haha they really are fun.

This is the one to Bryan: Thank you Brother Bryan for helping me to color and draw and all the other things. You help me in everything.

This is the front of both of the cards.

These are from a brother and sister that we've gotten pretty close to. Their mom and grandmother own a shop in the market across the street from the church, and their dad is a teacher in another town and comes and visits on weekends when he can. It is obvious they are both lacking in attention because they are always trying to get it from us. But most of the time, especially when it's one on one, we love to give it. It's cool to see how God is using the short time we have with the once a week to make a difference in their lives.

It's so easy to get bothered by the little things. I was thankful when one time this week in my time with the Lord, I felt a direct command to be grateful. That is our job. Thank you for your prayers this week. I don't know what it is, but I can feel the prayers this week. I know it is the joy of the Lord.

We've had two pastor's prayer meetings since I last posted, and they are going well. We've gotten to spend time now with some of the pastors in a more casual setting, and that has been a very good thing. It's hard to have actually unity and not just talked-about-unity when you're not really even friends. One pastor and his wife and sister-in-law are starting a television program for youth here in Maldonado. I guess because we are young, they asked us to help them with ideas and things. Neither of us have any television experience, but it seems like it might be a great tool to make connections with some of the youth around town. Some of our ideas include, candid camera, a talent show (like American Idolish), but each week a new person comes on and has to compete against the ones who stayed from the week before. Also for teaching, we want to show interviews from around town and also some documentaries to show youth that there is more to live for than just the moment.

Anyway, I guess that's most of what is going on. I mentioned the English classes before, but please pray that it goes smoothly. We've done a lot of preparation and work for them, and we're hoping it will pay off by giving us connections with new people and a new way to share the Lord by day-to-day relationships.

My verse of encouragement this week has been:

"The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your love, O Lord, endures forever - do not abandon the works of your hands." Psalm 138:8

Electricity

It has been over a week since I updated. It's partly my fault, but we've also been without electricity frequently this past and current week, so that's my excuse. The rainy months have begun. It's not to much yet, but the other night there was a storm. I think that's a major cause of our electricity problems. Sunday night we even had church in a circle with a flashlight pointing up at the ceiling.

We came here really wanting to get to know the other Christian pastors and wanting to work with the pastors who were willing to work together. We found that there is a Fraternity of Evangelical Pastors that meets once a month. We've been going faithfully, but this week was really encouraging. Yesterday we met, and we spent about 3 hours with pastors just sharing about the city. Not their church or their activities. They were sharing about what God has shown them about strongholds or demonic activity and very serious stuff. It provoked in us, but I think in all the pastors, a seriousness of the condition of this city. We decided to meet once a week just to pray, not anything else. One pastor said a government official told him that in a lot of things the governments hands are tied. But then he told him, "You are the ones that can do something to change this city. The church can change the minds and attitudes of the people." It was very encouraging to see a desire to pray and dedicate ourselves to spiritually attack the oppression and idolatry in Maldonado. The first prayer meeting is tomorrow morning.

My friend Martha is struggling. My other friend I wrote about is doing pretty well. She is very busy, though. She has classes and then overnight shifts at the hospital some nights of the week plus taking care of her son in the middle of that.

English classes, we hope, are going to start November 2nd. We've been handing out flyers and have gotten several calls about it. We're just trying it out right now, but we're hoping we can get at least 8 people per class to make it worth our time. Thanks to God's provision, I will also be starting the process of getting my ESL certification soon. It's kind of exciting.

For those of you who receive our newsletters - Bryan has written two of them, but our friend Terry who has been doing them for us for so long got a new job and can't do them for us. We will be continuing those soon. You might even receive two at the same time. Bryan's updates are usually more general, but cover more things.

Hasta luego!

slowly, but surely

I've realized this week that this is not going to be a snap and it's all better sort of situation. Things are going to take a lot of time and prayers and intervention by the Holy Spirit.

This morning as a team we were sort of brainstorming ideas about how to move the people in the congregation to be the "ministers" God created them to be. A mentality here is paying your dues. You come to church, sit there for a while, and then leave and get on with your business. We've started working with kids around the neighborhood of the church on Sunday mornings. One goal is to reach these kids, but another is to train people to share their faith. I feel like we've got to get this training people down. Not the "sending them to training conferences" type of thing, but them really being discipled. If it takes a conference - awesome. But, it's just something we're seeing as absolutely necessary. And this training will take a lot of time. I guess I see it differently, because I grew up in church. As I grew in age and maturity, I was also growing in the Lord. I guess I expect adults to be able to understand and change quickly.

I know we will see change here. I have felt so many promises from the Lord. But instead of coming through mighty waves of salvation and the Holy Spirit, I'm almost certain it will come through discipline - the every day faithfulness. I guess that's how it works most of the time.

So that's my thoughts on what's been going on lately. We had a great trip in Cusco, and the boys got to see their first professional soccer game. I unfortunately didn't go, because I hit my head earlier that morning and was feeling a bit dizzy. That's not that atmosphere you want to go into when you feel like that.

Cooking is becoming a more normal thing to me. I've found several things I can do pretty well that are cheap, so we've been enjoying that.

We're really trying to working on a business. We want to eventually be able to support ourselves and be able to use donations for other things besides our eating and living stuff. So we are about to start English classes. We want to open these up small at first, but we'd really like to start an institute. I think I've already written this on the blog, but I'm sharing it again - haha. I am planning on getting my certification for ESL through an online program that is accredited internationally and also here in Peru. I really believe that this is from the Lord, and we are excited about how this will advance the Kingdom through another facet instead of just through church services.

Anyway, I think it's about time for another post with pictures, but I don't have any new ones. I'm bad at remembering to take pictures. I would love to answer questions or take pictures of something if ya'll give me some ideas.

Love, Delana

P.S. It will be 3 months since we've been here next week. Crazy!

Cusco

So we're in Cusco. It's nice to have a break from the heat.

Today I think I'm going to write a little more reflectively.

It's been over two months since we've been here. I realized for the first time a few weeks ago that when we go back to the US, it won't be the same life we had before. I know this seems obvious, but it made me realize that this is my life - here - in Peru, and that this is what God has called me to.

Last night we met with the church here in Cusco, and David spoke on our calling as Christians. That we all have a call on our lives. And one of those calls is to run our race. I've been treating my time in Peru so far as a short time period of my life. It really hit me last night that I MUST live my life here on purpose. I can't just think this is a phase, and that things will go back to normal in a few months. I guess it's easy day to day to start seeing things as mundane and forget that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I think it's like that for everybody. Because day by day can be boring. So anyway, I want this to become the place I love. I want Peru to be my home, because by doing that I'm embracing my "race" or my calling.

Right now for us is obviously a preparing time. The 3 of us can all see that God is going to act here. But, if he started moving mightly right now, we wouldn't be ready for it. So I guess these times are just as important as when God starts to change people, churches, and cities. We have to be ready for it.

Pray for us to stay persistent in our times with the Lord. It's easy to get busy in ministry and forget that the real goal is to know Jesus. I know that's been a struggle for me.

So this blog was more emotional than usual, but I figure it's good every once in while. If anyone wants to come visit or bring a group from their church, please let us know. We would love to have anyone who can come.

Last thing - I sent out a message to the Facebook group, but if you don't receive our newsletter and want to, please send me your email address. Or if you receive it in the mail and you don't mind getting it in email instead, send me your email. We're trying to minimize the hard copies we send out so we can get them out faster.