Yes, we did add some more to our tree, in case you’re wondering as you watch this video.

Untitled from Justin Thompson on Vimeo.

It was a blast to see the kids have so much fun.  It’s such a blessing that our kids have such great grandparents!  If any of you reading ever knew my mom’s mom…this “Door #1/#2″ is SO something she would have done.  Mom, you’re for sure your mother’s daughter!  I’m also going to direct you to my mom’s post about our “Christmas Day” because I think my dad might have deleted our pictures (dad??) after he put them on his computer.

MOM’S BLOG POST.

**you’ll have to scroll through a few pics of Thanksgiving that she put up, but the Christmas ones are at the end.  Mostly they are of Corban dancing…hah.  He’s such a hoot!

Cailyn finished her year at the Nido (school) she attended this past year in the middle of December, and they had an end of the year show.  Please do not think “kids standing on bleachers singing cute Christmas songs”.  The show was FOR REAL.  On the one hand, it was a bit funny to see how insane they treated the show, but of course we had a blast watching our girl do her dance!  We did pay $42 for her costume to be CUSTOM made JUST for HER.  What?!  We also showed up on time, but apparently the Peruvian parents know to get there an hour early and begin the line to head into the auditorium.  We sat in the next to last row.  Don’t think I didn’t stand up on my chair at one point. hehe.  The teacher (once again) had to have our help in getting C to even participate at school in order to learn the show moves, but I have to say that she was the best little “Libélula” (dragonfly) on stage!  I mean, she knew her moves, and she executed!  No nerves with her!  Corban had a great time clapping for her the entire time.  I wish I had video of him clapping and yelling “YAY DISTER!”(sister).  It nearly made me cry…hah!  The first pics are of C, but I’ll add a couple of some of the other “ACTS”…because you just HAVE to see these costumes!  We WILL be a dragonfly for Halloween next year.  Cailyn doesn’t know that just yet.

C is the 2nd from the Right…

Now on to showing off the costumes and props…

After their show, the oldest classes graduated.  Cailyn just sat there mostly while the rest of the kids sang what we think was the Peruvian national anthem…haha.  She didn’t even try to learn that.   C is the 2nd from the Left side…

We had Christmas day just as a family of 4.  It was the first time we weren’t with family…ever…for me or Justin.  It wasn’t a bad day, but it did feel a bit odd.  The kids woke up and opened a few presents, we totally went out to eat for lunch (NOT our norm), and then we just relaxed the rest of the day.  Here are the kids on Christmas Eve.  Thanks to a sweet Christmas gift bag full of goodies from Kelly and Sara Davidson, our kids had a Gingerbread cookie mix and icing tubes for some cookie decorating.  These ended up being Santa’s cookies…

For the New Year, Justin and I rang it in by playing Peru Monopoly together (all of the properties are places in Peru, and the board/cards/money is all in spanish).  We had never played, but the kids and I gave it to him for Father’s Day this past year.  We had fun, and even though we didn’t finish, I’m pretty sure I would’ve won.   Then, around 11:30pm the fireworks started, so we headed up to the roof to watch them.  Yes, you can shoot legit fireworks from your roof here in Peru.  We might do that next year…haha.  We did some sparklers with the kids before they went to bed around 10pm, then we (me and j) ate our dinner together.  Peruvians eat a meal at midnight usually and then spend the entire night up with family and friends, so we were technically still too early even though we finished dinner at like 10:30pm.  It was a relaxing night to say the least.  Now, it’s on to 2012!

This is a catch up post if you haven’t noticed!  I’m hoping to keep up some more on our blog.  I’ve found myself completely wrapped up in just preparing for my day with the kids, especially since Cailyn is now home for summer break.  We’ve gone to the pool and the beach several times each, and the kids swim nearly every other day in our pool in the back yard (just a large blowup one).  We’re excited for this new year for many reasons.  God definitely just walked us through one of the hardest years we’ve had as of yet, but we see him providing for us in numerous ways and we know that we grew so much this past year.  We’re anticipating this next year to be the start of a new beginning in many ways here in Peru, and we’re super excited about it!  I hope to be sharing with you all more specifically as these next few months unfold and God is more clear with us where he is leading our family.  Thanks for all of the support you’ve all given this past year.  We certainly felt positively overwhelmed with love from each of you!

Mom and Dad got to spend Thanksgiving with us, and it was such a huge blessing to have them.  Not only was it just wonderful to celebrate with them, but we had 2 extra sets of hands to help us prepare!  Preparing the food was really the least of our preparations, because we hosted Thanksgiving this year, and our total number was 22 adults and 18 kids.  It was crazy, but tons of fun!  We had our team there, our 4 amazing interns, and 3 other families (2 that live here, and 1 that happened to be visiting one of those first 2 families).  We all decided to pitch in for a jump castle, because…well, let’s face it…we had 18 kids here.

Not only were we literally finding spots for all of our food to sit in places like…oh…our laundry room (we had TONS of food), but we had some amazing time of fellowship as well as a washers tournament.  The kids brought in the Christmas spirit with a viewing of the movie, The Polar Express, as well.  We could not have had a better time!  Here are all of the pictures!  Oh…and one last thing.  I can’t take all of the credit for the kids tables.  Just because we hosted, does not mean I did it all myself!  It was a group effort to say the least!

Prep work…making the kids’ mayflower candy boats…

the finished products…

daddyO and Cailyn making lemonade…

roasted veggies and homemade peanut butter cups…

Kid table…I found this adorable turkey idea, and Wes Y. took it on for me!  Thanks, Wes!  I think his looked better than the original.

THE entertainment…(with only 7 of the 18 kids pictured…i mean, duh…can you see why we got this thing!)

kitchen madness!

trampoline complimentary with the rental of the jump castle…thank God!! (and here’s 6 more of the little kiddies…)

our sweet pea girls at their table…

the rowdy boy table…

the AMAZING salad bar our 4 intern gals made…SOO good!

the turkey carver…

dessert table.  yes, my napkins were on top of the dessert plates due to having NO other spot for ANYTHING!

at the last minute we had to go and walk the intern’s dining table over to our house because we had no more kitchen counter space for food!

our little cutie, corbs…

what a blessing to have such wonderful food!!

Blake Goodfellow making the bracket for our washers tourney…he did all the prep work for it…including making our trophy (pictured below with the winners).  this is our TV room, and yes, it was looking like this within minutes of the start of our night…hah!

washers in action…

and the winners are…THE YOAKUMS!! (notice the awesome wolf trophy)

We could not have asked for a better day for our Thanksgiving Day of 2011.  We were truly blessed!  If any of you who were here read this…we want you all to know how blessed we feel by you and your families!

C had grandparents day at her school about a month ago and saved her gifts she made to give to Honey and daddyO when they arrived.  She also got to go to the airport with Justin, and she was beyond excited!!  (they flew in at 10:30pm at night, so it was quite the treat!)

First morning…in bed together reading…of course.

We didn’t even make it past our entryway with the bags the first morning.  Corban got some of his belated birthday gifts, and Cailyn was super proud to receive a sweet dove charm necklace that belonged to my mom when she was young.

here she is showing her necklace off…look closely and you’ll find the dove.

Dad scrificed 2 Freebirds Burrito shirts to make capes for the kids.  Clearly…it was a success.

Park fun while mom was at the gym and daddy went for a run…can i say, SO NICE to have grandparents here as our means of care for the kids for a couple of weeks!  We miss that a ton!

The first night they were here, we celebrated Maribel’s birthday all together with some muffins.  It was nice to spend time with peruvian friends alongside our parents.  Please pray for Jose & Maribel…we are really beginning to have some great Bible study time with them…

Mom brought some awesome books about Thanksgiving, so of course we had a few pre-Thanksgiving activity days…

We had a fantastic and gorgeous day at the beach!

Cailyn is a pro at playing in the sand.  Justin dug her a hole to climb in…

Taking a nose dive.  He was LOVING the ocean!

She…was not.  She LOVES to be there, but has a pretty high level of fear when it comes to the waves.  She keeps her distance…hah…to say the least…

Corban, not so much.  He would have gone swimming alone had we let him…

NEXT UP – Our THANKSGIVING CELEBRATION with our wonderful Gringo friends here in Peru!

Here’s the little cheese ball hamming it up for a photo on the night we celebrated my birthday…eating ice cream!

The first thing I think of when I see his adorable face here is that he looks just like what I remember my younger cousin, Cami, looking like when she was little.  Cami – you were cute!

• The biggest thing he does these days is talk.  I really cannot emphasize how much he talks.  It amazes me, really.  He will repeat ANY word he hears in spanish or english. We often hear him saying things like…”Sister, you help me put my shoes on, please?!” or “Mommy, I uhn (want) hehp (help) you make a moothie (smoothie)!  I uhn sit on da (the) towner (counter) and hehp you?!?”  Seriously…sometimes I just laugh at how easily he tells us what he needs.  I’m not biased or anything about how smart he is, by the way.
• He sleeps in a pack-n-play.  I know…odd.  But, he does, and he can totally climb out of it.  He has only climbed out a couple of times when Cailyn was in his room talking to him after he’s woken up for the day or from a nap, and we’ve been very clear that that is not an option.  We don’t plan to move him to a big boy bed soon necessarily.  I’m not ready for that.
• He totally still uses his paci, and there are not big plans and talk yet between his daddy and mommy about when we’ll get rid of it…I know it’s time…ugh.  For about a little bit now we’ve told him he can only have his paci when he’s in bed sleeping, and he does ok with that.
• He still GREATLY adores his sister!

• He loves, loves, loves playing outside.  He is always entertained WAY longer when he’s outside.
• He has begun to take an interest in watching videos that we have.  Mostly Elmo and Barney.  He never sits for an entire video unless he’s strapped into his high chair while I’m in the shower/getting ready for the day.  Which really means he happily watches most of it and then spends the other half asking me to “det down” from his high chair. 
• He is still OBSESSED with soccer balls…which is what he calls any type of sports ball mostly.
• He is still talking about his soccer ball birthday party, and he sings “Happy Birthday” to himself often.
• He has to do E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. just like Cailyn.  Like, if she has cereal in a baggie on the way to school, he wants a baggie full of cereal too.  If she’s eating yogurt for breakfast, he wants that too.  If she is screaming out of pure joy and excitement, he screams too…even if he has no clue why he’s screaming!
• His biggest punishment these days for disobeying is time out.  This always does him good, because he needs a good breather every now and again.  Whether he’s indifferent to the fact that he’s being put into time out or very, very sad about it, he ALWAYS gets up from time out with a HUGE smile and literally RUNS to us for his little “post time out” talk as if it’s the biggest event of his day.  It always makes me sort of laugh inside…even in the midst of working up a good “do you understand why you were in time out” speech.
• He probably loves his play guitar the most out of every toy he has.  He can really jam with it!  He loves to sing, and he can remember words to songs pretty well.  He has led us in family worship the last couple of nights, and it makes me smile to think of him praising God and loving it!
• He really loves to read now, and he’s gotten really cute about sitting and making up the stories/reading on his own these days.

• Yes, we did begin to potty train him a couple of weeks ago.  No, we are not still potty training.  Yes, it was mostly because of me.  He was BEGGING me one morning to use the potty, so I did…and…he went.  What?  So, I just went ahead and declared it day 1 of potty training.  He did really well until day 3 and decided he was really not interested in the time it took sitting on the potty.  He began to get upset and whine and cry when I would say it was time to sit there.  Because of our experience with Cailyn, I decided that I would stop and wait a few more months until he could understand a bit more about why he needed to sit there for longer than 5 seconds.  The thing is, though…he learned just enough that he still asks to go and tells me EVERY time he is about to go #2 in his diaper.  So, at least I know he is very aware of the process of all of that…not sure when I’ll pick it back up again.  For now we continue to let him sit on the potty when he asks, but we’re not pushing it much.
• He just decided that using the pedals on his tricycle is better than moving it with his feet on the ground.  He could really go super fast with his feet, but I guess he’s realized that’s not the best way.
• He eats nearly anything we want him to.  He drinks a green smoothie with me nearly every morning.
• He runs to get anywhere.  Rarely is there ever walking involved.  He falls numerous times a day due to the fact that his little feet can’t run as fast as his upper body wants to go.  It’s really pretty funny.
• He rarely cries from falling down.  He’s tougher than I expect him to be most of the time.
• He loves to make people laugh, and he is really silly.  When he knows he’s done something funny…he keeps on…and keeps on…and keeps on…
• We usually hear him singing, “Na Na Na Na BATMAAAAAN!” early in the morning through the monitor we still have in his room.  Super cute, and it makes the fact that it’s time to get out of bed less draining.
• He ADORES getting to help out in the yard.  In addition to this, he never gives up the chance to wash the car!  Part of the money we pay our guard (and great friend!) on our street each month includes having our car washed a couple of times a month.  Jose is so great with our kids.  He has a 2 year old as well, and he is so sweet to basically let Corban undo what he’s already done to the car-hah!

• He loves to paint, and many days he asks, “Mommy, I tan (can) paint today?”  So, while we don’t paint like this often, I probably should a bit more…he loved this!

We continue to fall in love more and more with this little rascal every day.  He brings us a lot of joy, smiles, and laughter!

About a month ago, I found myself writing the piece that I’m sharing below. Every week I have time carved out for preparing Bible lessons, teaching assignments or sermons. It’s a normal part of my routine. However, this week (the week I wrote the piece below), God took me elsewhere. You see, I’ve been positively overwhelmed by God’s provisions since this date last year. I was telling Alison the other night that September 6th is probably always going to be a significant day for me. Not for negative reasons however. There might always be some painful memories from the events of last year, but the story is not about the negative. It’s about God’s triumph. I see September 6, 2010 as a day that Alison and I began an incredible part of our story. I see it as a day that I began moving to a greater level of trusting God, trusting in His ever-faithfulness.

Now that September 6th is here, I wanted to share with you what I wrote. I hope that you enjoy it. I hope you’re blessed because of it. I hope we can all grow deeper in our faith, and together as God’s people, we might learn to fully trust in Him.

FAITH

It had been a year since it all happened. I remember seeing my child in a battle. He was scared, confused, worried. Most of all he was unsure. Unsure of the future. Unsure of my provisions. Unsure of my faithfulness. Unsure if I’d really work in the way that he trusted me to work. What he didn’t know, or at least fully realize, was that his life was mine, and I had a plan far beyond his comprehension.

I remember that his actions weren’t perfect. He was and still is completely human. Imperfect. Full of fault. Unworthy. At least, he was these things without me. Even with me, he isn’t perfect. Or righteous. Or holy. But I remember that he never tried to be perfect. He only tried to be faithful. I remember the hours that he spent in brokenness, speaking my name, asking for provision, begging for me to overwhelm him.

All the while, thousands of miles away I had been doing something that I started many years before. Years before I formed him in his mother’s womb, I was transforming hearts to respond as my firstborn Son would respond, with compassion and boldness. I was teaching my people how they should respond as the church. As my church. In this moment, I overwhelmed my child. Men moved because I formed their hearts to give compassion. I provided through mercy. And grace. And goodness. My child didn’t directly ask for this help, but he did ask to be overwhelmed. He asked to be filled. He asked to be moved. And in this vulnerable moment, I captivated him. I provided. I gave. I loved.

Then I watched. I watched as my child shed tears of joy. Tears of gratitude flowing because of being overwhelmed by love. To him these tears were incomprehensible, but to me it’s what my love does to people when humility wins the day. I fill their hearts with love. With hope. With peace. Then I bought my child through the next part of his journey. I allowed him to walk again. I permitted him to see the world through different eyes, ones still tainted by the pain of battle scars, but ones at very least ready to accept my sovereignty. Ready to accept my ever-faithfulness.

In the weeks and months that followed, my child worked hard. He labored. He toiled. He fretted. He worried. He cried. But he also hoped. He loved. He rejoiced.

I am teaching him that this story is not his. It’s my story. There is no story without me. It’s not about his pain. It’s not about the scars. Or the fears. I’m teaching him that the focal point of this story is me. He’s still learning. He tries to stand on his own at times. He’s still learning that the only reason he can stand is because I will it. His faith is growing. It’s more profound than it was when he first began this section of my story. I still have a long way to go with him, but I am proud of my child. Though I’m afraid he doesn’t always know it. I love him. He is mine.

Oh, and I’m still providing. And I have no intentions of stopping because, quite frankly, it is mine to provide. It’s mine to love, to give, to change, to transform. It’s my story. And my people will know my faithfulness because it is never-ending.

Another thing about the day is that we decided to rent a smallish-medium sized bounce castle/house for his party, something we’ve sort of thought about for a while now. Anyway, when the people came to set up, we were pleasantly surprised that they not only brought the wrong bonce castle, but it was MUCH larger than we’d asked for AND had a slide in it. Oh, and it also came with a complimentary trampoline! What?! So, I’ve already written more than I had planned (a serious habit of mine!)…without further ado, here are some pictures:

1st gift of the day: A new rolling backpack to match what sister has.  He wasn’t excited or anything…

Here’s the cutie pie invitation Ashley Snow designed…

(all of the font was black, by the way…this is just a terrible picture i took)

I made his cake the night before, so here he is getting a sneak peek.

He would NOT stop asking to see it throughout the day…he just loved his “doccer bawl take!” (soccer ball cake)

Here’s the cake from the top…

The adorable banner that Ashley Snow created…and the adorable picture of my favorite little boy and his wonderful daddy…

These next few pictures are of our food table.  Ashley Snow, again, designed the cute tent cards as well as the adorable water bottle labels.  Before you go thinking I creatively named each thing on the table, I confess that I did in fact make up some of it, but I was given much of my food table ideas from a party I saw pictures of on www.pinterest.com.  If you aren’t on pinterest and you like to create things, check it out!  I have very little creativity within me, but if I’m given a cute idea…I can sure follow it well!

Checking out his jump castle…

We all enjoyed ourselves so much, and we are so happy to have been blessed with Corban these past 2 years.  He is our sweet, tender, energetic, entertainer of a kid, and we just love him to pieces!!

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• If you didn’t read my last post, feel free to look back on it by clicking here.  While we’re still seeking answers to many of the things I wrote about, God has since blessed us in some specific financial ways for this next year, and we’ve had some hopeful conversations (or at least heard of some that went on) about our possible future partnership with a new supporting church.  Thanks to God for those small glimpses at how our next year will unfold!
• I continue to be amazed at my mom’s reading suggestions!  I am LOVING the book One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp!  You MUST read it.  Basically it is teaching me that I’ve got to get a hold of myself when it comes to thanking God for every.little.thing in my life.  I have so much.

Things I’m thankful for…

1. My kids playing together SWEETLY this evening outside in the dirt
2. The hours that my husband plays with the kids in order to give me some moments alone
3. The awesome salsa that our team’s intern, Brad, (who’s living with us) made tonight!
4. Cailyn’s growing ability to think through what the consequences might be unless she obeys
5. Corban’s new found desire to sit, rock, and read books with me (ahh! sweetness!)

My mom wrote a great blog post about her thoughts on the book, and I agree with everything she said.  It’s a great view into what the book is about.  Check it out!

• We got a new desk…well, we bought it from our teammates.  I love it!  It’s {nearly} the last thing I wanted in order to sort of complete our Activity Room in our house.  This room is where my kids create, imagine, read, laugh, work, learn, and just have fun!  And…I do, too!  Now I have somewhere for our printer to go and a good spot for the computer and my cell phone that is up and out of the reach of our sneaky little Corban!
• Peru’s Independence Day is coming up this week…July 28th.  It’s also the day the new president will be sworn in (if that’s even the right terminology…i know…you really don’t want to know how ignorant i am when it comes to politics…well…many things, really).  Cailyn’s school has been focusing a lot of their energies on teaching the kids about Peru, what it means to be Peruvian, etc.  They had a program recently that each class had a performance in.  A few days before the day of the performance, Cailyn’s teacher came to me and asked me to sort of encourage her at home to participate in the song and dance act that she and some of her classmates were in.  I was not surprised AT ALL that the teacher wanted help with that, because C is anything but a performer.  She even sometimes gets embarrassed when I ask her to sing or dance for ME!  So, I did the encouraging, and the day of the performance, Justin, Corban, and I showed up for what I thought would be her standing there on stage…not participating – EVEN THOUGH she had told me that morning that she would, in fact, “raticipate”.  “MMHMM…We’ll see”, I thought.  SO, you can imagine my surprise when she came out on stage for her dance, and we saw this…

Yes, that is her waving very excitedly that we have come to see her.  I did almost cry when she did this (and I might also have a knot in my throat now).  I cannot tell you how much it makes me proud that she is not only overcoming her inability to communicate in this culture (because she is speaking more and more spanish each day!!), but she is also embracing new things.  I love that she went from unsure to decidedly going to participate.  And…she apparently did it with JOY!  Here is proof that she did the actual dance, AND…I need to say that these are pictures from one of her sweet little friend’s mother.  All we had was Justin’s cell phone…terrible, I know!

• The kids and I are pretty much always “doing stickers”.  When I say, “Do y’all wanna do stickers?!”, that means…I get out my great bin of stickers and they spend 30-45 minutes putting stickers on a piece of paper.  If you are a mom of young kids, and you don’t do this but need a good idea for a fun and fairly chill activity…try this!  My kids LOVE it!  I am always collecting stickers, and my dad has also gotten the sticker bug, because he has bought loads of stickers for the kids as well!  I have gotten so many that I just keep them all in a bin.  When we “do stickers”, I just sit next to the kids, go through our bin, and cut strips of stickers for them.  I never let them go through the bin alone, and I also never let them use a whole sheet of one type unless it’s a special sheet that I have just for that day.  So, I might give each of them 3-4 stickers each off of one sheet, and then they go to sticking!  Seriously, it’s great fun!

the sticker bin and my only supply…scissors

• We have also continued with some of our letter learning from the ideas I’ve gotten from this awesome blog…No Time For Flashcards.  Even though I had to pay 13 soles (like nearly $5) for this small pack of Jelly Belly Jellybeans, I did it, because I thought the “J” activity was too cute and way fun!  The kids were super pumped about gluing eating the jelly beans, too!

Corban already not following the “glue them all, THEN you can eat the rest” rule…

His reaction to me reminding him of the rule…and enforcing it…

Finally choosing to do it mom’s way…

Oh, so happy when eating time came!

• We’ve also made binoculars, because there are just so many cool things to see “up close” from the upstairs window into our backyard.

• Justin & I surprised Cailyn with a mommy & Cailyn night out to see Disney on Ice that came here to Lima early on this month.  She was beyond thrilled, and it was really tons of fun for both of us.  Besides the fact that it was Disney Princesses and Heroes, it wasn’t cheesy at all…I mean, this show was the real deal!  Cailyn was beside herself with excitement!  It was definitely a fun experience.

• Cailyn also recently had her first Ballet Performance.  She takes a ballet class through her school each Wednesday afternoon, and the girls in it all performed for the parents after school one day.  Nothing big and fancy, but super cute…and, once again…she made us proud!  She was not only right on with each move, but she even gave the teacher cues for the next moves in one part.  I was enjoying the performance, and the next thing I knew, my child was the voice of the “Uno, Dos, Tres, Cuatro” in order to lead the girls into the next position (which was clearly not her appointed role in the performance).  Who knew she could get so into it?!

I think that about covers our month.  BUT…I do have one last prayer request.  I know Hannah (my sister), might cringe when she reads this because of her tendency to be a bit less verbal about things like this, but I honestly want those of you who care about what’s on my heart to know that this is a big prayer for me this week and these next few weeks.  Hannah will be having surgery this Wednesday, July 27th.  She described it as minor in a blog post that she wrote recently, but it is not just a day surgery or anything.  It is full blown surgery.  While I won’t give more details than might make her comfortable, I do ask that you all be praying that she is protected and that God puts his angels around her body and her Surgeon during the surgery on Wednesday.  It will take about 2 hours, and she should have about a 2 week recovery after that.  My mom is going to Washington DC, where Han and Jason live, this Tuesday, so I pray that she gets there safely and that her flight is not delayed in any way seeing as they want her there for the surgery on Wednesday.  Praises to God for the flexibility that our mom has always had and made for Hannah and I in our lives.  I know Han and Jason will benefit greatly from her care!  Love you, Hannah!  Thank you all for your prayers!!

Back in December or so, when we were still on our 4 month fundraising stay in Texas (I call it that, but it wasn’t by any means planned out that way), Justin and I sort of told ourselves that we were going to sit back and see where God led us in terms of financial support for at least a few months.  You see, Justin had worked his TAIL off  since September 2010 trying to connect with churches in order to secure our family new long-term support for 2011 and the future after that, but that was not what God had in mind for us.  By the end of January, many of you (plus tons of people who don’t read this blog) had stepped up and allowed God to use you in His plan to send us back to Peru for the year 2011.  Right now, we first owe thanks to God for providing us this year in Peru, and secondly, we must say again…thank YOU for believing in us, our ministry, and our calling to Peru.  Because of God’s plan for us and our friends and family’s financial sacrifices, we have gotten to spend now another 6 months here in Peru, our home in this season of our lives.

Well, July is now in full swing, and Justin and I have had to face the facts yet again.  We still do not have a supporting church (or a few even) in order to help us stay here in Lima, Perú past December of this year.

So, as scary as it can seem in some moments, as frustrating as it has been in others, and as trust-building as we must allow it to be, we have begun to get back up on the horse and search out new financial support once again.  Now, don’t get me wrong, we’ve not been sitting around doing nothing since January when we came back.  We have been blessed to have had several uplifting conversations with one church that is still in the process of seeking out God’s plan for their involvement in foreign missions, and at this point in time, this church (which I won’t name for the time being) is our only true possibility for 2012 and beyond.  EVEN if they do decide they would like to support our family and ministry here, we are unsure if they are able to provide all that we need financially in order to live here as we do now.  So, while we know God can do great things, we are also trying to be realistic about our family’s future.

At this point in time, we must not just think about funds for the ministry here in Peru, but we must also remember that our family has no foreseeable income past this coming December outside of about a dozen wonderful families and individuals that give to us on a monthly basis (approximately 15% of what we need).

Just this morning I began the 2nd half (which is technically the first few weeks since I did it out of order) of my “Discerning the Voice of God” study by Priscilla Shirer, and I was so encouraged by what she had to say.  I could work through this study over and over, I’m convinced.  Here are a few great things I read today:

• “I will stand on my guard post and station myself on the rampart; And I will keep watch to see what He will speak to me.” Habakkuk 2:1
• “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” Jeremiah 33:3
• Priscilla Shirer ~ “Approach the Father with an expectancy that He will speak.”
• Priscilla Shirer ~ “This is where clear communication with God begins: with a believer approaching her relationship to God and His Word with anticipation, expecting Him to speak.”

So my prayer I wrote at the end of the today’s study was:

“God, I come to you and say we are only successful because of you.  You are the only way we will survive.  Show us what to do!”

This really is our prayer.  Justin and I together.  We have no choice but to believe that God has a plan, and despite difficult feelings that tempt me to be frustrated and hurt all over again, I am reminded (by my mom, also!) that this will get us nowhere.  God is in control.  He has already shown us that times 100!  How can we give up now?

So, that leads me to the whole idea of what giving up looks like.  There was a time when giving up in my mind meant saying, “Ok, I guess we’ll just move back to Texas.”  Honestly, even when some people assumed this is what we would have to do, Justin and I felt confident enough to laugh a little at that assumption.  Not pridefully so.  At least, that’s not how we felt about it then.  It’s just that we felt certain and confident that God had more for us to do in Peru.

So what about now?  Today?  July 2011?  The thoughts swirling in my head are that if we feel confident in His desire for us to be in Peru, then we should also feel certain that God will provide the money.  Isn’t that how it works?  If you KNOW God wants you in a certain place that has certain financial requirements, then you KNOW he will somehow provide the money.  So then, why has He not provided the money yet?  Are we to keep waiting?  Well, it seems so.  But, how long?  Do we wait until we have 4 months left of money in the bank?  3 months?  2 months?  Maybe just days?  Would that be the sign of true trust?  I mean, what if God is actually saying, “NO…you will leave Peru at the end of this year” by not having provided support for our family for this next year yet.  That is what I struggle with now.  And does this mean we should begin job searching in a few months or less?  It all just gets so complicated.  I mean, of course, right?  When I let all of those questions reign in my mind and my heart, it can get so.incredibly.complicated!  So, all I know to do is to keep calling on Him (Jer. 33:3) and to station myself in a place so that I can watch for His message to us (Habakkuk 2:1).  AND…stop trying to make sense of what I have no sense over.  Otherwise, December seems to stare me in the face as if to say…be worried.

So, now that we’ve trekked up the hill that is the first 6 months or so of the year and as we begin the downward slope that is the last 6 months, we come to all of you who read this blog for your prayers!  Please go to the Father on our behalf and EXPECT that He will show up for us!  EXPECT that your prayers will aid our family in our search for God’s next step in our life.  EXPECT that we want to know that you’re praying! (haha-really!)  Please pray for my husband as he goes back to the drawing board with God once again.  Pray that he will set his fears aside for the confidence of God.  Pray for our team as we continue to try and keep up the spreading of the Gospel amidst this uncertainty.  Pray for me, please, that I can not only encourage Justin, but that I can help to do my part in Calling on our Provider on a daily basis.