The Going’s & The Happenin’s

JB, Maddox and Sofia practicing acrobatic work:) Look at Maddox's face, he was eating it up!
JB teaching Maddox some tricks

We (or maybe just I) wanted this strawberry tart so we decided to celebrate JB's birthday a few months late:)

JB teaching our 6am class by the beach, she ROCKED it!

Well I promised I would try to get better about blogging now that we have changed our internet provider and here I am AGAIN writing my post on a word doc because blogger won’t come up, cool… real cool.

I’m not giving up though so I thought I would give you a recap of what’s been going on since we’ve been back from the jungle. Some of this might seem BORING to some of you so I’ll try to throw in a few pictures.

Last week was spent getting back into the groove of things. The kids went back to school, I went back to teaching bootcamp, started training a new client, got some things ready for our drove of guests and blah, blah, blah.

This past weekend we girls had an incredible weekend at a women’s retreat. We went about an hour away to a hotel (well more like a retreat of bungalows:) and just spent the week reconnecting with God. For me personally it was an awesome weekend. There were 11 women that went and we are all English speaking missionaries. It was so fun to make new friends and to also just be girls for the weekend (meaning not wife and mom’s… though that never really ends, thank goodness!)

My teammate Stacy organized the retreat and took something that God placed on her heart months ago and turned it in to the fantastic weekend it was. I went into it really praying that God would clearly reveal some things to me and He DID! There is SO much to say about this but mainly that God is really MOVING some things in my little heart. There are lots of things I pray God helps me to change and other things that are a part of my make-up and that they probably won’t change but that God uses those “traits” to bless others. I think that right now I am praying God makes me a person of Grace. That I give myself grace, that I am a wife of grace, that I mother with grace and that I work along-side teammates and the people here in Lima with an attitude of grace.

I want to have words that bless others and that most of all when it comes to my relationship with God that He is such a part of my life that I need no words. I could go on and on but I’ll try and post again about this soon.

After the retreat it was full force! My friend Jackie Beth Shilcutt arrived (the morning I got back from the retreat) to grace us for a week. It’s her 3^rd time here and every time she spends her time giving us oxygen in our ministry, our family and just in our lives. She has been spending her week teaching our bootcamp classes (she taught them some awesome yoga), going out to Villa Maria for the women’s exercise class, taking my kiddos every day after school through circus training (could she be ANY more fun!) and last night she took on all 10 team kids to do a little circus act with them while the adults on the team had our goodbye dinner for the interns. She had some help from a group of students from A&M that arrived on Tuesday night (more on that in a sec.) She has been such a blessing to our family and we look forward to her continued visits (hint hint.)

This brings us to a group of Aggies that our here to serve throughout Latin America. They got here on Tuesday night and they have been going 100 miles an hour already. Between picking up trash at an elementary school, to watching all the team kids for 3 hours (YIKES!), to revamping our new central meeting place , they are staying busy! It’s been really fun already having them here and always brings in such a freshness to our ministry.

Next up this week is Sunday our church is hosting a HUGE PARTY!!! We have been planning for this party for a LONG time and were all really excited! It’s like a huge birthday party but it’s no one’s birthday! We are having jump castles, food, activities and have invited half of Lima, haha! If you have a minute please say a prayer that God brings exactly who needs to be there!

Gary Green gets here on Saturday (sorry going out of order here) for some team encouragement. We always love when Gary comes so I’m really looking forward to it. Jackie Beth leaves Saturday morning and he gets here Saturday night so well do a quick sheet change:)

Next Monday my LONG time friend Brishon Neu is coming to stay with us for at least a MONTH!!! We are really excited. I haven’t seen Brishon since early college years so this is going to be SO fun! She is coming to do language training and so much more. Were not great host though because she gets here on Monday night and Wednesday our team leaves for Arequipa to our annual PMS (Peruvian Missions Summit, the guys named it) retreat. I’m really excited to get to see more of Peru and to reunite with our friends that live there.

The day after we get back Lee leaves to go back to the US for 10 days. He is coming to raise money for our new multi-use building/center and we are SO excited!!! We will be even MORE excited if Lee and John Mark come back with all the funds needed to sustain this building:) I mean don’t make him leaving me for 10 days, probably drinking Sonic drinks while he is on the road, go in vein! If you would like to know more about his trip, the fundraiser that will be happening in Dallas or ways to donate, leave a comment and we will get back to you ASAP!!!

Ok, well I’ve gotten through our schedule of this past week and what’s happening this coming week. Now you know why I don’t have a ton of time to sit down and blog about it all, haha. No but seriously I have a lot more to say about the retreat, pictures of different things, stories of my kiddos and I’m sure I’ll have a ton to say after our upcoming retreat so I’ll continue to post, post, post.
Love to all