Field Team Leaders Conference in Arequipa, Peru.

Jeff had the privilege of attending our Spanish Speaking South America Field Team Leaders Meeting in Arequipa, Peru.  It was a great blessing to be with the other leaders learning and growing together.  The best part of the conference is to have time to interact and ask questions of other veteran field team leaders.  It was a great conference set up by Steve Douglas who helped in our training in prefield ministry.   I was privileged to be at a table with Andy Patton from the jungle area of Peru and with Scott Russel from Santiago, Chile.  I roomed with Don Fulz from Argentina.  Ate with Bob Trout, Johnny Bolin and Tim Bilbry from Colombia, was encouraged by Paul Fields from Paraguay, enjoyed jokes from Tim Farly who leads the seminary in Iquitos Peru.  I enjoyed music from Andy Pace and even got to play the electric guitar for a time with him.   It was also a blessing to be out of the snowy climate of Ecuador...NOT, we don't have snow except on the tops of our volcanoes!  Dale Marshfield from South Africa and Jim Ruff from China led our team training.  If I missed anyone, I hope they don't have time to read blogs. Thanks men for the time of Iron Sharpening iron.

Our house is now in our home!

We praise the Lord for His great blessing. On January 8th, our shipment from New York arrived on our doorstep. Praise the Lord! It has been held in customs for more than 4 months. What a joy to combine little treasures from our life in the United States with our new life here in Cumbaya. In only fifteen minutes, our 60 boxes were unloaded from the truck and up the stairs into our living room.

Lukas, our foreman, was calling out the number of each box to cross off our inventory list. Some of these boxes were first packed 2006. What a journey we have enjoyed since that time. It felt a little surreal at that moment to think that we were really Home in Cumbaya. It was time to finally "unpack". We took time to pray together......in a circle, just as we had on that night in 2005 when God moved in our hearts to make the family step into career missions. Another milestone in our journey. We are "officially" settled in Cumbaya. I took a few minutes to "take in the moment" to gather my thoughts, but the kids jumped right in as fast as they could find their boxes. They were unpacking and proudly displaying treasures in no time at all. Deanne began with a box of her mother’s china in the kitchen. When the delivery truck had opened its’ door, we noticed that our shipment had been packed half right side up and half upside down. Quickly we identified that several of the inverted boxes were fragile boxes from our dining room. Deanne opened her mother’s china timidly, but the pieces were intact. It is another reminder of God’s provision for us down to the smallest details. The next box was even more interesting. Containing antique plates and a stack of glass platters; amazingly, there was only one small little chip in the entire stack of antique dishes, but the platter directly beneath was broken in half. It was not a special platter because it was bought at a garage sale. These are the little things that we will always remember. Thank you for sharing the journey. God’s goodness is something to celebrate.