God is already doing his work!

I am in the afternoon Spanish class with one other student, Tim, who is a 40/40. We have two professors. One for the first 2 hours and another for the second 2 hours. One of the class times focuses more on practicing conversation. So last week one professor asked more about why we were here, and we also talked about his church experience. He grew up Catholic, but doesn't have anything to do with it now. He talks a lot about some of the wrongs he has seen in the church here in Arequipa. We we able to share a little bit of our testimony with him.

Yesterday we had another serious conversation. At first it was just practicing conversing in Spanish. But after a little time the conversation turned to how did we decide to come to Peru. We talked about the materialism of our cultures and the emptiness that brings. He was asking how one changes from that, and we told him how Jesus transforms life and gives meaning. He said that he had this emptiness, and we shared how God had filled our emptiness when we fully relinquished our lives to Him. I asked how we could pray for him and he said for the emptiness. He said that he thinks he might go to church on Sunday!

So please pray for this professor!

Kevin

Amazing creation at our front door

They are three volcanoes a few miles away! The one on the bottom is called Misti.

A Little Bit of Arequipa part 2

Here are some more pics...

The fam in front of the cathedral in the Plaza de Armas.

A Little Bit of Arequipa

It's been crazy here with Spanish school, managing the kids, and our responsibilities with Extreme, but God has given us so much strength and direction! We can't believe that it's already been two weeks since we've been here.

Here are a few pictures to give you a little taste of Arequipa:

This is a picture of the house we are staying at

while we are here in Areq

uipa. We live on the bottom floor, and our host fa

mily lives on the top floor. We live about a 15 minute walk from our school.

This is the Zamacola church where we are going while in Arequipa. It is under construction. It is one of Extreme's construction projects where groups worked on it a few weeks ago. Our pastor's name is Pastor Solano, and he is also the District Superintendent for the area.

Friday Lunches

Every Friday all the Extreme Staff and Cohorts meet for lunch to build community and eat. This was our first meeting yesterday. We had a muy rico (very delicious) lunch...stuffed pepper with steak and a potato kind of cake. We also celebrated Heather and Sarah's (our long-term missionary coordinator) birthdays with cake! Here's the picture!

Group Picture in LA

Here is a picture of the group when we were in LA. There are the two 40/40 cohorts, 2 Cluster Support families (one is our family!), and the Extreme mobilization team in the US. Our group is going to Iquitos and the other to Pulcalpa.

Fun in Escuela

Well, we're pretty much settled into some sort of schedule. Sundays we go to the Zamacola Iglesia de Nazareno (Zamacola Church of the Nazrene). We have several from our group participating in that church. There are three other churches in Arequipa that others from our group will be worshipping with.

Heather goes to espanol escuela (school in the morning) from 8:30-11:30 where she has a one-on-one tutoring. Kevin watches the kids and studies during that time. Then we eat lunch together, and then Kevin goes to language school from 1:30-5:30, while Heather watches the kids. Then we have dinner sometime after that, followed by various activities depending on the schedule.

The school is a 15 minute walk from our home. School is going well so far. There's a lot to learn, but we're praying God will grant us quick learning minds for the language!

The kids are adjusting as well as can be expected. They miss their old home and friends.

One of the great things about technology is that we can video chat, email, and post updates on our blog, and it's all free!

Thank you for your continued prayer. Please pray for these 3 months of Spanish school. They are of great importance for the work we will be doing for the 2 years following school. Please pray for our 40/40 missionaries as well as they go to Spanish school too. Their names are Brad, Brittany, Drew, Katie, Kevin, and Melissa. Please pray for their Peruvian partner 40/40's as well. They will be joining us in 3 months.

Dios Te Bendiga! (God bless you)