We Made It to Iquitos

We made it to Iquitos on Sunday! We left the church in Lima at 4:30 a.m. and flew out at 7:30 a.m. It only took 1.5 hours to get to Iquitos which was nice with the 3 kids! When we arrived it was raining which was nice to not have to get all settled with extremely hot weather. The weather is hot and humid, and it's very beautiful here...a little more tranquil than Arequipa.

In Lima we met all of our Peruvian 40/40's and did went through our team building exercises. Everyone arrived safely and has settled in.

Our apartment for the next 5 months is very nice. After the mission training we will move into the trainers apartment for the next 1.5 years. We purchased all of the things the previous Cluster Support couple had, so we don't have to purchase many things. We bought Micah a bed today and need to get a few other necessities.

We begin classes tomorrow morning. We're understanding Spanish ok...enough to get around. We had a meeting today to go over basic info, and we understood most of what he said!

Thanks for your continued prayers, love, and support.

Headed for Lima and Iquitos

We finished our language studies in Arequippa last week, and we have been busy buying necessary things and packing this week. We leave today for Lima for a few days of team-building, and then on Sunday we fly for Iquitos.

We appreciate everyone's prayers as we travel.

Sophia's First Birthday

Here's a video of Sophia's 1st birthday. We celebrated it in several different ways.

Peruvian Periodicals from the Simpsons - Vol. 2

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Sophia's First Solo Walk

Sophia walked for the first time all by herself the other day. She did it three times, and we caught to 2 on video. Here is the second time:

Crazy week

Kevin left to go to Lima on Monday 4 p.m. with the Iquitos group to start the residency process for all of us. Heather and the kids were not able to go because the kids can't start the residency process until one of the parents has started theirs, which is inconvenient, but that's the only thing you can do! Airplane tickets were really expensive at the time, so we had to go by bus 15.5 hours to Lima!!! The buses were really nice though. We arrived in Lima around 7 a.m., and went to the organization that does the residency for free! They are an evangelical group that helps with residency for missionaries coming to Peru. After a few hours of doing all we needed to do for that we went to this mall where they had a Chilis!!! Kevin had chips and salsa and a very good hamburger. You don't really appreciate American food until you haven't had it for a while. It was good to have a little taste of home. He also had his first real coffee at Starbucks since we left the states. We all then hopped back on another bus at 4:30 to take the bus back to Arequipa, which took 18 hours!!!

The family is doing well. Micah's tooth healed up nicely, which was an answer to prayer. We put the kids in school this week to see how that would work out. They really need to learn Spanish, and that is the best place for them to pick it up. Please pray for wisdom as to what we should do concerning school.

Spanish school is going well. We're able to converse enough to do what we need to do. We were happy that a few weeks ago we went to a market down the road, and we were able to talk to people and purchase the things we needed to buy! I can't believe we only have 5 weeks left here in Arequipa.

Please pray for our 40/40's as they learn Spanish. It's tough to learn, but most are getting it. I have found that it easier to listen than to speak it! Some people are easy to understand. Kevin and Heather both have the same professor just at different times, and we both can understand our professor well. She is easy to understand. However, it's going to take some more practicing to be able to understand the majority of people.

Thanks for your continued support and prayer!

First Edition of the "Peruvian Periodicals...from the Simpsons"

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here).