Family News - April 2008

Benjamin
The best news from Benjamin is that he is eating better! Although he seemed to be eating more at one point, since February he has not seemed to want much and has had some tummy troubles. A new friend of mine is a paediatrician from the USA and she suggested taking him off cows milk. This seems to have done the trick - he is eating far better and not complaining of tummy ache anymore. Otherwise, he is full of new words at the moment and chatters away about what he has been doing in one and two word 'sentences'. He has perfected the art of riding his truck down the slope in the park rather too fast, but normally manages to stay on and stop at the bottom! He is good at saying 'bye bye' or 'chau-chau' to people he doesn't know, like taxi drivers and shop assistants, but is still rather unsociable with people he thinks might try to cuddle him or pat him on the head, shouting 'no!' and putting his little hand up like a policeman stopping traffic! He has several little friends at our baby/toddler group - Joel, our friends' son from Latin Link, two little girls from the USA and a boy and two girls from Peru.

Sammy
Sammy was very proud to have come home on the school minibus on his own yesterday. We have taken a few weeks to sort out his school transport but have finally decided that the best thing is to take him ourselves and then he can get the bus back. I accompany him on the bus on two days as we have the baby group near his school on Tuesdays and I tend to stay in the area on a Thursday to get some work done away from home so that I'm not distracted by Benjamin. He's generally been happy at school again and is pleased to have the same teacher as last year for a lot of the morning.
The biggest event for Sammy in the last couple of months was his 4th birthday which he was very excited about. He had a 'Tigger' party and we even managed to find him a Tigger costume to wear. He bounced all afternoon! We felt the party was something of a landmark for us as a family as it marked the end of our first year in Cusco and it was great to feel we could have a party with really good friends, both Sammy's and ours.

Jenny
I have been so much happier since moving to our new house. The area is much more sociable and it has been great to have lots of visitors and many more planned in the coming months. The boys are happier here too which makes our lives easier! Although my weekly timetable has been a bit 'all over the place', it has settled down a little in the past couple of weeks.

I am enjoying visiting the hospital and Pilar’s children regularly. With Sarah, a student from our church in Eastbourne who is here for a month, and with the help of the list I obtained from the judge (see Feb entry) I have visited a number of children’s homes to find out a bit about the situation there. Sarah has been volunteering in one of them this week. The work I have been doing with church has been very encouraging. Our fortnightly group for 10-14s has got going well with 5 or 6 regular members and the two special Sundays we have had so far went well with lots of new faces. Also, we are starting to make plans for regular activities for the children at ‘The Mountain’, which I am very enthusiastic about. Something we will be doing in May is a lot of jumper distribution, both at ‘The Mountain’ and other places – more about that in a separate entry.

Roland

The visit of my parents was obviously a real highlight for us all. We did a few fun trips, such as four days in the jungle, mixed in with showing them Cusco and our daily life and work here. My work with the micro-finance project continues and we have just finished the three year plan which we have been working on for a while. We have been pleased to receive a good amount of new donations for loan capital which will enable us to expand this year. I preached at church for the first time in Spanish last week, which was a challenge and took a lot of time to prepare, but I think most people understood me OK. Something that is a real encouragement to us at the moment is that we have started to meet up with our friends Jed and Jaime, and sometimes some others, each Friday evening. One week we meet in one of our homes to talk and pray and encourage each other in our work here, and the next we meet in a café in town and try and invite other friends who, like us, are from outside Peru and want to get to know more people.

Sunset in the jungle