The first few weeks of December in Lima were unusually quick and busy!
We spent the first weekend at the United World Mission retreat for missionaries that are working in Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay. We gathered with four other missionary couples for a three-day retreat at an Airbnb about an hour from our apartment. Peru currently has very few UWM missionaries; we are one of two couples in Lima and there is one couple in northern Peru. Since we’re such a small group, we were also accompanied by a couple from Bolivia and another from Paraguay. It was a nice weekend to meet others who are serving in South America and learn more about their respective ministries. Will was the only child attending the retreat and loved spending time exploring the backyard and playing with the dozens of snails he found in the plants.
The school year also ended in December and Will finished Pre-Kinder. Because Will’s birthday is in February and during the summer break, his teacher, Miss Angie, made sure to include a little birthday celebration for him in a class at the end of the semester. He was so excited to celebrate with his teacher and classmates, even if it had to just be on Zoom. The last week of school was full of Christmas crafts, some baking activities and end of year presentations. We’re proud of what Will has accomplished this year and can’t believe he will be in Kindergarten when school starts in March!
We also were able to attend church in person for the first time since February 2020! Churches have been closed since the beginning of the pandemic and things were getting better enough for our church to decide to open for some in-person events; starting with the annual Christmas program. It was so nice to be back in person, even if it was just for a brief time. The church planned to resume limited capacity in-person services on December 26th, but unfortunately, due to the Omicron variant, they have postponed a reopening date until further notice.
Since we planned on traveling to Michigan for Christmas, Billy spent a lot of time in the week prior to leaving visiting many of the young men that we are helping. He was able to spend some face-to-face time with each of them and give them a Christmas gift. He also was able to finalize plans for the upcoming mentor training that begins in mid-January. There are ten people signed up for the training. Please join us in praying for the participants and for Billy and Joca as they lead the six three-hour sessions.
We traveled to the United States on December 17th and will share about our time there in our next update.
As always, we very much appreciate your prayers for us, our ministry and for the country and people of Peru.
– Kate, Billy & Will