Genesis 9:13 “I do set my bow in the cloud and it shall be a token of a covenant between me and the earth.”
Seeing a rainbow is always a blessing to me and reminds me of God’s many precious promises to us! It reminds me of so much more than just the promise of not covering all these majestic mountains with water again!! We serve an awesome God!!
Greetings from the ever changing but ever lovely land of Peru!!
The rainy season has begun and we are having lots of rain. So far we didn’t have more than three rainy days in a row, and yet we were very thankful for a sunny day again!
Everything is so green and things grow so fast!! It looks so different now then when we came!
We have frequent thunderstorms and they are awesome displays of the power of God and strike awe in our hearts!! We really would hate to be caught outside in one though!! Even in the house the lighting can feel dangerous! We have also had some hefty hail!
It is hard to describe the beauty of a lovely, fresh morning after a night of rain and see the mountains with a fresh, white cap of snow! There is usually a snow chill in the air those mornings, but they are usually clear and beautiful!! A lot of mornings are cloudy with fog covering the mountain tops or hanging in the valley, and sometimes the mountain tops are clear! It is beautiful any way you see it!!
You just have to come see it as words can’t sufficiently describe it! 😊
In our last email Juanita was getting ready to babysit and Shawn and Kristina were ready to start English classes! Neither materialized!!
One of the really hard things about Peru life is the fact that you can basically not take anyone at their word! They say whatever they think will please you at the moment!
We look at it as telling an untruth! They don’t, they look at it as being kind!! One of the joys of cross cultural living! 😏
Walter is a precious two-month-old now and loved by us all!! Shawn and Stephanie spent a lot of time going in circles and circles on wild goose chases until they finally got a birth certificate, but PTL, they got him registered!!
Since Lamar and I have our carnets we can supposedly now start on Joel’s paperwork! Lamar has been trying to get the process started but so far has not been successful. The last time he went they said since he has a new passport (we had to renew his) he has to leave the country before they can start the paperwork for his residency! Lamar was leaving for a two week stay in the States, two days later. We made a quick decision that Joel would go along!
He was rather excited and we were also, though that left Shawn as the only man to do all the man things! He kindly said it is ok if Joel goes!! We made a run into Cusco and got a few more things to send up for folks there since there was more room! What fun!!!
They left on November 6 and will return on the 20th! That is only 3 more days and we are really looking forward to having them back!! Lamar’s family was having sale to disperse of his parents household goods since his mother is in Heaven and his dad is living with his brother and family.
They also did some work at the house to get it ready to rent out! Those were the reasons for the trip! It was a very special time as all his siblings and their spouses were there, except his oldest sister, who passed away 3 years ago.
It was rather sad to miss it all, but my place was here and God is being very good to us while the men are gone and Lamar and Joel can tell us about it when they get back!! I understand they got a lot done and had good times together in the process! 😊 They are spending the rest of the time in Juniata County with Dennis and his family!!
How I would love to see those grandsons again!! At least we could send them gifts! 😍 How I loved getting them ready!!
Meanwhile here in Peru the rain keeps coming, the grass, garden things and weeds grow very quickly! When a huge branch blew off the neighbors willow tree we asked if we could cut branches to plant. They kindly gave us permission and I cut lots of them and planted them all around our part of this property! A few died but most of them are pushing leaves! 😊
We also planted roses around 3 sides of the house. Quite a few are growing! One even has a bud on it! More of the roses died then I expected because a few days after I planted them into the flower beds the little boys had fun pulling them back out!! 😢
At least they weren’t expensive plants I had bought!! We did go to market and get some flower plants and fruit trees. I am am so excited about having flowers around again!!
Kristina’s friend, Jeremy Erb and two of our nephews, Lyndon and Jadon Hursh came for a two week visit last month! They were a huge blessing in a lot of ways!!! They fixed all of our sad fences so we can let the cattle free range instead of staking them, they helped us dig thistles, built us a tool shed, fixed Shawn’s leaking house roof, dug holes and planted posts for a chicken shed for Shawn’s!!
We are enjoying the tool shed immensely! It is so nice to not have to store all the tools and garden tools in the laundry and the porch!! They also made us a burn barrel and that is so much nicer then an unsightly burn pile! So we have many things around to remind us of their visit!!
I think the part about their visit that blessed me the most was the encouragement and companionship they were for our youth!! They went hiking, went for drives, worked together, laughed and played together and made many wonderful memories and build strong relationships!!
Thanks again fellows!! 😃
Yesterday we finished digging the thistles out of the pasture! It was high time as the were just going into bloom! The neighbors have whole lots of thistles and we are very thankful they are working at cutting them down, in spite of the fact that they are a real haven for the finches!!
The finches are such an inspiration to me! They are small and inconspicuous in their prickly surroundings but sing beautiful songs to anyone who will listen!
One morning I was feeling rather blue as I walked by and God used them to challenge me to cheer up and sing joyfully, almost unseen, even when I am among thistles the of life!! Ever since they are very special to me!!
We also keep working at the weeds in the garden though it is too wet to hoe much. We do mostly hand and knee work! Anne and Abbey helped me one day and though they said it was…. yucky, their actions told me they enjoyed it! 😊
One day since the men are gone, we ladies captured Jolynn and took her with us for a day off!
We were going to go to the lake but closed roads kept us from getting there though we kept seeing it! We kept trying different roads but still kept ending up back where we came from!! We went down one dirt road that looked a bit sketchy but looked like it would take us where we wanted to go!
We went through 3 or 4 puddles, each one bigger then the one before! Kris and Jolynn finally went ahead on foot to check out the next ones and declared them, too big! There was no place to turn around so we backed uphill, on a narrow road, through puddles that I had been nervous about going through in forward!
Kris got out and directed me, and I think God helped us out! We got back on better roads and went around our circle again. I had just told the girls if we don’t soon get out of our circle God is going to have to send someone to help us out and how will we know if they are telling the truth!! (We had asked a couple times, but we are in Peru and to be kind they had to tell us the way even if it wasn’t the way!!)
I had hardly said it, when we had to wait for a combi (public transportation). God sent us our person and we hadn’t even asked! We followed him and he took us in the same circle! We took our own way again but met him again and followed him back to town! We fueled up and went a different, longer route! We saw the end of the lake but decided to go do other sightseeing and take a different route home!
We saw awesome sights, ate our lunch at an overlook with a beautiful view, went on and saw beautiful sights and had a wonderful time! We got home before dark, played games awhile and a storm rolled in, the electricity went off and it was not safe for Jolynn to walk home so she spent the night with us! It was a good day!! 😍
We got back to reality the next day, did laundry, baked for market, visited Alicia, etc. Friday at market was a dreary day so we didn’t sell as much as sometimes! We are normally selling more each week and have progressed to even selling a few Bibles/books!
We don’t sell big amounts but it is a way to be part of the people and learn to know many more! Every week it seems they are more accepting of us! Every little bit of progress makes us happy especially since it seems to take so long to build relationships with these people!!
Sometimes we long for the things of the past, but that isn’t conducive to happiness; so, by God’s grace we find joy in the present!
Church attendance is still very slim, but we do have some contacts and you may join us in praying that they would see Jesus in us and want to know Him as their Saviour too!
Pray for Rafael and Elisabet! Shawn has a lot of contact with them. They are an unmarried couple with no children, but seem curious and fairly open! They have a lot of superstitions and fear because of them!
Pray for Alicia. She is an older, lonely widow who is our only regular attendant at church. She claims to be a Christian but has quite a few relationship issues with people! She craves love but can tend to drive people away from herself! We try to visit her weekly and she tells the story of her hard life over and over! It feels like it is time to challenge her on her fault in the hard things she tells about… but it feels like we know so little, and yet the Spirit is beginning to prompt us to do so! We covet your prayers!
Victoria also needs your prayers! Her mother passed away a few months ago. She had cared for her and wasn’t always kind to her! It really bothers her now. We stop frequently and pray and chat with her!
Fernando and Esmeralda and their three children also need your prayers! Esmeralda comes to church when she can, which has not been much lately! We were happy to have her and her six-year-old daughter there this morning! Esmeralda and I have Bible studies together whenever it works for her. (Which lately has been like her church attendance) She did come this past Friday, and Kristina gave her daughter, Maria Gracia, an English lesson while we had our Bible study. She just did it free and for fun to try to build a relationship.
Fernando is a hard man, and he makes it hard for Esmeralda. I went to visit them and we had a very lively spiritual discussion! He actually said he would come to church… He didn’t, and we weren’t surprised, but we feel he is changing, and we trust God to keep working in his heart!
Dina, Carolina, Segundo, Laura, Miriam, and Oscar and Marisa, are all people we have contact with, along with a lot of vendors and store owners, though not as close contact as the ones above.
We face loneliness and sometimes discouragement, and sometimes we get weary in well doing, but God is good to us and we choose to keep our focus on Him and His calling for us and to keep pressing on! It will be so worth it all when we can share Heaven with some of these people!!
Thanks for your love, prayers and support!!
🌺 Beulah Hursh 🌺
Juan David 