Something I was a little worried about for the year of 2026 was how we would stay connected or take enough time for just us as a family. One idea I came up with from something I read somewhere was to do Sunday Fun Days. Each week, one member of the family is responsible to organize something fun for the family to do. It has been a success so far. We’ve gone to Lake Huaypo, visited some local ruins, made homemade mints, had picnics, played Peek-around-the corner, had pillow fights, and all sorts of things. It’s a way for us to make sure we have some fun family time each week.
We are going to depend on some of those anchoring moments as we go into a year with many changes and transitions. In January, we praised the Lord to hear that the church in Huaral had decided to have a church transplant here in Izcuchaca, allowing the work to go on without us. GCM is planning to step back from the work and turn this area of the Lord’s vineyard over. Many, many conversations and prayers and emails happened over several months to bring this about. May God’s will be done and His Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven!
We also enjoyed a visit from the Luke and Grace Martin family from Huaral along with Carol, Luke’s sister, and Christopher, Grace’s brother. I always enjoy talking with Luke and feel afterward like we should do it more often. It was especially meaningful for us to dream with them about the future and consider what the Lord may do here with the church transplant.
We had a visit from Orlando and Magdalena from Puno. They are such a sweet couple. They had heard about our upcoming move from Peru and wanted to come spend time with us as a farewell. We were surprised that they planned to make special meals for. We were treated like kings with homemade pollo broaster (deep-fried chicken) and ceviche (my favorite Peruvian dish). They were insistent that the trout for the ceviche be fresh, so one morning around dawn, they went hunting for a trout farm about an hour away from us and came back with freshly caught trout! Kenton’s brother Weston came to visit right before Orlando’s left.
School started back up again with Señorita Gabriela coming back from Huaral. The children were delighted to have their teacher back and to get into some English books. The first half of the year had been fully Spanish, but since Gabriela speaks English, she was able to carry on with the last half too, for which I was grateful. That left me with only the occasional involvement at school and teaching Walter to read English at home.
While we were rejoicing about many happy things, Kenton was learning to rejoice in his sorrows. The rains came very late, and he essentially lost his hay crop, getting wild mustard to grow instead. On top of that, his cows and pigs died with a sort of regular schedule. I’ve never seen someone work as hard as Kenton and still lose animals. It was the worst year for the farm we’ve had. What lessons did God have for Kenton and us to learn?
Another significant event in January was that Lucrecia’s sister, Roxana, moved here from Lima. She was very sick after just having a baby, and it was discovered she had advanced stomach cancer. Her husband, an alcoholic, abandoned her with her three children, so Percy’s took her in. She needed cancer treatments right away, but she had no money. The Lord has provided donors from churches in the States; we’ve had enough to cover every treatment since January. That’s been ~$800 every two weeks. We do not have a donation for next week yet. You can pray about that.
Juan David 