It is July and winter in Peru. This past summer and fall have been a very busy seasons for us, both as a family and with my ministry with Food for the Hungry. We are so thankful for your friendships, support and prayers for our family and for Lauren's ministry with Food for the Hungry. Let me share with you some of the many challenges and joys we have experienced since my last update.
JANUARY: The year started off with ringing in the New Year with a family vacation to the beach south of Lima, with Cristian's extended family. The kids, especially Caleb enjoyed the sand and sea with cousins, aunts, and uncles. Liana liked the sand and the family, but at 4 years, the waves were too scary.
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| New Year Summer Fun! |
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| Enjoying God's creation |
Later in the month, I traveled to Guatemala to meet with the FH Humanitarian Relief Team (50% of my work is spent supporting relief and other humanitarian projects around the world). We had a great team meeting, planning for 2019 and beyond.
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| Roof top meetings with my team in Guatemala |
We also had an opportunity to visit a few communities where FH Guatemala works in Alta Verapaz. We also conducted a brief workshop with local staff to build their capacity to respond to natural disasters in Guatemala. In the last 18 months, FH Guatemala, with support from the Humanitarian Relief Team, has responded to earthquake victims and those affected by a volcanic eruption. Something that the FH Guatemala team shared was how important it was for them to be able to respond to people facing loss and hardship after a disaster. The aid they provide is a tangible way to share God's love and encouragement. This is part of Food for the Hungry's purpose: To respond to human suffering with the love of God.
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| Women's Savings Group Meeting in Guatemala |
FEBRUARY: A month full of blessings, as we received my mom for a visit for 5 weeks.
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| Cooking with Grammie |
The kids especially loved having Grammie around, and we all enjoyed her gift of cooking.
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| Frozen fun for Liana's Birthday |
We even got to have her with us to celebrate Liana's 5th birthday and for the first day of school.
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| Blessing of friends and family as we celebrate Liana's Birthday |
MARCH: The beginning of the month, found us starting the school year again with Caleb in 1st grade and Liana in Kindergarten.
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| First Day of School |
Caleb is now in class for a full day, while Liana's day is shorter, so scheduling has been a challenge. We are finally all adjusting to new routines. Both Caleb and Liana have been blessed by great teachers this year, and are learning so much.
On March 14th Cyclone Idai hit the central coast of Mozambique, destroying everything in its path, including the city of Beira, where FH has its main Mozambique office. Even though local FH staff were themselves victims of the destruction, they were still quick to respond making FH one of the first organizations to begin coordinating the response along with UN and government agencies. The Global Humanitarian Relief team that I work with sent staff to support.
Although I didn't go in person, I spent many hours supporting our response by providing information for FH Communication Team, writing proposals for funding, and coordinating with donors who generously joined Food for the Hungry's relief efforts. Immediate help included food, shelter, safe water and sanitation to prevent the spread of disease. Soon after aid was given to begin the rebuilding of schools. To date, Food for the Hungry has responded to meet the needs of over 400,000 people in Mozambique affected by the recent storms.
APRIL: My work with FH is divided about 50/50 between "Needs Right Now" and " Future Planning". I work to support emergency humanitarian relief efforts around the world following natural disasters. The other part of my work time, is with the community development side of FH. We support about 18 countries to design and carry out projects to help communities reduce disaster risk and build disaster resilience. As part of this effort, my colleague and I have developed a workshop to train each country office staff how to develop a Risk and Resilience Strategy.
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| FH Philippines Team working on their Strategy |
At the end of April, we traveled to Manila and had the pleasure of conducting the workshop with the FH Philippines team. It was a successful workshop, since the FH Philippines team was able to develop a clear strategy for how they can help communities both reduce their risk during typhoons as well as increase their resilience. The Philippines is the country most exposed to tropical storms in the world. Along with responding to human suffering with God's love, Food for the Hungry's other purpose is to help communities graduate from extreme poverty. As Philipino communities and families strive to progress out of poverty to be able to meet more than just their basic needs, a typhoon can cause great setbacks in their development progress. The impact of a typhoon can destroy both lives, homes, schools, and livelihoods causing a return to poverty. Helping communities be able to prepare for and cope with the impact of typhoons is essential if communities and families are to leave poverty behind.
MAY: In May we had the great joy of taking a family vacation with some of Cristian's family and even my mom. It was such a blessing to relax in the Domincan Republic sun and enjoy the sand, beach and pool. What a blessing it was to spend my birthday with some of my favorite people, swimming in the sea, snorkeling and enjoying God's creation. 
JUNE/ JULY:
In the last few months we have been attending a new church, closer to our home. Recently we started hosting a new small group in our home. Last week we had 5 families represented. Please pray as we continue to grow in relationships with this faith community.
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| Picture of the small group church gathering at our home. |
The last couple of months have been busy for all of us with work, and school. We are very glad to share that we will be coming for a visit to Washington at the end of July. While our visit will be short, we would love to see as many of you as we can, so stay tuned for information on a time to get together. Also, feel free to write me too, so we can try to set up a visit.
May God bless you and keep you all.
Love,
Lauren
