Feliz January! Oh - January is not a holiday....ok.....as I seem to start all my entries lately....it has been again too long since I have posted something to let my friends and family know my where a bouts and the goings on in my life and work here in Peru. (Hopefully with the New Year, and my work starting to take on some sort of normal schedule again, I will make my posts a bit more regular again).
I do hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year. I was blessed to be able to spend the holidays with my family (my parents met there also) at my sister's home in Baltimore. During my time back in the states I even made a surprise visit to see my parents for a couple days in WA. We had a great visit just hanging out, eating good food, catching up, and relaxing.
After two weeks of some much needed R&R, I spent a couple of days meeting with some people from the FH office in Wash DC, and then returned home on the 11th of Jan. Yes that is right I returned "home." I guess that is a blessing too that the Lord has helped me to feel at home in Lima. While my visit with family and a few friends was wonderful, (and while I do really miss the beautiful NW), it was a good feeling to be excited t return to Peru and see my friends and "family" here.
I am continuing to work as the program coordinator/ manager of the relief/ rehabilitation work that FH-Peru is carrying out in three communities in Grocio Prado, Chincha (a peri-urban area severely affected by the Aug. earthquake). We are currently starting a project to provide safe learning/play areas for children in three communities. One of FH-Peru's long time community promoters, Wilda, is coordinating the program; organizing the communities, and training mothers from these communities as volunteer staff to supervise different activities designed to help address different health, education, and psychological needs of their children. In support of Wilda, I have spent the last couple of weeks running around Lima purchasing books, puzzles, games, art supplies, soccer balls, volley balls, hula hoops and other such paraphernalia that will be used by some 800 children the project hopes to serve over the next 7 months.
Here are some pictures of our recent work in the area: distributing water storage containers to families, distributing some of the supplies to be used in the children’s program, celebrating Christmas with many of the children from the three communities FH is working in.
It has been amazing to see how community members have pulled together to help their children by being involved as volunteers with the children's project. Still there is much to be done to help families reconstruct not only their homes, but also their lives in the aftermath of this disaster. There are over 100,000 families who have been left without homes as a result of the earthquake and in the three communities where FH is working there are approximately 600 families still living in make-shift temporary shelters.
We are still waiting for final approval on the financing from a donor that will fund a project to provide reconstruction/ training in reinforced adobe to the families in these three communities. Please be praying that the Lord would give us (FH) favor to be able to carry out this training to help families begin the process of reconstructing their home in a safer way. Also pray that the Peruvian government would begin to make clear how they will help families with reconstruction (as they have promised). Please be praying also that the Lord would be at work in the lives of families and communities to help them pull together to reconstruct not only the physical buildings of their communities, but to also work towards reconstructing the important social fabric of their communities.
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