No news is good news

It sounds like a good excuse for not writing on our blog. Actually, we don’t need an excuse, because we have just been busy in our first month at Operación San Andrés (OSA). And like my mother wrote, “Better busy, than having nothing to do.”

What has been going on in our first month at OSA? Of course, the first week we had to familiarize ourselves with OSA’s schedule and working methods. But not only that, a new job and a new place of living means new people. At the moment, from Monday through Friday, twenty-seven children come to OSA after school for lunch and extra classes in mathematics, reading and writing, spiritual development; on the weekdays they are here from 1-6pm. The mothers of these children are required to cook lunch three times a month. The first days it seems hard to get to know them, but after this first month we are more familiar with the children, their mothers and even some other family members.

This semester, Elizabett teaches three times per week mathematics to the 6^th graders, which is a group of seventeen children. On Friday afternoon, she is preparing them for a Christmas musical, which will be performed for the OSA family and in one of the schools here in Collique in December.

On Saturday mornings we have a devotional/Bible study with a group of teenagers. These teenagers left OSA’s program last year, when they went on to the first grade of secondary school. In the afternoon, we offer with the Lutheran church in the next street and in cooperation with the Scouts of Peru a program from 3 till 5. We have had a couple of meetings and training with the Scouts to get acquainted with their material. Elizabett and I didn’t have any experience with the Scouts, so it’s all new to us.

At the moment, our spiritual focus is on the teenagers and their families. We will also implement more prayer and Bible study time with the OSA personal. At BUA and Harlandale Baptist Church in San Antonio we have had positive experience with prayer ministry, although we always hoped a better response. A church without prayer is without power, we believe this is the same for a ministry like OSA. Also, prayer unites, which is important for a small group of workers.

These weeks we have also been busy with the Marco Lógico (ML) (in English: Logical Framework Approach) of the organization. We had a special workshop to teach us the ML. For the coming three months we had to set our objectives and goals for our activities. We experienced this as rather complex as we hardly knew where to start working.

Beside all the work that already was scheduled, the first weeks of our stay in the apartment on the third floor of the OSA house there were painters painting the apartment and two guys working on the roof because of some leaks. I was helping the painters moving the furniture and preparing the rooms. As an electrician it’s easy to take the switches and outlets from the wall to make the work of the painter easier and to keep the switches and outlets clean. Last week the painter finished his work and the roof has a new layer.

As I am still working on my Spanish and not able yet to have a conversation, I was asked to update the OSA website and work on a database with all the information of the children and families. I thank God for this opportunity to use my experience from BUA at OSA and be useful to OSA.

We just received an email that my resident’s visa is almost ready. We hope to get it all done this Monday. The office that helped us told us the last time that it is not necessary for me to go to a Peruvian embassy in another country.

I started this post about excuses, finishing up this post I think to myself “busyness isn’t an excuse not to write as well!” If I continue to write regularly, as we state on our blog, it will be once a month, but I plan to do it more often.

Thanks for your support!