27th June 2010
Rachel arranged, despite my protestations, for a pastoral visit to clash with England v Germany today. Having now learnt the result (England's biggest loss in the World Cup ever) though, perhaps this was a good thing. Instead of seeing us being humiliated, we went to visit the family of one of the new girls to join our group and chat to them, give advice and prayer for them. It was a good time, though I wouldn't necessarily expect to see them at our La Vina group next Tuesday. They've been subject to a lot of false teaching (from people trying to extract money from them) in the past and they have a lot to overcome before they'd ever joined us, but it was good to visit and encourage them nonetheless, even if it was in the middle of the England game!!

26th June 2010
Flexibility is one of the main ingredients you need in your character make-up to be able to survive in Peru without doing your nut. We made sure that our group from La Vina Huancayo were already on time to get to San Jeronimo (half an hour away) to help celebrate the anniversary of our 'mother' church. We were there on time, but San Jeronimo weren't. We spent a lot of the morning hanging around and waiting for them, but the afternoon was a nice time of an informal service in the countryside, baptisms in a nearby stream and then a shared lunch and lots of volleyball and frisbee. Rachel and I have been invited back to San Jeronimo tomorrow in order to attend and speak at their anniversary Sunday service. We feel we should go, not least because we've been asked to get alongside the pastor there and help guide a little (their small group is really struggling), but we're very tired.

25th June 2010
Up nice and early in order to receive Ismael and Zenobio, two pastors from La Vina in Lima, who are here for the anniversary of La Vina of San Jeronimo (half an hour from us) tomorrow. It was good to have them up and spend a bit of time discussing our group and chatting about some problems and issues.
The second session of the Alpha Course didn't turned out as planned either, since Jhonathan didn't turn up, but it gave me time to put the finishing touches to the second class for the family finance course I'm writing for the Peru Children's Trust.

24th June 2010
Our La Vina leadership prayer breakfast didn't turn out as planned as we didn't all turn out!! Still it meant I was up nice and early to spend the morning doing admin - going through all the records and making a note of the birthdays of all the children who are supported by Peru Children's Trust so that we can restart birthday parties for them. There are 3 born on 1st January and 2 on 25th December which is a little suspicious if you ask me (it is highly likely that their real birthdays aren't known and the administrator simply picked an auspicious date).

23rd June 2010
So, it's confirmed - Rachel and I have managed to pick up a parasite from the bad milk we had and we start the pills tonight.
Nice to see an improved performance from England today (it could hardly have been worse) in the World Cup, which sees us qualify, but I don't hold out much hope for the next round seeing as it looks odds on that we'll face Germany, who have a decent team.

22nd June 2010
Had a long meeting this afternoon. Precipitated by contact between Peru Children's Trust and TearFund, we spent some time thinking about what the future of the work here might look like. There is general agreement here with my vision document that I drew up in January, which includes the idea that, in the absence of a prepared Peruvian, whoever is in charge here needs to receive a wage of some description if there is going to be stable leadership here in the future. It will be interesting to see where, if anywhere, this goes, but I was asked if I would consider staying around for another 5 years if there was a wage attached to the work. We certainly wouldn't say no, since we are enjoying our time here and feel like there is still a lot to do.
Speaking of unfinished business, in the evening we had our La Vina group meeting. We continued with the theme of God as Father and basically just opened up the evening to a time of ministry and prayer, with one or two being led by God to seek healing for past hurts and forgive their fathers for failing them in the past. We are getting a core group now of people who are regularly coming and still having a constant stream of new people, some of whom are sticking. We reached the 30 mark for the first time tonight, but we're not particularly keen on having more at the moment - unless they're mature Christians ready to serve - we're rushed off our feet with the ones we have!

20th June 2010
Well, our jam packed day turned out to be rather more empty than we thought. The two pastoral visits we had lined up for today were cancelled for one reason or another. We did manage to go shopping in town though and now have a dozen plastic chairs and a dozen plastic stools to ease our seating crisis for our Tuesday night La Vina meetings.

19th June 2010
Our day off, but with visitors coming in the afternoon, the morning was spend tidying up and cleaning only for them to later cancel - still it was good to get the cleaning done I suppose and it did mean we ended up with a proper day off, which is helpful when it is all go, go, go.
My health is still not quite right and I am now at my lightest ever in Peru (and for a good number of years!!) at 12st 7lb. I'm telling you, living at altitude in Peru is a far more effective way to get trim than any diet plan or gym membership!!

18th June 2010
What a lacklustre performance from England!! I was joined for the second half by Jhonatan, a student who is coming along to our La Vina group and the one who had asked me to disciple him. Once the pain of watching another dreadful performance was behind us, we started doing the Alpha Course together, which proved to be really helpful. He found the video and the material for the first session (answering the question 'who is Jesus?') to be very informative and it made a big impression on the way he views things. We ended up speaking for about 4 hours in the end and he's definitely keen to come back next week for session two.

17th June 2010
We had our first Thursday morning prayer time with Eli, our co-leader in La Vina, which was a good though brief time (her timekeeping skills are not all that hot!) and should develop into a good time together as we keep doing it every week and should prove beneficial for the church too. We have agreed that we're going to organise a ministry training morning (combining it with a church lunch and then an opportunity to watch the World Cup final) in a few weeks time, since we are completely outnumbered now when it comes to praying for people at the end of our meetings and it would be good to have people trained in this area.

16th June 2010
Beginning to feel a bit back to normal after a few days of sickness (the first for me since being back in Peru). It seems to have been entirely due to drinking infected milk, so it is a comfort to know the source if not that comfortable to go through the process of identifying it!

15th June 2010
Feeling fairly rough, so I cancelled my first session at the PCT Training Centre teaching micro-business. We've moved it to next week instead.
I had to be alright for our La Vina meeting tonight, since I was down to work with the kids in a separate room (talking about creation and making creation mobiles that tell the story), but it seems to have been another good night. Rachel, who was leading, showed a video called the Father's Love Letter which seemed to really strike a chord with some people, particularly those who have not had very good examples of family life or, indeed, have never know their father.
We are definitely beginning to struggle for space - we had 29 people in our living room this evening and it was even getting to the stage of sharing chairs! An even more pressing need is that we have 1 Bible (ours) and 5 New Testaments between all of us, which is getting fairly ridiculous!

12th June 2010
We'd invited a few folk around to watch England vs USA (including a few Americans), but I watched it all by myself in the end. It didn't prove to be much of a spectacle anyway.
Later, we had a couple from La Vina round to play a board game and just chat, in an effort to get to know them better. It was a good evening, but slightly alarming in places. We heard all about local spiritual customs which members of our church have been involved with in the past and, in some cases, are still involved. Some example, including offering coca leaves and sweet to mother earth for healing and other include waving a guinea pig all over your body and then dissecting it to see what diseases it had, which are considered to be a reflection of your own infirmities - a kind of DIY radiography!! There is a lot more going on out there than we were aware of before. On a plus side, the evening finished with me being asked to do a discipleship course with one of the couple.

11th June 2010
I spent the morning missing the opening of the World Cup, talking with one specific family within the Peru Children's Trust at length about my ideas to help with their finances and whether it would be applicable to their situation. The answer is that we're not sure, but they definitely need help and it's worth trying to do something.
We had lunch with Eli, our co-leader in La Vina, and had a good chat. She has decided to withdraw from leading the teaching sessions, but for the right reasons and we are in agreement with her over this. Encouragingly, she asked us to meet with her weekly to pray, so we've settled on 8am on Thursday mornings, combining it with breakfast.

10th June 2010
We had our first chat with the couple experiencing marital difficulties this afternoon, but it was only brief because they arrived late and Rachel had to leave to go to work. There is going to be quite a bit of ground we need to cover over the next few weeks together, but I hope they went away feeling that there was hope.

9th June 2010
An interesting lunchtime chat with the US over Skype about the situation with the Vineyard in Bolivia, which I'm managed to get myself involved in with the idea of facilitating communication a little. Hopefully, it was constructive and the church there will start becoming more unified.
Had my first of 3 chats with various selected families in the afternoon about my plans to start a project to help the families in the Peru Children's Trust with their financial situation. The family was wholly supportive of my idea to teach basic household financial and business management; set up a savings scheme; develop business plans and make available micro-credit so that they can be realised.

8th June 2010
A good evening in our little La Vina group which is rapidly not becoming little. We had a record of 28 people (18 adults and 10 children). I got to share about the Samaritan Woman at the Well from John 4, which proved to be both well-received and thought-provoking and led to a time of ministry. During this time, one of those present shared with me about marital difficulties, so Rachel and I have some counselling sessions coming up - help!! When everyone was going out the door, one of the couples also asked us to chat and pray with them, which we were happy to do and ended up finally saying goodbye to them at 11pm. There are some huge problems within the group, both interpersonal and spiritual, and I can see that we're going to be very busy talking and praying with quite a few people.

7th June 2010
I slept fitfully on the bus, that was better than Rachel so while I went to bed for half the day once we returned, Rachel went to bed for all of it!
In the afternoon, I met with Jorge who works with the organisation that we're going to be partnering with in August to run 3 days of training on nutrition, so it's good to know that things are in motion.

6th June 2010
We headed out earlish to get to La Viña Laderas, which is one of the Vineyard churches that we hadn't yet visited. It was incredibly loud!!
The afternoon saw us head over to the other main Lima Vineyard for their anniversary, which was absolutely packed. It was good to be there and be a part of their celebrations before we took the night bus back up to Huancayo.

5th June 2010
Our Vineyard Pastors and Leaders get together started at 9 sharp, but we had to wait over an hour for everyone else to turn up! It was a good time together, building a bit of unity amongst the churches (which it rather disunited as a whole, since all the churches have independently been adopted into the movement). We also spoke about Vineyard values, which was a good thing to cover when many people, even the pastors, haven't covered these basics before. There really is a lot of ground that needs to be covered.

3rd June 2010
A relaxing day of food, food and more food with a bit of resource shopping in between. It made me realise that I have been in need of a bit of time out - these past few weeks have been pretty full on to say the least.
The evening did bring some sad news, however. We had been planning on paying a visit to Gigi, the girl who had helped us in our orientation when we first arrived in the country, who we'd recently been told had leukemia. However, we received an email to say that she had passed away early in the morning, just 3 months after the first diagnosis. She was just 23.

2nd June 2010
A morning of meetings, but I did manage to get away just in time to get the bus to Lima. Originally, we were planning on this being a time for Rachel to get some specialist medical help, but seeing as she's gone up 1.7kg in the 4 days since being prayed for, we're going to put that on hold for the time being and just concentrate on the other reason for being here - some leadership training times with La Vina.
It was a quick journey until we actually got to Lima, when the last few kilometres took a long time. We made it in the end though and it was lovely to see Margaret, from our BMS days, again, since we are staying with her for the few days.

1st June 2010
Amazing evening!!! In our La Vina housegroup, we returned to the theme of last week and probed a bit deeper, explaining how it was necessary to cultivate good soil in our hearts (Hosea 10:12) and take the time to get rids of all the rocks and weeds in our lives that prevent us from being fruitful for God. It was an powerful evening of ministry, with a few tears being shed along the way and a few God-given insights shared. We're aware that for many people, it is just the start of a process (sometimes taking out the rocks and weeds can take years), but we seem to be on the journey together and that can only be a good thing.

31st May 2010
Prayer time with Rodrigo this morning and I had another 'picture' to do with an harvest, though this time the grains had been harvested and were drying in the sun and being attended to by someone. I think, crazy as it sounds given the make up of our group, that we need to be thinking about reaching out to those outside La Vina. One idea I have is to take hot drinks and bread (a standard snack here) to all the taxi-drivers who come and have their cars washed in one of the nearby streets every night, but we need to chat and pray about whether this is where God is leading us.
And chat and pray we did, taking Rodrigo out for lunch with Eli (our co-leader in La Vina). We've agreed in principal that doing something in the local community would be a good idea, but we can't afford to neglect the needy folk who are already coming along.

30th May 2010
Well, after yesterday, Rachel's weight has gone shooting up!! and long may it continue... In the afternoon, we went out to Torre Torre, a local beauty spot, with Rodrigo and one of the members from our church and then went to La Vina in San Jeronimo (30 minutes outside Huancayo) for their evening meeting. It was good to join them, but hard to see too since they have seemingly not moved on at all since we were last there, about 6 months ago. They did pray for Rachel and I though and particularly with our role in La Vina in Huancayo. During this time, I had two 'pictures' (the way I find God most often speaks to me) which spoke of an harvest being ready, but not being taken in and of the importance of prayer (listening and speaking). Willy, the pastor of the church, also had a 'picture' of us being in a temporary darkness, as if the bulb is being changed over from a dim one to a bright one. Food for thought.

29th May 2010
The wedding day! Nice time, with a very informal wedding at which I took on the role as official photographer until we had to leave early since Rachel was struggling. She'd woken up in the morning at her lightest weight yet (46.9kg) and was just feeling utterly drained.
Later in the afternoon, our guests returned and told tales of how they'd had the opportunity to speak and pray with the church family about their commitment and the problems in their house. It was apparently a dynamic time and, then, it was our turn - we had quite a night. Rachel's mum had previously felt God saying to her that Rachel needed to be prayed for by a Peruvian and our visitors also felt that they should pray as it seemed to them that Rachel's health was something spiritual rather than physical (and it is true that the tests the doctors have asked for recently have all come back clear). They prayed and then decided to pray for our house too. While we are aware that the West is generally very closed off to spiritual realities, this was something new for us too, but it felt like the right thing to do when two of the party both independently 'saw' the same marks (circles containing upside down crosses) on the walls of our utility room. Those who have more experience than I (which wouldn't be hard!!) in these matters explained that these marks were left behind as entrance points for evil spirits. There was a bit of spiritual spring cleaning that needed to go on before we packed our houseguests off to Lima and went out for Chinese with Rodrigo who had decided to stay until our meeting on Tuesday. We had a lot to chat about over dinner!

28th May 2010
With the wedding one day away, we have a full house with folk from Lima visiting for the special event. We have Ismael and Hilda, pastors of the biggest La Vina, staying along with Rodrigo, their youth pastor and a friend of ours and some random lady from their church. It was good to have them and have the opportunity to explain what is going well with our group; what changes we've made and what the real issues are, which are mainly to do with a lack of passion and enthusiasm and serious problems within the family that makes up most of our group. They were sympathetic.

26th May 2010
Had Hilton and Susana back for a chat and a light meal in the evening. It was a lovely time to get to know them more and compare a few notes. I'm going to be writing to some folk in the US about their situation with La Vina in Bolivia, which is far from ideal.

25th May 2010
Another good La Vina housegroup with Hilton and Susana still here and with the new cream sofas enjoyed by everyone (including someone with a blue pen, but we're not mentioning that). We talked about the Parable of the Sower and the different kinds of soil where the seed falls and then, with the kids we made some good soil (crushed chocolate biscuits and chocolate mousse) and sprinkled in some sunflower seeds while Rachel spoke more to the adults and encourged them to consider which type of soil they were. It was a good night and ended with the opportunity to minister with some of the folk.

24th May 2010
Another new purchase - though not as expensive as Saturday's - some placemats to replace the pieces of cardboard we had been using. I asked one of the families to weave them for us and we're really pleased with both the result and with having the opportunity to help another family.

22nd May 2010
We need seating if we're going to be having La Vina housegroup in our house, so we went to the furniture street (all business seem to be grouped together here according to type) purely to see what kind of things were available and we have ended up with brand new leather sofas because it was too good an offer to turn down. We found a shop trying to shift old stock and so bought one for nearly £200 less than it should have been. We are now thoroughly enjoying them!!

21st May 2010
And the results are in (well, apart from one family who seem to have vanished off the face of the planet). Surprise, surprise... the biggest problem (by some way) is a lack of money. I've now started to put together a 3 phase project plan to try and address this need, which will include teaching basic household money management and setting-up a savings scheme so that families at least have the option to save; teaching basic business management and, lastly, working with individual families to come up with business plans that are workable and then helping them put their plans into action with a little micro-credit.
For those who were interested, the other significant problems were a lack of adequate housing; poor nutrition and poor health; lack of knowledge about how to be good parents and a lack of adequate (or any!) toilet facilities. If we get the money side of things sorted, then many of these other issues should be solvable.

20th May 2010
An interesting La Vina housegroup meeting tonight. The original pastor, Hilton, is back in town to get married. It was good to have him and his future wife, Susana, there, not just to have the opportunity to get to meet them (finally!), but also because they were an enormous help with their input. It made such a difference to have another couple of mature Christians in the group. What is more, when our suggestion to move the meetings out of the family home went down like a lead balloon, they were able to step in and say that, in their opinion, it really was necessary. We are now going to trial it for a month and we've switched days again, this time to Tuesdays.

16th May 2010
The first of my second round visits to the families that I've selected to do this needs assessment with. Having heard problem after problem in my first visits, I'm now asking the families to rank these problems in order of importance and then using 10 broad beans asking them to 'vote' for the problems that are most critical for them. This technique captures the order and the intensity of the problems that the families are experiencing and should provide some helpful data which will allow us to think as a charity about how we can better help those we are supporting.

14th May 2010
Another, even earlier start in order to get to Aco, a village up in the hills, before the families leave their homes to start work in the fields. Despite the unearthly hour, it was a trip I was looking forward to, having some strong memories from visiting the same village over 8 years ago. That visit was emotionally very difficult, as I came face-to-face, literally, with the worst cases of poverty I have ever seen. Fortunately, this visit was not nearly so difficult, though that is not to say that the familiy I visited is living the life of Riley - far from it. The family are plagued with problems, like not having a significant wage earner, health issues, social exclusion from the community as a result of having backed an unpopular mining company proposal to start work in the area.
After the meeting, I enjoyed a very fine caldo de cordero (lamb soup), a local dish, in the main market, which has stunning views over the valley. Not a bad way to start the day. I also got ample time to chat with Luz, one of the Social Workers with Peru Children's Trust about my vision for the future of the work and was delighted to find that she agreed with me wholeheartedly, even if it will require significant changes to the way we go about things. I just hope that we take the opportunity to make those alterations before it gets too late.

13th May 2010
A long day. I was up before 6am in order to get to a family who live about an hour away from me and carry out this needs assessment with them. Then, we had a long La Vina housegroup meeting, still in the family house in the evening. With Eli in Lima and Rachel unwell, I was left the run the show and, so all things considered, it went ok, but we just had the old-timers attending and, again, the lack of passion was really obvious. Something needs to change.

10th May 2010
Finally, with my Peru Children's Trust's hat on, we had a long-awaited meeting with the local mayor to try and work more closely together. He was enthusiastic about our ideas and I have now been commissioned to write a project proposal for a community primary health and nutrition roadshow. The mayor wanted it on his desk the following morning, but it's going to take a little while longer than that, especially as this week and the next I shall be visiting a few of our families to do a needs assessment with them; working out what areas of their lives are particularly difficult, with the idea of perhaps later putting together some small-scale projects that will help them where help is most needed.

6th May 2010
Surprise!! 6.45am and we had a phone call saying 'we're here in Huancayo', to which my response was 'that's nice and who are you?'!! (that was after having answer the phone in English being still pretty much asleep!!) Turns out we had some visitors from one of the Vineyard churches in Lima, though they had negelected to tell us! As it happens, it was a good time and it was nice to get to know them and hear about what was happening down in Lima.
In the afternoon, I went to talk to Eli and a few others from La Vina and suggested that we start meeting at our flat. It was only meant to be an idea, but it was enthusiastically received and people even said that they'd be happy sitting on the floor, seeing as we don't yet have any sofas!

5th May 2010
A disappointing night. First of all we discovered that we can't meet any more in our new venue (parents groups would not approve of us meeting there and so the school director has taken the decision to kick us out), which means we are back to square one on that front. Then, we fed back from the conference and talked about children's work at our La Vina meeting tonight and mentioned the 15 local children who needed support and encouragement and not one person raised so much as a little finger to say that they'd even consider getting involved. The group is proving to be a real challenge. Half is made up of non-Christians who are keen, but haven't yet decided to take the plunge and are understandably reluctant to sign up for anything that requires commitment. The other half are just bored, bored, bored and utterly lifeless. We need a mighty touch of God to wake things up a bit.

3rd May 2010
A potentially awkward meeting with Elizabeth, our co-leader in La Vina, went very well. Unfortunately, we had to bring to her attention that not infrequently over the past few weeks she has said things and has then not followed through with what she has promised. This included letting down one of the new members of our little group on Sunday and it had reached the point where it needed to be addressed. She was very humble, however, and received it well, which is excellent and bodes well for the future.
Further news is that the local neighbourhood president has offered us a group of 15 children to start a Sunday School with as a church. This is an exciting, though daunting venture and we have to see on Wednesday, when we have our next meeting, whether there is any interest in running this, since Rachel and I would be unable to do it on our own.

1st May 2010
A rip-roaring success!! The conference was slow to start (Peruvians are not know for their punctuality), but eventually everyone turned up and all the logistics went well and I enjoyed being compere for the event too. The training day proved to be so well received that the team have been asked to come back in October to teach for 3 days rather than for 1 and to 600 people rather than 200!!
We saw the team and new found friends off on their late-night bus and then enjoyed the chance to rest after a few very full-on days.

30th April 2010
Up early and out to a local radio station to be part of an interview about the conference tomorrow, which went well. Back at base, we chatted about all things Vineyard over breakfast before heading down to the PCT Training Centre in order to have a look and understand a bit more about what I get up to.
Keen to try local fare, we took the team out for lunch at a local pachamacha restaurant, where they cook the food by burying it in the earth surrounded by hot stones. It was delicious!!

29th April 2010
Our visitors arrived safely from Lima arrived ready for the Sunday School conference I've been planning for Saturday. Not much time to chat, just get them housed and fed coca tea (good from the altitude adjustment) before they hit the hay.

28th April 2010
As La Vina, we met, for the first time, in our new venue and it was the best meeting we've had in a long time, away from the family home. With Rachel unable to come, I did some impromptu teaching on how to pray for people and then we did it. And it was great, though it will take a while to become comfortable with the idea as a group, particularly as there are so many erroneous ideas floating around, spawned by dodgy theological teaching.

26th April 2010
Went to visit a prospective new family this afternoon and, although I know I say this every time, it really was a desperate situation. A young single-mum has 3 children and another 1 on the way. The complication is that she is practically blind and, in place of being able to earn money, she can only help in a communal kitchen where her family are given food. They have no other income. What is more, the youngest child and the one on the way are both products of rape from her former husband who is regularly in and out of jail and unable to support the family in any way, despite having been obliged to pay for child maintenance. The 10 year old boy who we might take on as the Peru Children's Trust wants to be a lawyer when he grows up so that he can defend the rights of the poor, like his mother.

23rd April 2010
I've been in indirect contact with DentAid, a UK charity that refurbishes old dentist equipment, to see whether they can supply us with a dentist's chair and X-ray equipment (which are needed for the medical centre here). The good news is that they can. The bad news is that the cost will be £1000 + shipping, but that is still cheaper than buying them here in Peru and they'll be better quality. So, the fundraising begins...
I spent a lot of the day on foot visiting churches in the Huancayo area to invite them to our training conference on the 1st May. It was tiring, but nice to get to know a little more of the city and it meant I did have a healthy appetite when it came to dining with the Americans, Billy and Laurie and their colleagues Ash and Audrey, that evening. It was a great evening and really nice to compare notes and get to know each other a bit. Great company, great food and I particularly liked the bit when Laurie said that my Spanish accent was really great!!

20th April 2010
The final day of the course, which has been really helpful and it's been a great learning experience. Apparently I seem to have learn sufficiently well that I was made a group leader today and had to run the session with them, which will be great experience for the future when I duplicate the course. I'll have to make some adjustments though, because it assumes a certain level of knowledge which I know many of my target group won't have. I'm considering writing a separate preliminary course which will teach people what to do with money, so that they have that foundation before they get taught how to try and make it!!
In the evening we had a farewell dinner and had the opportunity to meet all of the American team. They seem really nice and we're looking forward to having dinner with some of them on Friday.

18th April 2010
The good news is that I don't have any parasites and seem to be just loosing weight naturally having changed our diet as Rachel studies more in nutrition. The excellent news is that this new diet regime means my cholesterol level has dropped from 7.1 (taken in November 2009) to 5.1, which is really quite a dramatic and welcome shift. The only blot on the landscape is that Rachel has parasites, but the type that wouldn't normally be a reason for weight loss, so she needs to have further tests taken.

16th April 2010
The first of a 5 day course on launching small-businesses, which some American missionaries (with the Mission Society) from Huancayo are running. It's great to meet them and the course should be really helpful in equipping me to be able to teach these same skills to people at the PCT Training Centre who are involved in production, writing a course for the students themselves to take and also start a small business idea (involving a local fruit sauce speciality - mazamorra) with some of the mums of some of the children we support through the Peru Children's Trust.

15th April 2010
An early start to get to the clinic and have a series of tests done to try and work out why both Rachel and I are loosing so much weight (which in her case is more serious since she didn't have any excess to lose). We await the results...
Meanwhile, plans for the training conference we are hosting on the 1st of May which is aimed at pastors and sunday school teachers seem to be coming together nicely, though there is still much to do.

13th April 2010
We had a meeting this afternoon with a local architect to go over some proposed plans for the restaurant, which the Gastronomy students at the PCT Training Centre would then be able to work in to get experience in a real live environment. It was a good meeting and we made some significant progress, with a general design that was liked by all, though of course their are some finer details to decided upon.

12th April 2010
Made it back up to Huancayo without a hitch.

10th April 2010
Spent some of the morning looking through the Highway Code in preparation for taking a driving test soon, before taking a covert trip down to Chincha in order to visit a friend who has been having a hard time of it lately. I was only there for 7 hours (almost as long as the travelling time to get there and back!!), but it was worth it. We had a good chat, that was hopefully helpful and we went out for Pizza in the evening with another friend of ours and it was lovely to see them

9th April 2010
Went to Chinatown today on possibly the worse bus I've ever been on in Peru. It was nice and spacious and it didn't catch fire unlike one I was on recently, but I think it must have been completely devoid of suspension and I felt every bump in the road and, believe me, there are a LOT of bumps in Peruvian roads. It was a 1.5 hour ride into town (for about 30 pence) and I was feeling quite sick by the end of it, but one poor unfortunately lady actually was sick. Managed to get some shopping done though - it's the place to go for kitchen equipment, for example - and had a nice Chinese lunch before heading back (thankfully on a better bus this time).
Got a call to go and pick up my visa at 9pm - nothing quite like the 11th hour!! - nice to be legal for the coming year.

7th April 2010
Day on the bus going down to Lima. Journey fine, though still just as long as it has always been. It was made slightly more interesting by having 3 Brits for company though. They'd been up in Huancayo for Easter and one had developed appendicitis, so they hadn't seen as much of the place and they would have liked.

4th April 2010
Happy Easter! We had a fairly relaxing day, managing to speak to family back in the UK before having church descend on us for the first time. We introduced frisbee, played volleyball and made Easter cookies, which all went down well, though it was a little embarrasing to oblige people to sit on our floor (since we don't really have much in the way of furniture yet)