Hola from Peru!  What happened to the sunshine?????  Somebody stole it from Lima!  

**Left is our last day at school in Guatemala!**

We arrived to our destination country on July 4th.  We started our day by leaving San Juan at 2:30 AM.  Our host parents insisted on getting up and seeing us off- Domi looked like I felt- about to keel over into a coma, while Oralia chatted away like it was 2:30 PM.  Our trip to the airport and from then on out was super easy- no hiccups at all in the trip and all our bags made it.  Once we arrived, our supervisor met us at the airport and hauled us and the million pounds of luggage (actually only about 250lbs) to a hotel.  We rested up and then headed to a Independence Day party at Jeff and Liesa's home (our supervisors).  There we met several of our teammates, tried valiantly to make conversation- which wasn't easy after 4 hours of sleep the night before!  The next day we were moved to the IMB guest house here in Lima- where we are currently.  The guest house is very comfortable and we are living in a small apartment on the top floor.  I've finally got a kitchen again!  We've been here for about a week now, and we've spent the week asking questions about what we are supposed to be doing now...

We spent a few days on paperwork for visas, having orientations with our Language and Cultural acquisition coordinator and business manager, and going to Interpol (international police).  There we got our mug shots taken, fingerprinted, and had our teeth looked at.  All very serious business!  Don't worry, no crimes have been committed, everyone has to do this to get a visa:)  Since then we've been studying for our drivers license test (a whole new vocabulary in spanish for us) and getting to know our team here and Lima itself.  I have to say that we are definitely not cut out for big city living!  Thankfully we are heading out tomorrow for a trip with a sc church to Huanuco!  So we will get to see our city that we will eventually live in!  We'll come back for about 10 days and then head out again on 3 consecutive trips, have a few days off and then one more trip for August~!  Whew- we will be busy then!  But we are looking forward to it!  

We are enjoying some things about being here in Lima.  For instance, we have internet in our apartment- so thats really nice, and I washed clothes in a washing machine yesterday!  Our jeans fit again!  

Please pray for us as we adjust to a new culture, and a new rhythm of speech, and try to obtain all our necessary papers for life here.

Please pray as well for the trips we will be going on that they will be fruitful and the teams will have a servants heart.

Please pray for my (Cameron)'s grandfather as he recovers from a recent fall.

Rejoice with us in the arrival of our 5th niece!  Sadie Lu Estes

Pray that we will ever fall deeper in love with the Saviour.

Thanks so much- love you all!

June 24, 2009

This will probably be the last blog update from Guatemala! We are scheduled to leave for Lima on July 4^th. We have mixed feelings about leaving, we have loved being here and the people and the food:) But we are very ready to get going on our job. Our group is now down to 4, the four going to Peru. School has been dragging quite a bit- I think we and our teachers are just bored now! But we are still plugging along, doing the best we can. We have our exit interviews (our final oral exams) on Wednesday of next week with the school's director. Today is San Juan del Obispo's birthday and they whole town is celebrating the birth of their patron saint John the Baptist. The bombas started last night at 12 and our family along was responsible for setting off 36 “big ones” as our host mother told us this morning. After about 30 minutes of bombas, they say a prayer as a family and come home and sleep. But not for long, because the band comes by our house at 4 AM. I'm not sure why- no one seems to know-it's just what they do. I woke up pretty quickly with the bombas- mainly because the bed and window were shaking with the impact. David said that some of them were actually fireworks, with lights and everything. I took his word for it. I couldn't get my eyes open wide enough to see 'em. The band I remember hearing but not for very long. I am learning to sleep through a lot:) And today they had a mass and processional and a little fair or carnival set up for the kids in the plaza. Needless to say there is a lot going on here today!
We've had an exciting door open these past few days. The pastor from the church we've been attending (in another town) has been trying to get us in contact with a man who lives here in our town named Moises who is a believer. We finally, after weeks of trying, met up yesterday and talked for a while. He is very interested in starting a Bible study in his home, but doesn't feel confident enough to teach yet. We are meeting with him tomorrow night for study and then will meet with him again in his home later with his friends and family. We are going to try and focus on teaching him how to read and interpret scripture and teach others. It will be difficult, David will need to lead and teach, but our teammate Candy has the best Spanish. It is going to be a hard job for her to translate some, and David will have to stretch himself to do this. It is no small task. Please pray for him and the rest of us as we prepare. Please pray for Moises as well, that he will grow in wisdom and knowledge and be able to spread the love of Christ with confidence in this town.

Thank you for your prayers concerning our house, we are pleased to report that we have a newly signed lease and deposit. Please continue to pray that these renters will enjoy our home for the coming year!
Again, we miss you all and love it when you send us updates on whats going on!
Praying for you!

June 8, 2009

Hello all! I hope you are all doing well! We are into week 9 here and today just changed teachers for the third and final time. Its hard to believe that we will finally be in Peru in just a few more weeks! It seems like we've been waiting forever. Well, it has been a year now. Anyway- we've been puttering along just fine here lately. We've dodged a few stomach troubles for the past week or so-but I hope we are on the mend now. We've ventured into the subjunctive voice in our studies and please don't ask me what it is yet! I haven't quite figured this one out yet, but supposedly it is the last gramatical hurdle and then we just do a lot of conversation. Another of our group departed this morning so we are now 5. David and the four girls. Poor David. Don't worry, I'm brushing up on my “man talk” to try and give him something of a reprieve. We've also been watching a lot of Clint Eastwood movies. We are still working out at the mission in Alotenango and enjoying that quite a bit. This past week we sang the silliest song about a toad. I'm still not sure what it all means, but all the kids knew it and you get to yell “Jesus” really loud at the end and of course they love that. We had around 100 kids this week and at times it is very overwhelming and hard to keep their attention sometimes. Not to mention speaking/reading/acting in spanish, leading music (those of ya'll who know us well, go ahead and laugh-its definitely worthwhile!) and just trying to understand 25 kids who are speaking at once. Whew!
We will not be able to go back this saturday because we are taking a trip to Panajachel and Lake Atilan. If you have time, google it a look at some photos! Its supposedly one of the most beautiful places. David's birthday is Sunday and we are looking forward to a little vacation to celebrate. Check out my facebook page for photos sometime next week!

This past week we had the opportunity to visist a coffee farm very close to where we live. Fincas or farms here are more like old plantations. We visited the farm's school which had about 15 students (kids of the workers) hiked up a small mountain where they grow the coffee. Then we saw the dairy cow part of the farm, the farm chapel, one of the biggest trees I've ever seen, and the most amazing flower garden! It was the best field trip David and I could have imagined!
Please continue lifting us up in prayer in the following areas:
Team unity

Motivation and Endurance for language learning

Our work with the mission kids

Safety in travel

A renter for our house back home

Thanks for those of you who wrote us last time- it was great hearing from you- keep 'em coming!
Missing you all and praying for you!

Sorry for the delay~ I think I fell asleep on the job! In actuality, we've been pretty busy! We had our first exam 2 weeks ago and I 'm pleased to report that we both advanced to the next level. We also received some bad news that our renters are leaving. However, there are several families very interested and Jim is being our handler and lining them up! God also blessed us by selling our car so that takes the pressure off a little. Please pray that the new renters will really enjoy our house and take care of it. One of our team members left a week ago for Peru. Please pray for him as he changes scenery for a while and for us as the group changes and for David being the only man left. We had a week of celebrating his completion of language school including a very impressive surprise fiesta during class that Friday with all our teachers (who made the guacamole and several speeches) and a trip to Domino's for supper. We had an interesting cultural experience on our trip home from the restaurant. This was the lateste we'd ever caught a bus home before and didn't realize how full the buses were. We've ridden them when they were already unbelievable full- theya re old school buses with 3 people to a seat and people standing in the aisle. One time I was sitting and leaning a little forward and actually had a woman sit on the back of my shoulder for about 10 minutes. She was not a small woman. Anyway- this time it exceeded all precedents- when the bus stopped to pick us up, there were people hanging on the outside of it-but no worries, they had room for us 6 gringos. They just opened up the back door of the bus and shoved us in. I had no worries about falling down even though I had no handhold, because we were packed in there so tight. I could only bounce into those next to me. The speed bumps were interesting.
We've been returning to the mission that we've been working with. Last week we did a silly skit of the wise man/foolish man which they enjoyed. Unfortunatley at least 2 of their normal helpers need a break for a while and we've been recruited to replace them for the rest of our time here. So this week we stretched ourselves, and told a story in Spanish, made them answer questions and got them to act it out. We sang “gracias Senor”, “Allelu, allelu, alleluia...Gloria Dios” and Padre Abraham. They are sweet kids who just hug on us, and hold our hands and they discovered that I'm ticklish this week and look out Cameron:)
Last week I also visited a Malnutrition Center to play with the kids there. That was good but also very hard. I will probably go back- pray for protection for my heart. Please pray for David as well, he had a rough week health-wise and is still getting things back to normal. We only have about 5 weeks left including this one, so time is getting on and as much as I LOVE Guatemala, we are getting a ready to head to Peru and get started in our job, meet our team and our new city of residence and just GO!! Pray for patience and continued excitement and a burdening love for the people there. Please send us an update on whats going on with you all ! We don't want to be out of sight and out of mind and want to continue to pray for you specifically. Shoot us a line at cameronanddave905@yahoo.com.

Hola! I hope you are all doing well! We have just finished out 5^th week. This week was calm and slow, we've stayed in San Juan all week and studied. We changed teachers this week and that has made us work harder. My new teacher has taught me a lot and at a much more rapid pace. They are prepping us for an evaluation exam on Tuesday. He's very nice though and is encouraging when I get things correct. He tells me lots of jokes and makes me laugh a lot too. It took us all week just to learn David's teacher's name. And yet, yesterday in our prayer time- he got his name wrong and in actuality prayed for God to reveal Himself to ice cream. For those of you who know David- you understand why this is especially funny. I had a hard time not laughing through the rest of the prayer time.
We also got to experience Dia de Madre here (Mother's Day) which is an enormous event here- Sunday started with a marching band and bombas at 4 in the morning. I'm not sure why they insist on celebrating so early- but it is getting much easier to tune it all out! The rainy season has started in earnest here- raining very hard for about 30 minutes per midday and off and on the rest of the afternoon and night. Our street literally turns into a river and our mother likes to stand on the balcony overlooking the street and watch it. She talks to us everyday about the weather and her prediction for when the rain will come. She has it down to a science that Aunt Beth would appreciate, and usually gets the clothes off the line seconds before the rain starts. She is very pleased with her talent and is often smug after her success!
David gave me a haircut this week- I explained the process and the shut my eyes and prayed. He did a very good job:) He's also pleased that I don't have to pay someone to cut my hair. Go figure.
We are looking forward to going back to the mission with the Baptist church we've gone to. Last week was fun- but it was a very organized program for mother's day and we really couldn't do much. We are hoping to be able to help more this week.
Please pray for us- for our team to have unity and love for one another.
Pray that we will continue to learn and be encouraged in speaking spanish.

Pray that we will have opportunities to share with people, especially our family and teachers.

We love you and miss you! Please send us updates on how you are doing!   

Our third week has come and gone now and with it many new adventures. Early last week we confined ourselves to studying hard and staying in San Juan in the afternoon. David and I got up early one morning to wash our clothes and get them on the line by 7:15- since the rainy season has somewhat begun, there is a 50% chance of rain every afternoon and its important to get the clothes dry as early as possible:) We had a short week because Friday is Guatemala's labor day, thus no school. So we planned a beach trip to El Salvador for our 3 day weekend. We came up with a shopping list assuming(correctly) that things would be more expensive in El Salvador. Since I was elected head chef and of course that suited me just fine- I got to brave the market with instructions from my host mom on what type of pineapple to ask for and how much things should cost and I am pleased to report that I am pretty darn good at shopping in the market. I got three of the sweetest pineapples you could ever imagine for less than $3.00. Wild huh? Early Friday morning we were picked up in a mini-bus and headed out to the beach- a 4 hour trip more or less. The place we stayed was nice by standards here at least:) A little rough for standards back home. 5 girls in 1 room, and 2 boys in the other. But the place had a tiny pool and was ocean front and for $80 for 3 days and 2 nights-thats not too bad. The beach was great- different, black sand and rocks, but warm water and great waves! I swam more there than I have in a long time. Lots of surfers- and David had a lesson on Saturday morning:) He said it is much harder than it looks and I believe him! We cooked supper the first night (me and Mandy) in the hotels' kitchen- which is also the kitchen for the restaurant in the hotel. I kinda felt like we were in the way. But they assured us it was OK and I think they enjoyed watching me struggling to de-skin the chicken with a dull knife. Not easy. But we produced fried chicken, mashed potatoes, broccoli, carrots, and pineapple that was consumed with gratifying gusto. And no one got sick- thank heavens. The next night David and I actually went on a date! The rest of the group went to a restaurant down on the beach- but Dave and I crossed the road to a little place across from our hotel and enjoyed french fries (my first in 3 weeks and y'all know what a big deal that is to me) and garlic chicken for me, mexican chicken salad for David and cokes in the bottle (even after several weeks, that still makes me smile-I think I will still love that after 2-3 years). We had a great time just being by ourselves. Sunday was slower and then came the ride home. Not terrible but not great- it seems the travel agency overbooked the bus home and we had one more person than we had seats. So yup- of course I'm the skinniest and I was sitting on some German guys' backpack on the floor unable to see out the window. That only worked for an hour until car-sickness overtook me and my wonderful husband took over for me. Better on my stomach, but worse on my nose as I then had to sit beside the German guy who did not smell so pleasant. Our driver was determined to make up the lost time spent waiting on the 3 German guys by zooming around every vehicle in sight for 3.5 hours. Needless to say I was overjoyed to set these two feet back in the dust of San Juan del Obispo- which I realized when we got back to our house and my heart jumped a little, really is feeling more like home. Monday, we went to school and when we got home, I became sick- for the rest of the day, then David got sick and another girl. So as much as I enjoyed El Salvador, I'm not a fan right now! We are on the mend now, just tired from fighting the fever and nausea and still having some ill effects of the stomach. However, our host mother has not rested in making sure we are ok- making us different herb teas (one that really did help), making us hot bananas for breakfast, offering to take us to the doctor, bring us buckets to throw up in, you name it- she really is like a grandmother:) I like her because she laughs full out and often and likes to tease me and lets me help her sometimes. We skipped school today but we are hoping the rest of this week will continue more normally and uneventfully!
Please continue to pray for our health, our ministry to our team mates, our relationship with our family and teachers, opportunities to share and opportunities to minister to the people here in San Juan. Pray that we will be protected from the enemy and strengthened daily by God's Word. Pray that our feeling of home will be in Him alone. Please let us know how you are and how we can pray for you!  

Hola! I hope you all are doing well. We are doing good here- we've survived our second week:) This week has been a little different. School was much harder as I got into the intricacies of ser and estar and por and para and saber and conosco and irregular preterit verbs. Whew- it makes me tired just writing it! But conversation is getting better and a little easier and thats good. I figured out that I had over 400 vocab words as of Tuesday. No I don't have them all memorized yet. Keep praying! On Sunday we went to a Baptist church near Antigua and are going today to minister with them in a mission project they are involved in. More on that later. We've stayed in San Juan more this week in the afternoons and that has been helpful. Candy, Mandy and I have also been putting on our backpacks full of stuff and hiking some of the steep streets here a couple of times a week for practice for the Andes. The locals really think we are crazy now. Our family continues to bless us with their kindness and generosity. The food is still amazing- one morning this week we had homemade banana crepes with marmalade in them and a side of fresh pineapple. You have no idea. Please pray for them that the veil of catholicism will be lifted and they will see who Christ really is. We love them very much and hope to be able to speak to them better soon! Pray for our teachers as well. They are used to teaching missionaries and they either know what to say or how to keep the conversation from going there. Though just in regular conversation I've been able to share some things with my teacher. Its not hard to love the people here very quickly. They are sweet in nature, quick to laugh, and always ready to eat something! We are hoping to plan a trip to the beach next weekend b/c Guat.'s labor day is Friday and we don't have class- so we get a long weekend.
Please continue to pray for our group here as we strive to be united, find where God wants us to minister, and work hard to learn the language. Pray also for health for the group- David and I have been fine but some others have had a few stomach issues and a sprained ankle has made their week more tough.
An interesting note: Here in San Juan there is a bombas factory (fireworks mostly, though not with the pretty lights, just the loud loud loud noise) and they are very popular to set off for a fiesta or someones birthday or if I understand correctly, if anything remotely exciting happens at all. We've heard them quite a bit and they are extraordinarily loud. But we've kinda gotten used to them. Yet this morning (friday) I was having my typical nightly bad dream about a war of some kind- when I was awakened to the loud sound of what I could only imagine was machine gun fire. David, being the protective caring, wonderful husband he is, threw himself over me and covered my head. My heart is pounding like crazy and I'm thinking we need to get under the bed!!! But its not big enough- so I'm laying there trying to think if we could turn the table over and get behind it- when at last we realize it was just someone celebrating a birthday with an enormous string of bombas_ AT 4:45 IN THE MORNING. Now I'm not a Guatemalan- so I know I don't really understand, but who in their right mind celebrates ANYTHING at 4:45 in the morning? Well they do in San Juan. With that note- I'll write more next week.