All Categories - Enjoying the Journey

She's here!

9/15/2020

We are thrilled to announce the birth of little Mia! She arrived July 31st (right on her due date :) at 7am, 18.5 inches long and 6.2 pounds. Mom and baby did great! She came into the world with her eyes wide open, and she continues to want to see everything. We are so thankful for your prayers for her safe arrival!

Mia will definitely have one-of-a-kind stories about her birth, lol, most as a result of us being in quarantine for the last 5 months of pregnancy which caused all kinds of challenges: the struggle to find baby clothes as well as other baby items, like not being able to get a baby crib until a month & 1/2 after her birth; X) having to change our plans of giving birth in Lima to a home birth in Cusco (the hospitals here in Cusco began to collapse as a result of Covid the weeks prior to her birth); finally finding our amazing midwife a month before Mia arrived; the arrival of our midwife right before curfew on the night of Mia's birth...etc We are soooo thankful for your prayers and how the Lord took care of us all throughout this pregnancy!

We have loved every second with Mia, and we can't believe she's already a month old! It's been a month of recuperating and lots of baby snuggles. In case you're curious about Mia's name, we wanted a name that reflects our connection to the Napo, given that's where we've been focused these last few years. So, Tamia (Tah - Mia) is one of our favorite words in Napo Kichwa, which is the word for "rain." In Nemo's family, almost everyone has a Biblical name, so for her middle name we decided to continue the tradition with Hadasa. We went with an alternate spelling for Hadassah, Queen Esther's Jewish name.

The day after Mia arrived (Aug 1st), the government announced another quarantine for Cusco because of the collapse of the hospitals throughout the region. Currently the quarantine has been extended till the end of September. Peru as a whole continues to be hit hard by Covid, especially because of the lack of medical infrastructure. Sadly, Peru has seen the world's highest death toll in the world according to the data available.

All that to say, we're not going anywhere too soon, which is a good thing as we look forward to having more time with Mia at home here in Cusco over the next few months. We are so thankful for the incredible gift from the Lord that Mia is in our lives!

While you may not be able to officially "meet" Mia for a while, thankfully there's still pictures! As they say, "a picture is worth a thousand words," so we hope you enjoy. :) We'll share more updates on Mia and ministry here in Peru in the coming months. Thanks so much for your prayers & support!

Done with Quarantine...or not

7/27/2020

The Good News & The Bad News:

The Good news: After 3 & 1/2 months, Peru finally began to open back up at the beginning of this month (July)! To get you caught up to where we left off on the last update, we were under a strict quarantine that involved military curfews & only leaving the house for essentials (aka food & medicine) from mid March to the end of June. Thankfully, at the beginning of July, the government finally called a gradual end to the quarantine and began a phased approached to reopening. Around the 15th of July, they began to allow inter-provincial/national travel again (i.e. buses, planes, & boats). Once we finally finished with the government quarantine at the beginning of July, we realized, "Oh look, now we're 2-4 weeks away from Mia's arrival!" Soooo we've basically transitioned from one type of quarantine to another. Haha, the joke's on us it seems. We may or may not be under an official "quarantine" in August, but both Nem & I will understandably be sticking close to home now up until Mia's birth and then for a bit after that. =D

The Bad News: Sadly, since beginning to open everything back up, cases here in Cusco have sky-rocketed for the first time & the health system has basically collapsed at this point. Given this, the Cusco regional government has warned the population in the last few days that we will likely be under an even stricter quarantine possibly starting the 1st of August. We'll have to wait and see what the local & regional governments decide.

Once the official quarantine was over, the number of cases quickly started to rise. Cusco was one of the few regions in Peru where it appears that the initial, March-June quarantine was successful in keeping the number of cases to a minimum, but now that things are almost back to normal, the number of cases from this past week is starting to cause the collapse of the health system. This has already happened in places like Lima, Pucallpa, Iquitos, and Arequipa. The crisis in the hospitals just hadn't reached our region up until now. All of this is causing the regional government to consider a possible return to quarantine for another 14-28 days. We'll see what they decide and how the health system holds up over the next few days.

While these last few months have not gone anything like what we had planned for the 2020 ministry year here in Peru, we are so thankful that in the end, it's not up to us, & God's plan for us is so much better than what we could come up with! Boy, has this year been a reminder of that. Thankfully, our Heavenly Father only asks that we turn over our plans to Him & let Him guide our steps in ministry & in our personal lives - which is so much easier to say than live out most days, especially for us with workaholic tendencies. X)

Any Day Now!

7/20/2020

We're writing this post wondering if it will make it to your inbox or not before a certain little girl decides to make her grand entrance. :) I guess if you're reading this, it means, she hasn't decide to come yet. We are more excited than I can say about her upcoming arrival! We've been counting down the days, and in theory, this should be her birth week!

We had originally planned to travel to Lima for the birth, but with the ongoing challenges with health care during the Covid crisis here in Peru, we've decide to have baby girl at home here in Cusco, and not travel to Lima as we had originally planned. Nem is excited that Mia will officially get to be a Cusqueñan! :) While I (Catherine) never considered where I was born to be all that important, in S. America it is! One of the most common questions someone could ask you is, "Where are you from?", which shouldn't be confused with, "Where do you live?" Instead, the correct answer to the question is always where you were born. Cusco is such a beautiful region & city! She's is a lucky little girl to get to always be able to call Cusco her birthplace.

Even though the clinics and hospitals have been trying to get back to seeing non-Covid patients since the quarantine lifted, it's still tricky to receive normal prenatal checkups, even more so, a normal hospital birth. Sadly, the hospital system here in Cusco is on the edge of collapsing (more on this in the next section). So, we've decided to go with the option of having a home birth! Thankfully, we will be assisted by the medical personnel from the local hospital. It's a lot safer and more comfortable given the current Covid situation! We would so appreciate your prayers for:

- a safe delivery
- a quick recovery for baby & Catherine
- an easy adjustment for us, Nemo & Catherine, to parenting a newborn :)
- & for a healthy first few months for baby!

We're so thankful for your prayers as we wait for baby's birthday to arrive!

8 weeks of quarantine in Peru to date

5/6/2020

The last time we wrote you, we were just completing our 2nd week of strict, military-enforced quarantine here in Peru. At the time, there were only a few hundred cases. Fast forward 6 more weeks and we are in our 8th week of the same strict quarantine now with over 50,000 cases in Peru, with the surge of 3,000+ new cases identified each day in the last week. Brazil is the only country that has more reported cases than Peru in S America at this point. Officially we have less than a week left in quarantine, so the martial law maaaay (assuming they do not decide to extend it for the 4th time!) be lifted next week. Please be praying for wisdom for the Peruvian president & national government as they decide in the coming days how to phase out the quarantine without the number of cases spiking and the health system collapsing.
While the vast majority of cases are in Lima, the capital, this week there are already reports of hospitals & morgues in several main cities in the Amazon being overwhelmed by the rise in the number of cases & deaths. The number of medical personnel who have been infected is also quite alarming. There have also been reports this week that for lack of medical supplies & fear of the virus, that in some of these overwhelmed hospitals, their personnel have refused to attend people and have left them to die outside. Peru's health system could definitely use your prayers: that the number of cases will go down, that the health system will hold up well to the growing number of hospitalized corona cases, that the staff will have the needed medical supplies, and wisdom for the government on how to quickly beef up the health system here in Peru for the coming weeks and months.

By the end of this week, we will have spent the full 8 weeks of quarantine here at our home base in Cusco. We are living in a rural community about 1 & 1/2 hours outside of the city of Cusco. Thankfully there are very few cases so far reported in our area, but there is a lot of fear of the virus among the local government leaders & the local population, so the quarantine in our community is pretty strict. All the local streets are blocked with mountains of dirt, rocks, & tree trunks (see the above picture of the blocked street our house is on), so that no one can move in a vehicle. Thankfully, Nemo has been able to get out around the blockades on his motorcycle to go to the local market for food which is about 15 min away in car.

Thank you for your concern & prayers during this time. We continue to praise the Lord for providing us a home here in Cusco late last year! Considering both the corona virus crisis & our pregnancy, these last 4 months would have been very difficult to navigate without it! We are thanking the Lord for His continued provisions & blessings.

Serving in Quarantine

4/30/2020

Life has looked quite different these last 2 months as we are all home-bound & so many around us are facing unique challenges, but we're thankful for the opportunities to serve others even with all the restrictions of the quarantine. This pandemic has brought the vast majority of people's daily income & their source of food to a screeching halt.

The last few weeks we have heard from friends in the Napo facing a variety of hardships. The Kichwa Bible translator team was stuck in the city during the initial part of the quarantine, and they all attempted to leave Iquitos and travel back to their home villages in the middle of the quarantine. This did not go well, and they ended up being stranded a day's travel upriver, far from their homes because there are no boats transporting passengers upriver until the quarantine is lifted. After a lot of frustrating hurdles, we were able to send them food supplies as they hope & wait for transportation along the river to be permitted again.

N & his wife (see pictures above - you might remember them from past updates), our friends from a community in the Napo, have also faced hardship in the last few weeks. After some concerns were raised about their pregnancy, they were sent to Iquitos for the birth of their baby boy. She had to have a difficult, emergency C-section, leaving both in ICU. Tragically, the baby only lived 1 day. She was able to receive the medical care she needed and is recovering as they also wait in the city to be able to go back to their home village. Please be praying for them as they mourn the loss of their baby son, recuperate after a complicated C-section, and wait in a city which is quickly being overwhelmed by corona cases, without family or a good place to stay. Thankfully, we were able to get them food supplies & money for housing as they wait to be able to go home. They would so appreciate your prayers as they recuperate and wait to return home.

We know another family in Iquitos, a family we are close with, who we talked to last week who hadn't eaten in days due to the strict quarantine and not being able to work. Thankfully, when we found out, we were able to find a way to help them get needed food supplies. They were quick to share the supplies with their neighbors who have been in the same situation. Please be praying for the many families in Peru, both in the cities and the rural areas, that are suffering hunger, health challenges, risk of the corona virus, &/or displacement during this quarantine.

Peru Quarantine & Martial Law

3/15/2020

Hello from Peru! What bizarre times we are living in! Who would have thought that in a months' time we would globally all be under some kind of quarantine, social distancing, or shelter-in-place? We hope you are doing well wherever this quarantine period finds you!

With all that's going on, we can't help reflect on this passage above that seems so appropriate for this season... "Be still," or as another translation puts it: "let be," or "cease striving," "cease fighting," or "stop." That seems to be the general message we're all getting these days from the government. It's also a message we get often from the Lord. I don't know about you guys, but I recognize that even as we are being told by our governments to "stop moving!" or "stay still!," I'm still tempted to make my days as full of busy work as I can, albeit from home. If I can be really transparent: this is also true just about whenever I feel the Lord calling me to be still... The minute He gives me a chance or command to stop, lean into Him, depend solely on Him, just be with Him...that's when the temptations & distractions are the strongest to "go, go, go."

Exactly two weeks ago things changed pretty drastically here in Peru as we've now been under a pretty strict quarantine & martial law for the past 14 days. On the practical day-to-day experience, it means only 1 member of the family (Nemo! :) leaves the house 2 or 3 times a week to buy food from the local market (see pictures of our local, now "masked" market below); there are military check points on the main roads to arrest anyone not complying with the rules; we have a strict military curfew from sun-down to sun-up; all non-essential shops, stores, restaurants, & social sites have been closed; almost all work (both office-type & manual labor/building) has been paused; all church or social events has been postponed, and all non-emergency travel (domestic & international, including air, water, & land) has been stopped.
It's tempting to see this time as a loss or set-back in "work" and ministry. But, another way we are trying to see it here is as an opportunity! A rare opportunity to slow down and spend more time, not producing or doing, but connecting with & reflecting on our Savior. While this sounds simple, I'm finding it hard to do. In our first 14 days of quarantine here in Peru, admittedly I've thrown myself into doing as much busy work around the house as possible. "There's so much we never have time to do! This is our chance!" - at least that's what my brain tells me. :) Now that our quarantine has been extended by 2 more weeks (at least), I'm hoping to do better in slowing down, heeding the Lord's call to be still, & not letting the need to "do" rob me of the many opportunities to connect with the Lord that we have now that we're house bound. We hope you are finding more time in this global pause to do the same! :)

On a more practical note, you may be wondering where the quarantine caught us. We are soooooo thankful that the Lord worked it out to where we were just arriving to our home outside of Cusco when the quarantine was announced. Our jungle plans had us flying to the jungle a week later, but with all the domestic flights & travel in general being canceled in Peru, we ended up having to postpone our return to the jungle until after this quarantine lets up.

Adding up our comings & goings from before + these past 2 weeks, we've now officially lived in our "new" house a total of about a month! We have a big yard and lots of gardening activities that have kept us sane: pulling weeds, planting a few small veggie gardens, setting up a compost, and removing huge stumps. It's a huge blessing to be able to go outside without breaking the rules of the quarantine. Plus, it's given us the chance to get a little better settled into our new home. :)

We're also blessed to share our new home with those around us! Before this whole quarantine got underway, we met a local couple who needed a place to stay because of an unplanned pregnancy. They have become such great friends and their baby girl continues to lighten our days with her coos and smiles! It's been great practice for us to be living with a baby! :) They've been working on building a house so they can move into their own place and were almost finished before everything came to a standstill with the quarantine. As much as we don't want to see them go, as soon as this lock down lets up & they can finish building, they plan to move to their new home. In the mean time, we are enjoying having them stay with us!

Speaking of a baby, this week we're finishing up our 22nd week of pregnancy, which means we're officially finishing up our 5th & heading into our 6th month. Only 4 months left before we get to meet this guy or gal! We'll hopefully find out if we're having a boy or girl once all this quarantine business calms down, so for now, we're just calling him/her, "baby." Baby loves to kick & do flips, and especially likes to do these gymnastics at night to keep mom up. ;D We can't wait to meet Baby and can't believe how fast time is flying! Hope you enjoy the baby bump pics from these past few weeks!

Workshopping Along the River

9/1/2019

Our time in this last workshop can be summed up in the above picture from Nem's 3-day Homiletics workshop! We were once again blessed by the fellowship, Christ-like love, joy, hunger for God's Word, and dedication of these precious brothers & sisters. We truly soaked up every precious minute fellowshipping & sharing with these amazing brothers and sisters. There were so many encouraging moments that came from our time with them, of reflection around Scripture and Christian & church life. The pictures above are from Nem's Homiletics workshop with the church leaders and the 2 pictures below are from his 2-day workshop on grace. We're so thankful for these brothers and sisters! Thanks so much for your prayers for us and for everyone involved in the conference! We were privileged to see how much the Lord has grown our brothers & sisters in this village in faith and grace over the last few years!

Meet this little sweetheart!

8/15/2019

Early one morning during our last trip while visiting one of the villages where we have many friends, the people excitedly shared with us that one of the mom's had given birth that morning to a little girl, Gianna! (see above photo) While we celebrated the news with them, several members of the family, smiling & giggling, asked us if we had ever pierced a baby's ears. We, rather wide-eyed but smiling at their contagious giggling, said no, that we'd probably be too scared to try. Throughout the week, different family members would come by and mention something about the ear piercing ritual of becoming god-parents, in that classic hint-hint kind of way.

Long story short, we are god-parents again! Nope, she's not ours in case that crossed your mind, lol. :D We managed to survive the scary initiation process of piercing her little ears! (not something I ever want to do again!) It was definitely the hardest initiation process we've seen or undergone in the Napo, and I still don't know how they talked us into it. XD I just about can't handle being in the same room for this kind of thing, but we had lot of experienced god-parents gathered around, leaning in, telling us what and how to do it, so we all survived the process. Being a god-parent means we're bound to the whole family as "family", and I have to say that I don't quite mind that part. :) So thankful for our extended "family" members in the Napo and especially for little Gianna!

P.S. don't freak out about the picture of me holding scissors below! In the end, Nem had to do the piercing (see the picture above with him holding the needle, and us both looking like proud god-parents) since I couldn't make myself pierce her ears, so I did the knotting and cutting of the strings in Gianna's ears. X)

Precious Moments Sharing Life in the Napo

7/31/2019

Whether it's that amazing feeling of relief that comes from jumping into the Napo River on a hot jungle day, or the joy of flying down the river in a small dugout canoe with a peque-peque motor on the back under the light of a full moon & thousands of incredibly bright stars, or that refreshing taste of cold masato while helping the people to plant a new yucca garden under the punishing mid-day sun...and the list could go on and on of all the amazing moments from daily life among the Napuruna, but in the end, the moments that are even more precious & memorable are the ones of sharing life with our Napuruna brothers & sisters. For both of us, being able to connect, share, live shoulder-to-shoulder, and learn with people who are different from us...but when you get past the superficial things, are not really all that different from us, there is nothing better!!

Christmas in the Village

12/15/2018

Christmas 2018 note

Merry Christmas, dear friends! Can you believe that Christmas is only a week away?? I can't. As always, Christmas here in the jungle tends to catch me (Catherine) by surprise. It is less announced in the rural jungle villages where we live and visit, and I guess it's because of the absence of the cultural cues that I grew up with that Christmas always ends up sneaking up on me here.

Even without all the shopping, fuss, glitter, presents, materialism, & buzz of this season that is found in the modern areas outside of daily village life, I've discovered that Christmas is perhaps more powerful for me in a village context because of the simplicity of it. As I've thought through the different Christmas's I've celebrated (all in very different contexts), I've come to recognize that Christmas isn't less when there are no Christmas trees, bows, or presents. Christmas is crucial no matter the context because in truth...we need Christmas desperately.That sounds a little off, right? We all know we don't necessarily need presents, the holiday celebrations, or the traditions around Christmas, but Christmas in it's most essential, simplified form - what is it? Is it not the moment that our God became human and lived & suffered among us & for us? Is it not the birth of the Hope-bringer, the Curse-crusher, and the Last S in-eater?

My take away from this season in life: I think Christmas might be more when it is in its most simplified form. Christmas is light when we truly look to & celebrate the humble birth of a little baby boy. Christmas is hope especially for those suffering loss, like in the case of our friends who are grieving the tragic death of their little 2 year old. Christmas is life for those discovering for the first time the personal call of Jesus in their lives to come and follow Him. Christmas is peace in a life of uncertainty of what life brings because we know who is with us and how everything will end. What I'm learning is that Christmas can be more potent when there are little cultural additives to distract from the most important part = our need of Christ. Christmas is important because we need Christ so desperately.

We wish you light, hope, peace, and a Christ-filled Christmas! Hugs,
Nemo & Catherine