Another Taste of Peruvian Culture

We have been thinking what a privilege it is to have Sarah attending a nursery here in Arequipa. Not only does Sarah absolutely love going to the nursery and interacting with her new friends and teacher but she is also being given many opportunities to do things that perhaps she would not have done at home. Through many of the activities and events that Sarah has been invovled in over the last number of weeks (including birthday parties, mother's day performances and most obscure of all 'Week of Infant Education') we too have been able to gain an insight into the Peruvian culture.

We feel blessed in so many ways for Sarah, her enthusiasm for life (although sometimes we struggle to keep up with her!) and the fun she brings to our own lives. However, we never really considered that God would use her to help us understand and adjust to the Peruvian culture. We thank God for her and for the way he is using her to help us. Maybe Sarah will never understand how important she is in helping us with life here in Peru.


This past week was a special week in her nursery (actually nearly every week seems to be a special week just for a different reason - if you had not gathered by now Peruvians like their special events and activities!). It was the week of Infant Education (no, we are not too sure what that means either). It invovled a party on Wednesday with lots of sweet stuff for the kids to enjoy and then today all the children were required to come in fancy dress. Sarah meowed all the way to nursery this morning dressed up like a cat!

Sometimes all the special events and parties make us wish we were in nursery again, especially when we think about all the verb conjugations we need to remember and all the homework that awaits us every evening. On the other hand we know that we are putting in all the hard work for a reason and the satisfaction from being accomplished in Spanish will far exceed all the hard work we are putting in now. We look forward to being able to use our language in a more meaningful way. This week we had the opportunity to converse with a girl from the church for three hours. Yes we were exhausted afterwards but really encouraged at the same time that we were able to hold a conversation in Spanish for that long! This was a real encouragement to us and although we recognise that we still have a long way to go we need to take each day as it comes and be encouraged by the progress we have made to date.

We thank God also for a number of other English-speaking people that he has brought into our lives. It is draining speaking Spanish all the time and not being able to express exactly what you want to say--just being able to speak English is a blessing at times! We really appreciate your prayers as we continue with our studies.

It is amazing how God answers our prayers and so often beyond our expectations. Before we left home the biggest issue for concern in our minds was how Sarah would settle. We have been overwhelmed by the degree of her adjustment and the way she is enjoying life and chittering away in both English and Spanish. We will soon be learning more than cultural things through her, we anticipate her to develop her Spanish beyond ours and some day she will be correcting our mistakes. Pray that we will be humble and accept her corrections when that day comes!