A Few Hiccups (for want of a better word!) and a Few Upcoming Events

We had been really fortunate that in 25 months of Sarah's life and 5 months in Peru Sarah had not been sick. On Friday the inevitable happened! When Alicia went to collect Sarah from her nursery Sarah's teacher told her that Sarah had been sick four times that morning. Apparently a stomach virus has been working its way around the children.

We brought Sarah home and in the evening she seemed to pick up quite a bit and she was not being sick as often. On Saturday morning Sarah seemed much better and at that point we had thought that she had just picked up a 24 hour bug. Sarah's nursery had planned a Father's Day performanc on Saturday morning and given that she seemed much better we decided to allow her to go. Unfortunately, the performance did not go to plan. Unlike Sarah's Mother's Day performance where she stole the show as the only child on stage to follow instructions, in this performance she copied her classmates and just stood motionless with a big frown on her face. (Therefore we have withheld the photos this time!)

Following Sarah's performance (or lack of!) she came down into the audience and watched the rest of the classes doing their bit. Half way through the programme she decided to be sick once again. I guess her Father's Day gift was to completely miss her Dad and totally cover her mum! At this we decided it was time to make a quick exit! Fortunately now after being prescribed some medicine Sarah is much better and well on the road to recovery.

With regards to our Spanish classes, things are going quite well. Up to this point we have had two classes each day. One class was to get a grasp of the grammar and the other class was a conversation class which allowed us to use the grammar we had been learning. This Friday will be our last grammar class and from then on we will have two practical/conversation classes a day. Just because we are finished grammar does not mean we are anywhere near fluent as knowing the rules of the grammar and being able to apply them in conversations are completely different things, however we are glad that we have made progress and day by day we are growing in confidence (although there are still days of frustration!)

From now on we will also be able to develop our Biblical and theological vocabulary as in one of our practical classes we will be expected to work through a Spanish Christian book of our choice and write summaries of the chapters, discuss topics and probably a whole lot more. We are looking forward to this and hope that it will also enable us to get a better grasp of the sermons we have been hearing in our church. Again thanks to all who have been praying for our progress in language study, we really are committed to getting the language really well (although we know that we will be learning for many years and that the language school is really just to get us off the ground and able to communicate), as we really want to be able to communicate God's love to the people here in the most simple and understandable manner.

Next week will be a short week at the language institute as we have a Mission Conference at the new Camp Centre in Ite. We will leave Arequipa on Thursday by bus and come back on Monday morning. We are looking forward to meeting the Baptist Missions team from Ireland while there and also to being encouraged by Harry Dowds' ministry. Pray that we will be refreshed by this time both spiritually and physically and please pray for Harry as he prepares God's Word.