Life in Iquitos

Our Dearest Friends & Family –

Hello from iquitos!! This past month has flown by – while at the same time I can hardly believe that it is already October! Adam and I have been working hard trying to get our house put together (getting furniture made, buying appliances & utensils, & filing up the pond with water)!! When we aren’t doing that we are harassing the internet company trying to get internet at our house … we now have a 135 foot tower in our backyard but we are still waiting for them to finish installing the inside cables, etc. They say it will be this week … keep your fingers crossed!!! 

The good news is that our boss has internet at his house and so we have been able to continue researching the different people groups in the area and have decided which two we are going to focus on!!! Their names are the Huitoto and the Matses. The Huitoto are on the border of Peru/Columbia. They will be our main focus because they are very hard to reach.  The Matses are closer and a little more friendly – probably we will engage/investigate them first to get our feet wet and then move on to the Huitoto.  The plan at this point is for Adam (maybe me) to go on a two week investigative trip to each of these people groups.  The purpose will just be to learn about them – see how spread out or close together they live, what languages they speak, if there is a church and if so is it still functioning, what the best way is to get there and how much will it cost, will they let us send in a team to live and work with them for three months… Ideally we would like to go on both of these trips before December. Probably if I go I will only go on the Matses trip which means Adam needs a good/experienced partner to investigate the Huitoto with – definitely a prayer request right now.  There are possibilities we just have to figure out what is best and who can come now! J  Another prayer request is for our team – we don’t have one! We would love to have 4 guys as part of our team. That way we can send two to each community if possible in January.  We know that God will provide so we are continuing to do the work in hopes that once everything is prepared for them to go – they will appear!

As far as daily life, it remains very interesting J We are just pluggin along trying to maintain and use our time wisely. We have been feeling pulled in 80 million different directions but slowly as we accomplish things the pulling lessens and we are also learning how to cope and manage with all the different aspects of our life! We have added a Great Danc puppy to our growing family!! She is almost 4 months old and we have named her Alias. She definitely keeps life exciting, but she is a great dog and I am glad we have her to keep me company when Adam has to leave! I am now 21 weeks (5 months) pregnant.  I am just now starting to show, or as Adam said about 4 times yesterday to several people, ‘I am huge’ ! haha. Every husband who has had a pregnant wife has told him that is not good to say but he just can’t remember, lol.  But everything is going smoothly with the pregnancy and for that we are very thankful.  Right now we are searching for the perfect name for our daughter J

THINGS WE HAVE BEEN DOING THIS LAST MONTH:

-      Bought 12 spray cans of insulation foam in Lima to seal the roof and kill the 40,000 bats living up there

-      Were paged at the airport and told that aerosol cans aren’t allowed in checked luggage … oops – had to leave all 12 cans at airline desk

-      made a dock for our pond … still no water

-      hired a maid … she cleaned my floors with laundry detergent … I can now successfully slide from our room to the kitchen, walking isn’t necessary

-      had a shelf & bedside tables made for our bedroom … 3 weeks later they arrived

-      fed Alias REALLY spicy food that we were unable to eat …. She had lots of diarrhea all night… oops

-      stayed up all night cleaning up diarrhea

-      lost our cell phone … for the third time

-      bought a massively large fish tank … 30 min later bottomed out the truck and broke fish tank

-      repaired fish tank and filled with 8 ice chests full of water … I told you it was large – and I mean like the big ice chests … the ones a child could fit into ….

-      Built a chicken house … nicer than the one we lived in – in the jungle ….

-      Put chickens in the chicken house

-      Killed ‘Freddy’ Adam’s poisonous pet tarantula that lived on our living room wall … I am sure I don’t have to explain why I did that

-      Took an entire church to a village in our truck …. Seriously, the whole church – there were at least 35 -40 people in/hanging out of our truck

-      Adam spoke 3 times at the village and also drank wormy sugar cane juice …

-      The village people were so excited that he came they gave him a 3 liter bottle of the sugar cane juice … yumm

-      Forgot the sugar cane juice was sitting on the back porch …. It fermented in the sun all day and exploded like a bomb at 3am setting off the car alarm on the other side of the house …

-      Felt the baby kick for the first time J

-      Adam finished painting the bedrooms …. I scraped paint off the floor … Alias tried to eat the paint

-      Learned how to cut up a whole chicken …. Not as exciting as you would think

-      It started to rain … really hard … we couldn’t hear each other talking … gotta love a tin roof!

-      After the rain went to the kitchen and discovered a lake under our kitchen table …. Apparently the window leaks … Alias thought it was a swimming pool and was super excited

-      Finally killed the bats in the roof … by stuffing plastic bags in all the holes …. Hmmm

-      Had a 135 foot tower built for satellite internet and our own personal airport

-      Bought a couch – its red

-      Bought a new cell phone

-      Watched Sarah & Jon’s wedding video … so fun!!

-      Went to Mexican buffet at 5 star hotel …. I give the hotel 5 stars and the buffet 2.5

-      Found out my sister’s are coming for Christmas!

Well guys – I could keep going but I want you to be able to leave the computer and finish the rest of your week J As soon as we get internet we will try and update weekly so the posts aren’t so long!!!

Thanks so much for you support and prayers! We love you!

the beginning stages of the dock

Adam teaching the guys how to use a drill

chicken house on other side of the pond

the TOWER for internet ... a fourth done

lioncito (monkey) in our backyard!

the finished dock

our chickens

path behind the pond into the jungles....

our couch

Adam & Alias

Alias running ...

Jess 21 weeks pregnant!