Adjusting to Life in the Village

Tonight we will have a light as we finally found one of our 110V light bulbs in our stack of stuff.
We have been using candles at night but it will be good to at least run the generator for an hour
with an electric light! The running of the generator allows us to charge all of our electronic
devices, too. :)

Things are beginning to come together here in the house but still A LOT of work to be done. I've
spent a good part of today working on screens. Will do that some more once I have this email written.

Yesterday I tested out our washing machine that has been sitting around forever. Everything looked
great and I was trying to run it through a cycle with just soapy water. Well, I got to the spin
phase and all of a sudden a big rat leaped out from around the tub and into the water! Then right
away the spin slowed down and grinded to a halt. I shut everything off and was convinced that
something in the washing machine squished another rat and that was what stopped the machine from
spinning. I was able to take a cover piece off and peer down inside around the tub of the
washer...and there he was, another rat peering up at me. He didn't look hurt at all. To make a long
story shorter, in the end we just put enough water in the tub so that the rat had to be closer to us
in order to breathe. I let him just sit there and chill in the water, hoping that would weaken him.
Finally, Reb helped me get the critter. I had to put two sticks down and kind of pinch him and then
pull him up. It wasn't easy as he was still full of life! We've killed three rats in the house here
so far. I think all three were transported down here unknowingly in our stuff when we had the men
haul all of our things down here. It was all quiet last night so I think we got all the ones that
were in here. Of course, without screens in the windows any number of critters can climb in here
during the night if they wanted to!

We're all doing well. We've had Ash come here to the house already a couple of times. One family is
a family we know from Brazil.

Thanks for praying!

-Brad

Out to Ash-land

This coming Monday we are finally making our move out to be among the Ash people. SAM Air will fly us on the one-hour flight out to the Yuruá River. It has been nearly a year since we first arrived in Peru and much has happened these past 12 months. God has answered prayer regarding Spanish learning and document work. There is still work to be done on Koleman's documents but plans are in place to take care of that when we come back out to town toward the end of April.

Our newly built house on the Yuruá still has lots of work to be done on it. So, we will hit the ground running next week. No screens in the windows (think lots of bugs!), no wiring done, yet (think very dark nights!), and our septic hole in the yard still needs a covering (think jungle trail to do your necessities!). So, we would appreciate your prayers for us as we spend these next weeks working on our house.

As we make this next step in our ministry to the Ash people here in Peru, we do plan to be more faithful in posting to this blog! We know that it has been neglected for much of the time this past year.

Thank you for your partnership!

-Brad