New Apartment Coming Along...

We're still in our temporary apartment, but our new home is almost complete. We had our appliances delivered for our laundry room and kitchen today! The rest of it is coming along well. The only major project left to be completed is a walk-in closet that's rather involved...it's kind of an addition to the building itself and has windows and stuff. It's really cool. We'll send pictures when everything's complete. So we're still in our temporary apartment until this apartment is finished...we believe it will be worth the wait. It's in an awesome location with tons of shopping literally just around the corner. It's also right on an open park with sidewalks for the boys to ride bikes and play while Mommy and Daddy jog around the perimeter. It's great. The apartment is owned by our country director, and it's her vision to have this apartment as a ministry to missionary families. She's asking for a very reasonable rent, and the place is covered with her prayers. We are very excited about it, we even have the boys' bunk beds already!! They're just waiting at our friend's place until moving day. Our own bed is also being delivered to that friend's place today. We're buying up everything we will need so when moving day finally comes we will be ready to move right in.

Aside from that, I am now taking a break from language school while Justin uses the time slot for his own language school...he only has four weeks and then he'll start work on October 15th. He's going out to a Food for the Hungry community this week to get his first glimpse of the work that God has for him. I'll go back to language school after we get settled into our permanent apartment and find good child care for Nathan for that time.

We're adjusting well, and things are moving along! Next big purchase: a car. Please be in prayer for a good car within our small budget. We know it's out there just waiting to be found :)

In Christ,
Gillian

I think I've figured out pictures!

We're going to give this a whirl. If it works, you will see pictures from our entrance to Lima, Peru. Totally out of character for me, I have not taken a ton of pictures. Part of this is for security. Lima is a HUGE city, and we didn't want to draw more attention to our gringo selves than necessary. The other part is that we have been sooooo busy that we just plain keep forgetting to take pictures. There's also not much to see yet. We're in a temporary apartment and in language school. Justin will start ministry work soon and we will send pictures along when we can. Blessings!



Love,
Gillian

Saying Good-bye to Minnesota

Before we left for Peru we spent a month with Gillian's family in Minnesota. This is the longest stint for which we have been able to visit since Gillian moved to South Carolina 8 years ago. This year we have been blessed with three trips to MN, when normally we only go once. We praise God for this important and treasured time with our family. This album is a little scattered, but our time on the internet is very limited right now.

Blessings!
The Brickeys

Leaving South Carolina

Finally, it's done. We've put together an album of our long departure from South Carolina. Tomorrow we'll post our month in Minnesota. In this album you'll see the camping trip that marked the beginning of the end for us. We took a weekend to ourselves before the surge of visits with friends, church, and family...oh, and packing. In this album you will also see Nathan's birthday and Justin's birthday, time with family, time with friends, time with church, and more. You all enrich us and fill our hearts. Thank you.

Love,
All of us.

Sorry, still no pictures, but...

Okay, so we're still figuring out this blog stuff, and we're soooo close to getting pictures out there. We're also unable to connect to the internet from our temporary apartment right now, so we catch it when we can. Right now I'm (Gillian) sitting in a Starbucks as I wait for my language school appointment. It's too expensive to drop Alex off at school, go home, come back for class, go home, then come back to get Alex, sooooo Justin gets to be a stay at home dad with Nathan for the next few weeks while I go to language school and wait to pick up Alex at the end of the day. Once we get into our permanent apartment, hopefully in the next few weeks, we will work out a schedule for Justin to start classes.

I only have a few more minutes before class, but I can tell you that our adjustment to Lima is going great. My Spanish is sufficient to navigate taxis, order meals in restaurants, and go grocery shopping. Justin's Spanish is awesome and he's doing great.

We've had a few adventures since we've been here. It turns out that Justin had pneumonia when we first arrived. Last week he finally went to the doctor for it, but had an allergic reaction to the antibiotics. At 9pm we loaded the family into a taxi to head to the pharmacy to get Benadryl. Unfortunately it's not called Benadryl here, so we were also on the phone with our fellow staff missionaries finding out the names of good antihistimines (spelling?). We found what we were looking for, and Justin was just fine. The doctor told him to try Zythromax instead, so now we know of a familiar antibiotic, the Peruvian versions of Benadryl, Tylenol, Advil, and more! It was a great learning experience. Thankfully we were able to learn with Justin and not with the boys...that would not be fun. Justin's fully on the mend now and taking it easy with Nathan back at home.

Alex is loving his school. He went straight into his class the first day and hasn't looked back since. He's even made friends with another little boy who keeps Transformer toys in his cubby at school...God knows our boys' needs :).

Random thought before I go: I was sitting in my Spanish class yesterday and it occurred to me that I'm studying to speak a foreign language in a foreign country to which God has called our little family for which we have been working for two and a half years. An overwhelming sense of gratitude and fulfillment washed into my spirit, and I am content. Thank you to those who are reading this...God is so good.

Love,
Gillian