Flying for Him (FH)

WOW!! WHAT A RUSH!! Yes, that's me way up there in the red parachute looking thing. We happen to know a guy who knows a guy who would take us up paragliding from the cliffs of Lima, Peru's coastline. Oh, it rocked the planet! Justin has yet to go, but he has issued the challenge that if a group from Ebenezer comes down, he will do it with them. SO EBENEZERITES, C'MON DOWN!! :) It all started when Food for the Hungry's country director from Nicaragua, Kim Brown, and her son Lucas (age 13) came to Lima for a conference. They used our guest room as a home base as they went to the conference and then did some fun touristy stuff around Lima - like PARAGLIDING! Kim was the brave soul who tried it first, and then at the end of their week, Lucas and I, along with our Christmas houseguest, Rachel Cohen (a missionary with FH-Peru in the jungle), decided we needed to go too. Justin stayed home with the boys, but we brought home the pictures to share. God made such amazing wonders, and I think you can see them all from the cliffs of Lima, Peru :). - Gillian -

CYBER CHRISTMAS

This year we did Christmas with Vonage, Skype, and web cams. Vonage is our phone system that uses the internet to make phone calls. We have a South Carolina phone number, so for anyone calling us, it's just like we still lived there! So that's how we called my family and wished everyone a Merry Christmas. With Justin's family, since his parents have a web cam, and coincidentally, so do we, we used Skype. Skype is like instant messaging but better, and you can talk through your microphone and hear through the speakers, and then see each other through the web cam- FREE! It's awesome. It's really helped the boys connect with home. We're hoping Gillian's family will get hooked up with a web cam so the boys can see them too. It's not exactly like being at home, but we will take it as our substitute.

Christmas Eve was great. After doing Christmas with family in the States through the computer, we went to church and then had friends over for a late Christmas Eve dinner. The gravy was WAY too salty and Gillian burned the stuffing, but that just made it memorable! :) Thankfully there was plenty of other good food so everyone left the table full. After dinner the boys put out cookies and milk for Santa and headed off to bed while Miss Rachel and Gillian stayed up WAY too late watching "High School Musical." Then Justin got sick - that was so much fun that it earned its own blog entry - see "Santa Brought Justin a Stomach Bug." Christmas Day we had grand plans for playing board games and watching movies, and our new Hunger Corps Missionary, Kami, even joined Rachel and us, but all we ended up doing was staying in our pajamas (excpet for Kami who had to ride public transportation to get to us), eating leftovers all day, and watching movies. The boys had fun playing with their new toys and markers. It was GREAT. - well, Justin actually stayed in bed and drank water and Gatorade, but it was still a relaxing day all around.

At 12:30am Santa Brought Justin a Stomach Bug

We had a great Christmas Eve, and then four out of the five of us in the house had a good Christmas Day. Santa arrived at our apartment at 12:30 a.m. the night of Christmas Eve. How do we know? well, Santa brought Justin vomiting and diarrhea. Justin couldn't even wait til morning to enjoy his gifts. :-) I was up until 2am watching "High School Musical" with our houseguest, Rachel, when it hit the poor guy. I slept from 2 till about 4:30 when Justin woke me up saying, "Gillian, I really need some water. I'd do it myself, but last time I got up, I got so dizzy I and had to lie on the floor till I could make it back to the bed." Needless to say, he got my attention quickly. I got him some water and Tylenol (in the form of Panadol here), and then stayed up for the rest of the night, being the worry-wart that I am. Poor guy! Then in the morning he discovers that Santa left him CHOCOLATE for Christmas. Sorry, Babe! It took him a few days to get his strength back, but he was 100% again by New Years. Go figure.

TURKEYS HAVE HEADS?!?!?!

...and feet as it turns out. Yes, ole' Tom Turkey comes with all of his parts here in Peru. I was NOT HAPPY about this. Sorry, Tom, you still got cooked, and ooooh, you tasted good. Next time Justin gets to reach in and find out what comes out.

Santa Uses US Postal Service

Awesome story: So Justin was going down the stairs at work, getting ready to leave for the day, when he heard a commotion in the lobby. It seems that the guy who checks the mail once a week had picked up a larger than usual load. By large, I mean a waist-high US Postal Service sack filled with padded envelopes and a couple of boxes (all under two pounds each, thank you!). "Most of that's for you," he said to Justin. Shocked and amazed, Justin looked through the sack, and sure enough, Christmas from the States had arrived. You should have seen the look on the boys' faces when Justin walked in the door with this huge sack of packages - 14 in all! Two of the packages were from the junior church kids at our home church, and the rest were from our family. THANK YOU FOR SUCH EFFORT TO SEND US CHRISTMAS!! YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW YOU BLESSED US!!

Pics from my trip to Bolivia

I will put some more info about this trip a little later. - Justin