Hands of Praise

Me with Ayelen, Alisson, & Maria at the High School Outing "For by Grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." - Ephesians 2:8-9 What a blessing to see God at work and see the glorious fruit of obedience to Him! On Thursday, July 25th, I had the absolute joy and privilege to see God at work first hand and personally. I shared last year that one of our deaf high schoolers, Mar

School is officially in session! We’ve started off well with minimal issues! With the 2 new principals in place, it seems to be going well thus far! Now in our third week, we’ve gotten into a bit more of a routine as a school. But my personal routine in the mornings is still in flux. 😊 I started out the school year without a functioning classroom. But it was for a good reason! The previous week we had a surprise announcement that my and the blind kids’ classroom was going to

Oh, how hard is the lesson of humility. God has me in a time of learning humility right now. How do I know this? I have been publicly and deeply shown my wrongdoing and pride twice in the past month... in addition to many other instances in between less public, but nonetheless humbling. It is not a pleasant lesson at all to have to learn, but an important one nonetheless. The first time my wrongdoing was brought to a public attention, I wanted so greatly to defend myself. My

From May 29 - June 5 I had the honor and pleasure to go to Cusco, Peru and help translate for a short-term missions team from Sanctuary Church in Atlanta, GA! It was a pleasure and joy to join with the team as they served a local church and witnessed to the surrounding community. I had never interpreted full time for a team like that, but it was an amazing experience and I learned a lot. I most definitely messed up and was not at all the perfect translator, but with the graci

On February 20th, I returned to Lima, Peru and on February 25th I returned to Pucallpa. How quickly my 2 months in the U.S. for furlough went by! Within those 2 quick months, soo much happened! I am very grateful that I was able to spend a lovely Christmas with my entire family! It was awesome being able to meet my 4 new nieces and nephews that were born over my 2 years here. And being able to chat with my mom more freely and daily was a great blessing as well! I was also ble

Fundraising for Project CASA is in full swing! We have been blessed to have received about $4,000 thus far of the $37,000 goal. But this week another huge blessing presented itself! An anonymous donor has offered to match every dollar donated up to an additional $4,000! It is an awesome opportunity to increase the amount raised an additional $8,000! But this match-fundraiser is only active for one month – until Friday, December 15th! I know God will provide in His time all th

My sending church and I have an exciting venture to share with ya’ll! Now in my second year of service to the deaf and hard-of-hearing community at Refugio, it is apparent that the small house I rent on the Refugio campus is unfortunately in a sad state of repair. Having spent money for numerous repairs and realizing that the termites, ants and wood rot are winning, I have consulted with a trusted carpenter and others about the wisdom of continuing repairs. The conclusion i

So back in late April, when I was on the brink of a paperwork and mental meltdown, the Lord blessed me (and Refugio) with a helper for the Deaf students! Her name is Maggi! I have taken over evaluating the students, interpreting for them, working with the teachers that have the deaf students in their classrooms to adapt their teaching styles a bit to allow the deaf students to learn more, etc. Its more administrative, but it will ultimately help the deaf students in the long

In addition to the elementary school that meets in the mornings, Refugio has a high school that meets in the afternoons and a night program for adults that never finished high school but would like to earn their degree. Last year I had a deaf high schooler that came in the morning and spent the whole day in my classroom because there wasn’t a program for deaf students in the high school in the afternoon. This year, there are 5 deaf students and the parents of 3 of them wanted

The 2017 School year began Monday, March 13, and it started out crazy!!! We still haven’t fully recovered yet… So, a little back info – teachers don’t contract with public schools directly here. Once they are certified teachers, they contract with local governments who place them in schools. Now they can request a specific school and often start at a school and remain there unless they request to leave, but ultimately the local government has the authority to pull them and pl

Yesterday, Feb 10, marks my one-year anniversary here in Peru! I can’t believe an entire year has passed already…. Soo much has happened in the past year…I wouldn’t even know where to start summarizing. God has been faithful in accomplishing soo much and blessing me: Getting me here safely Getting the container full of personal things and donations through customs and here to Refugio Getting me my residence card Getting me through my first school year here Helping me improve

Say Hello to Alisson and Dana! They are our two 6th graders this year. We started the year with three 6th graders, but one of our young ladies stopped coming after 3-4 months. We miss her and I’ve been told she will be returning next year and repeating 6th grade. Alisson is 11 years old and is the oldest of 2 girls. She is a sweet young lady and loves helping her mom at home and being independent. She is very friendly but gets very nervous and self-conscious doing anything pu

Say Hello to our four 4th graders! From left they are Mailli, Jeck Billy, Viviana, and Ayelen! They are a great bunch and are all at different levels of education! These 4 are quite the sub-group amongst our deaf kids since they are all in the same class together! Mailli is such an amazingly sweet girl! She is 10 years old and the oldest of 3 girls of a single mom. Unfortunately, Mailli didn’t start attending school until last year, 2015, and was directly put in 3rd grade for

Anthony is our only 3rd grader this year. He is the most energetic, enthusiastic, upbeat, involved, interested in everything, easily distracted child I have ever met. Translate that to mean I’m convinced he has ADHD, ADD, and whatever other attention disorder there is out there…. J At first it was very difficult to work with him, but now I absolutely love this kid. He is extremely misunderstood with is EXTREME INABILITY to sit still….for merely 2 minutes…but man is he smart!

Say hello to Josue and Deysi! They are our two 2nd graders! They are such fun to work with! Josue is 7 and is actually repeating 2nd grade this year. He is the second of 5 kids in his family, 4 of which all attend Refugio. He has an older brother in 6th grade, a younger sister in 1st grade, a younger brother in preschool, and a baby brother as well. He absolutely adores his big brother and tags along with him everywhere. His older brother is constantly looking out for him. Jo

Angeles and Adali Angeles and Adali are our 2 first grade deaf kids. They are soo stinkin’ cute! I have completely fallen in love with them. :-) They are both 6 years old, but Adali looks like she should still be in preschool, she is so small! They are best friends, but also fight and argue like siblings. We’ve already had many class times when most of the time was spent in behavior modification and trying to teach these young ladies with mostly gestures and visual cues that

The past month has been awesome and busy!! I have continued to teach in the school and have quickly fallen in love with every single one of the Deaf Kids here! I am taking pictures of them all and will introduce ya'll to them little by little. They are all so individual and all have their specific issues, but God is loving and awesome and is already working in their lives. :-) I am also teaching English to the 3 sixth grade classes and it is a blast! But for you 6th grade tea

Hello!!!! Sorry for the delay in posting a blog…its been rather busy here! I’m currently in the middle of trying to write an IEP (Individual Education Plan) in Spanish that needs to be done by the end of the school day Tuesday. Unfortunately, I can’t actually write the whole thing until the 48-page info-collection & evaluation of the student is completed. I was told Thursday that this needed to happen and I couldn’t work on it at all Thursday because I didn’t have the forms,

Hey everyone! So I’ve been living here in Pucallpa for 27 days thus far and its AWESOME!!! I want to stay forever…. :-) So my last blog talked about my first day of school….so much has happened since then! That week I discovered while working with them that 2 of the students that are deaf & autistic students aren’t actually deaf at all! Just autistic! Because of this, Carlos and I will not be working with them, but they will be integrated with the regular classrooms. Also, tu

Yesterday was my tenth day of living in Pucallpa and I finally unpacked my last box! Not that everything is actually put away in an organized fashion, but all the boxes are empty! And that isn’t even the beginning of what happened yesterday… I began teaching in the school!!! Well, I officially joined all the activities and had great aspirations to start teaching… As soon as morning chapel was over, Carlos (the deaf teacher who I will be working with teaching the deaf students