Introduction to My New Blog

Well all of you have been faithful at visiting and reading my blog and for that I am very thankful. This blogs focus was on the construction progress with Kids Alive in Lima and I intended it to be used by service team members who had been to Lima so that they could keep up with what happened when they were not here.
   Brenda and I have now switched from Kids Alive to South America Mission and have moved from Lima to Pucallpa, Peru. With this new chapter in our lives and our ministry I have decided to start a new blog as well. I want this blog to be more personal, more fun and I hope that you will follow along with me as I serve God here in Pucallpa. The title of my new blog comes from a song that we would sing in my home church back in Canada and was one of my favorites. My blog is called My hope is built on nothing less... and its address is www.tyfossperu.blogspot.com. Please enjoy the blog and the posts that I put up there. Also please feel free to leave comments on the posts, I would love to hear from you.

Saying Goodbye

A few months ago a decision was made after much prayerful consideration, that Brenda and I and our girls would start to look for another mission organization here in Peru with which we could serve. Being here these past 4 years with Kids Alive, we have had the opportunity to meet hundreds of people who have greatly impacted our lives and helped us along the way as we have grown in our faith and maturity. These people have come from all over, some from the missionary community here in Peru, some from the dozens of service teams that come down every year to help us, some from the national staff that Kids Alive has in place here and some from the friends that we have made in the most unlikely places here in Peru. But wherever they came from, the impact they had on our lives, some greater than others, but they all were used together by God to help mould us and shape us into the family that we are today. Personally I have spent more of my time with the service teams and lately working in Pachacamac at the Juniper Tree home. I have made many great friends through both and would like to take this opportunity to that all of you who have come down here to help us build, to help us love the kids and just to encourage us. Without you we would not be able to provide the kids with the safety and love that they receive.

Brenda has spent most of her time here in Peru at the Oasis Care Center in Manchay. There she has been able to befriend hundreds of families over the years and they have allowed her to visit them in their homes, love their children and really become part of their lives. It is a great joy for us to see the changes in peoples lives during their time of contact with the Oasis. We have seen families be completly changed for the better because of the care given to their children or because of classes taught to the mom.

We would like to thank each and everyone of the people mentioned above. I know that only a small fraction of them actually has the resourses to read this blog but most of those who don't have, we have been able to spend time with over the past couple weeks and have personally thanked them. For those of you who do read this blog, please look in the next couple weeks for a link to my new blog once we get settled in to our new ministry. I guess I had better share a little bit with you about where we are going.

We have been accepted as missionaries with South America Mission in Pucallpa, Peru. They are an established mission with a very long history in the area. Their ministries are very diverse and the opportunities to be able to impact peoples lives with the love of Jesus Christ are many. Just to name a few of the ministries that SAM provides are their aviation ministry, church plants, a prenatal center, a seminary and an indigineous center. Our daughters will also be attending a missionary kids school that is run by SAM and is right on the property where I will be spending much of my time.

We will miss all of the people who are in the Kids Alive ministries here in Lima and Andahuaylas, but one bright note is that we will be very close to friends with Kids Alive in Pucallpa. We will miss all of the many friends we have made in Lima and Manchay but look forward to the opportunities that we will have to get back here and visit. We are also very excited about the future and to see the ways that God will use us to further His kingdom.

Housing in Manchay and a new Bbq at Juniper Tree

We recently had a team here from Virginia. They were an fun bunch and some real hard workers. They had a really neat story about how they just found Kids Alive on the internet, decided to come on a work trip and they all became child sponsors before coming so that they could visit their kids while they were here. It is such a cool thing. Upon their arrival it became apparent that we had a housing need in Manchay with one of the ladies in our program. She had a building lot but could not afford a house for herself but more importantly her two sons and another baby on the way. This team graciously gave of their time to level the property and build her a modest home where she can raise her kids.

A few weeks ago we had another visit from a couple of young ladies from Ontario. They had raised money through various means and had come here to help with some housing needs. In the photo above, you can see the house that we tore down and replaced with newer, more weather resistant materials. This was the home of a single mom with her two sons.

The team from Virginia, besides building the house in Manchay, also poured a concrete slab for our new laundry building and started the brick work on it, and sanded and repainted the poles from the lights around the sports court. They also started our bbq at the Juniper Tree home as seen above. We hope that this bbq will enable us to take advantage of some of the animals that we are raising for food and can be the center of many fun activities in the future.

Arrival of Baby Pigs

This afternoon, the girls and I went down to Pachacamac to check out the perimeter wall. After the theft of the tools in December we decided that apart from building a secure lockbox and installing an alarm system, another thing that we would do is raise the height of the wall. The wall is looking great and will be even better once we get the columns finished.

While we were there I went to check on our very pregnant pig and noticed that she could not stand up. I thought I had better call in some help so I called a local pig farmer. By the time he arrived 2 piglets had been born. After it was all said and done, 13 babies arrived and they all look good and healthy. There were 9 males and 4 females.

Playground Teams

Over the last couple months we have been preparing ourselves for the arrival of our new playground equipment. We have been finishing sidewalks, laying grass and buying tools and materials needed for its installation. Other things that teams have been doing included finishing the sunrooms at the back of each house and repainting all of the interiors of the houses. Finally a few weeks ago the team arrived to install the playground in Pachacamac. Unfortunately for us, the container with the equipment inside had not yet been released from customs. The team was here 6 days before the container was finally released.

The late release of the container meant that we had to unload it in a hurry and build the playground inside of 2 days. That meant working very long days and even working into the night. The equipment was finally done and the children are loving having fun each day on it. Included in the equipment are 5 slides, 2 monkey bars, 8 swings, a firemans pole and a tire swing.

After the Pachacamac installation was complete I was off to Andahuaylas with another team to install the playground equipment there. One thing about going to Andahuaylas that is different from Lima is the elevation. It is nearly 11000 feet above sea level. Therefor it is necessary to spend a couple days acclimatizing before starting work. We spent one such day visiting a large lake in the area and the ruins pictured above. These ruins are called Sondor and were a dwelling of the Chanka civilization. The ruins were very impressive, but maybe more impressive was the view from the top of the pyramid.

After getting used to being that high above sea level it was time to get to work. This playground was unique in that it's structure is made of wood. We could not import the original wood structure from the U.S. so we bought new wood here in Peru. It came from the jungle and was an extremely hard wood. Once we started working on it, it was obvious that the drill we had would not handle drilling the 80 or so inch and a half holes that we had to do. We searched all over Andahuaylas before finally finding a new drill that would do the job. The build was completed in 4 days and we were able to see the kids enjoying it before we left. This is by far the nicest play structure in all of Andahuaylas and word started getting around about its arrival. The last day we were there we had about 15 or so neighborhood kids show up to play.

I don't have any pictures of the playground that was built in Pucallpa, but the same week that I was in Andahuaylas, there was a team there putting up a playground. It was by far the biggest of all the structures built at our Peru facilities.

East Dayton Christian School

This is the group from East Dayton Christian School. No that is not their new school uniform, that is the typical dress of the people who live in the native community of Pampa Michi. The team and myself and Eduardo went to Chanchamayo for a 2 day trip at the end of their work week. Chanchamayo is situated on the other side of the Andes mountains from Lima and is what is considered to be low jungle. Among the things we did and saw were swimming at the base of a huge waterfalls while brilliantly colored butterflies fluttered around us. We also visited this native community where we danced their native dances and had the opportunity to buy some of their handicrafts and even saw a beaver, wearing sunglasses and eating a lollipop. On the ride back to Lima we saw lots of wildlife inlcuding vicunas and llamas.

The teams time here was not all travelling through the mountains and jungle. They started their week in Pachacamac at the Juniper Tree. The team got very familiar with picks and shovels and wheelbarrows as they levelled the ground in front of houses 1,2 and 3 where they spread topsoil and manure and then laid sod. They also framed and poured 3 more sections of sidewalk and sanded and painted a few doors that were in need of maintenance.

This was a young team with not a lot of experience in construction or landscaping, but really rose to the occasion and worked super hard during the week. We look forward to seeing them back here again soon.

St. Marys / Fresno State Team

We just had a team here from St. Marys University and Fresno State in California. The team had 3 leaders and 14 students who were a lot of fun. This was a little bit different team for us in that they wanted to do construction work in the mornings and then teach sports in the afternoons. The construction work consisted of tying rebar grids, mixing and pouring about 30 meters of cement sidewalks and moving and levelling topsoil and planting sod.

As mentioned above the team taught sports clinics. These took place in Pachacamac at the Juniper Tree on our sports courts and also in Manchay both at the Oasis and at a local soccer field. The kids really enjoyed learning soccer, volleyball and basketball skills. For many of these kids this would have been the first time getting actual instruction in sports. After hours the team took the chance to invite some locals for some friendly soccer games.