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.

Calvary Baptist, Another Great Trip

Another two weeks have come and gone with our friends from Calvary Baptist in Oshawa, Ontario. The team came with many projects planned and they completed all of them and then some. Amongst there projects were these sunrooms seen above. They built the bases for them at the back of each house and then completed this one at the back of house 5 and got the frame done on house 6.

The team also put up big reflector lights on our sports court. They mounted two on the tops of houses as seen above, and two up on poles on the other side of the court. These lights are really bright and will allow us to have many activities at night. This was just one of many electrical jobs that the team did including putting lights and alarm in our worshop, lights in our clothes deposit and food deposit and installed a doorbell. They also installed hose points at the backs of the houses, poured cement pads for our laundry facilities and painted houses 5 and 6 completely inside.

This week coming we have a team of university students coming to do some construction and to teach sports clinics. This is in front of houses 1,2 and 3 where the team will be pouring sidewalk and ramps up to each house. I also plan on having them dig the trenches for our weeping tile bed for our septic system and spreading topsoil and planting grass.

Just Like Christmas in April

The team from Calvary has moved on to brick work for now. They are building these half walls on top of the cement pads that they poured earlier in the week. These rooms will be some sort of sunroom, that get used for the kids playing, doing their homework and eating supper.

As many of you may have heard, we had a theft of some of our power tools this past Christmas season. The thieves cut a hole in the roof of our shop and took the tools. Many people prayed that money for new tools would be provided and also have given ideas for improving security. Today we went tool shopping to buy some tools that we need to continue the work of this team. Many churches and individuals have donated this money so that we can build these homes. We have also installed a security system in the shop and will be building a lockbox to store the tools in. Please continue to pray that funds will be provided for better security at the Juniper Tree, things like raising the wall higher, more lighting and better door lock systems are needed.

Today we were also supposed to pick up our wood order for the tops of the sunrooms, but it was not ready when we called. Upon passing the wood yard on the way home I saw that they had our 4x4's cut and were working on the the rest of the order. I will pick this up tomorrow and we will begin the next stage of the project on Monday. Today we also bought 2 more lights for the sports court and next week we will install them so that the kids can play after dark.

Calvary Baptist Midweek Update

We have a team here right now from Calvary Baptist Church in Oshawa Ontario. This is a church that has been here 3 times before and this time has many repeat members as well. The team has been working on pouring patios behind each house which will be the bases for sunrooms that we will be building starting tomorrow. They also installed hose taps at the back of 3 houses that will be used to water the grass and gardens. The electricians on the team spent the first day sorting out some problems we had with our electric meter and the moved into installing a doorbell, and alarm system for our workshop and lights in the shop. Today they were also installing outlets at the back of each house to plug in the washers and dryers.

This picture shows the patios behind houses 5 and 6 with the bricks stacked up ready to build. My idea right now for the sunrooms is that they will have brick walls about a meter high and then a nice wood structure above that with mainly screen to allow lots of ventilation. The roof material is still not decided but I think a nice clay tile roof would really look sharp on each one. The team also moved our food storage shop to a new location freeing up more space for our playground that is coming in July. Still to come for this team is working on many sidewalks throughout our children's home property and making some modifications to our septic system as well as installing lights above our sports court.

Back to Work

Here I am back to work at the Juniper Tree. I had a couple months back in Canada, enjoying some winter activities, and visiting friends and family. My wife and I had lots of opportunity to share about our ministries in Peru. When I got back to the Juniper Tree there was lots of catch up to do as far as property maintenance. Luckily I had my friend Mike along with me who help a lot with his hard work and great ideas. What we accomplished in the week was cutting all the grass, which was like a hay field, cutting and burning many weeds and we worked on the gardens. Mike came up with the idea of making a portable pig pen that we could use to put the pigs in the garden. They could root around and work up the soil while at the same time leave their fertilizer behind. It is working great and the gardens are really beginning to take shape. Near the end of the week we started forming and pouring cement sidewalks. This was something I had wanted to do for a while as it really starts to define certain areas of the property and when we get some grass in those defined areas the home will really start to take on a finished look.

Here is a picture of the area of the garden that the pigs worked up and then we levelled and planted many carrots and cucumbers. My idea is that I will keep this section for growing vegetables that the pigs can eat. Any outstanding veggies can go into the houses for our kids to enjoy, but some of the veggies that are not so impressive can be enjoyed by our pigs. The rest of the garden I would like to divide into 4 sections and have each house look after 1 of them. They would each have their own garden plot where they could grow whatever they want and the children could learn about agriculture.

We have our first team of the year coming in the first week of April. They are a team that brings a lot of skill with them so we are now starting to prepare for their arrival so that we can keep them busy. I will have them continuing with the sidewalks and grass, building sunrooms at the back of each house, installing many electrical components such as lights and plugs and maybe an alarm. We would also like to finish off the entrance way at the Oasis center so that might be something they will work on. Later on this year we have many teams coming and one highlight will be the arrival of our playground equipment.

Crestwicke Team from Guelph

We recently had a team here from Crestwicke Church in Guelph Ontario. This team was special to many here in Peru because it uncluded Sarah and Lalo, a couple who used to live here in Peru and had spent a lot of time with the children in the home. Sarah helped a lot with making decisions for hosting the team and also checking in on the jobs that people were doing to make sure they were doing okay. She also oraganized lots of interaction between the team and the children. Lalo spent all of his time here fixing the minstry vehicles. That was a need that he saw soon after arriving here and it falls under his skills as an auto repair expert. Our cars are running great now and their suspensions are better suited for the road to Pachacamac. Some of the team helped by installing electricity in the workshop. They ran the wires from the panel at the street, back to the shop. There they installed a breaker panel and ran a line of outlets around the workshop. This is going to make a huge difference in for my project for November which is installing closets in the moms rooms. These are closets that we rescued from the old children's home which I will modify to fit the openings in the new homes.

Another job that I had for this team was to decorate the pump shed that Calvary Baptist from Oshawa had built for us last year. This team had some skilled artists on it so I gave them the freedom to decorate it in any way they saw fit. It turns out they included many of the kids in the drawing and painting which the kids really enjoyed. The shed turned out great and everyone who had a hand in it should be very proud.

The team also did lots of painting and gardening during their time here. Above is our food deposit which the team cleaned and painted and then planted flowers and flower seeds in new gardens that they dug. The team also scraped and painted 3 houses on the outside and repainted 1 house on the inside. They got lots of work done in only a week here and also had time to visit a few families in Manchay with Brenda. Friday night 11 of them went home and 5 went on to Machu Picchu to enjoy the sites there.

In the next month, as mentioned above, I will be installing closets in the moms rooms and Eduardo will be enjoying vacations. Then in December my family and I will be going to Canada for 2 1/2 months. During this time my plan is to leave Eduardo making sidewalks throughout the property in Pachacamac. This will finish off many areas that are almost done and it will cut down on lots of dust. It will also help define the area that we have for our jumbo playground that is coming next July.

The Juniper Tree Goes Country

If some of you remember to way back more than a year ago, there was a blog post about a team at our Pachacamac site that had befriended a sheep living on the property. Well we never could have imagined that one lonely sheep could have led to the group of animals we are amassing now at the Juniper Tree. We have started to raise rabbits. These are New Zealand rabbits which grow to be very big and will soon need to be moved to individual cages to continue to grow bigger.

We also have a pig. He is a young male and he recently had this nice new pen built for him. Now that he has such a beautiful house to live in, we are thinking it is time to start looking for a wife that he can share it with.

Our ducks continue to multiply with this bunch just being born last week. Their mother is keeping them close by up until now, but it won't be long until she starts taking them to the ducks new swimming pond that we made a few weeks ago. We also have two goats roaming the property at the Juniper Tree, helping us keep the grass cut. We are thankful that all these animals have been provided for our home and we are excited about what the children can learn from looking after them and also for the potential food source that they all provide for us.

Hespeler Team 2010

To help us put a huge push on to the end of completing our sports court, we called on the crew from Hespeler Baptist Church. They brought out the big guns this year sending 4 couples, the women to supervise the men, and found Brittany from Hamilton to oversee everything. Mike started the week pumping up his muscles with some arm wrestling with the kids and they were off to work.

Here George is pouring cement around centre court. The team worked hard all week, mixing and pouring cement as well as taking some time to help with some gardening in Manchay. The ladies also did some visiting with some of the families in Manchay. Things were going well but we still felt the need to have Ashley come back for her fourth visit, just to back up Brittany.

By the end of the week, the team had accomplished what was set out for them. The sports court was 90% complete and plenty big enough for the kids to skip, rollerblade and spin their tops on. Thank you Hespeler Baptist for your continued support of our ministry here in Peru.

Starting the Sports Court

We have recently been working on the sports court at the Juniper Tree Home. This will be a centerpiece for the activities at the home. We have the court about half finished and then we will be levelling the rest of the land. In two weeks we have another team coming in from Hespeler Baptist Church in Canada, and we hope to be able to finish the concrete pad with them.

The outside of our workshop is finished with the doors being installed and painted the other week. I am planning on buying some pegboard to instal on the walls inside to help us organize our tools and materials. Seen in the picture above is actually only a little more than half of the size of the finished building. This part will serve as a tool storage room and a carpentry shop.

Happy Birthday Dad

Today is my dads birthday. My family is coming later this week to visit us and I am hoping to get away and enjoy some trout fishing in the Andes Mountains with my dad. I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish him a very happy birthday.

Old Friends Come to Visit

The past couple weeks our friends Kim and Keith Collins have been here with their 2 daughters. This was a special time for many missionaries here in Lima and extra special for our kids who are great friends with the Collins girls. A couple years ago Keith brought a team of young people out to the Oasis to help with some landscaping. This year as well, they brought a group to help for one day. We have an upcoming family day at the Oasis, I took this opportunity to get some painting and cleaning done. The team painted the front gate and fences, the window protectors on the office and cleaned the rooftop storage area. They also sanded and varnished all of our park benches.

Shannon's Family Team

This past week we had Shannon's family's team here. Some of them had been here before but it was nice for them to be working at the Juniper Tree home, since they had only seen it as an empty lot the last time they were here. The team started the week by finishing the wood trim on the new shop and then painting it.

The last time the team was here they mixed and poured the cement pad for our guards house at the Oasis in Manchay. This time they got involved one step sooner in the process and cut and tied the rebar grid that goes inside the cement. This was the start of our sports court at the Juniper Tree Home.

In all the team got 1/4 of the terrain levelled for the sports court and mixed and poured 3 sections of concrete. This project will be ongoing as it is comprised of 16 sections for a total size of 18 meters by 25 meters. This will be considerably larger than the sports court we had at our old home and will serve for playing soccer, volleyball and basketball as well as things like jumping rope and bike riding.

The team took Friday off to go visit some pre-incan ruins that are north of Lima. That meant that they wanted to work on Saturday. It was decided that we would work hard in the morning and get another section of concrete done and then celebrate a great week by preparing Pachamanca. This is a Peruvian specialty which consists of heating rocks over a fire, then putting the rocks in the bottom of a pit with potatoes and sweet potatoes. Then meat is added ontop of the rocks, in our case chicken, then sweet corn mash wrapped in husks is added as well as beans still in the pod. The whole thing is then covered in some kind of leafy herb then paper sugar bags and covered up with soil. The whole thing stays buried for a few hours while being cooked from below by the hot rocks. It was a special Saturday lunch that was enjoyed by team members, staff and children alike.

Holy Trinity Church Team

This past week we hosted a very fun team from Holy Trinity Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. Our main focus for them for the week as far as construction, was framing and covering the new workshop. They worked hard and many of them discovered hidden talents that they didn't know they had. The workshop structure got done and cladded in its "Superboard" covering and they got a good start on the wood trim until our nail gun decided to get jammed.

Above is a picture of the team along with Tyler, Eduardo and Mucho Machi. (how did Machi get so tall?) The week went so well that on the last day, the women toured several homes in Manchay with Brenda delivering some small grocery items along the way, and then we all met at lunch and decided to go tour the ruins in Pachacamac. Thank you Holy Trinity team for helping us get our workshop finished. It will serve as a base for the rest of the construction and will also house our carpentry shop where we can teach a skill to many of the teens in our home.

Door Creek Team

This past week we hosted a service team from Door Creek Church in Wisconsin. The team was made up of a youth group with a couple of leaders. They worked really hard and managed to clear and level the ground for our new workshops. Then they tied the rebar grid that goes inside the floor and mixed and poured 75 loads of concrete. The floor looks great and we are now working on the structure of the shops with the team we have this week. Also accomplished by the team was cutting and installing pine trim on our clothing deposit as well as painting that building. Aside from all the work that the team accomplished in only a week, they also managed to spend quite a bit of time getting to know the kids in the home and one young lady spent some time teaching English to one of the older girls in our home. This was a great group of young people and we hope to see them return in years to come. Thank you Door Creek team for all your hard work and support.