The Road Less Travelled

Before we left some people couldn´t understand why we wanted to choose what they perceived as the ´hard option´. We´d been married just over 2 years, Mark was happy with his job, Karen had only been in her job 16 months, we´d just bought a house…it didn´t quite make sense. Surely at that stage we should´ve been concentrating on our interior décor or saving for a bigger car. A few people reasoned that it was just us, we always have to choose the ´hard option´.

To be honest, there is some truth in that. When we´re not pushing ourselves, something doesn´t feel right. But that comes from our faith and the fact we don´t believe the purpose of the Christian life is simply to be happy and comfortable. In fact the Bible tells us that if we want to follow Jesus we also have to take up our cross…this way of life isn´t meant to be easy and will require a cost on our part. For many years we´ve been regularly reminded of the fact we´re ´blessed to be a blessing´ and ´to whom much is given, much will be demanded´. We´ve both been given a lot so far in our lives - materially, through people and through experiences - and therefore feel we should be trying to bless others as we have been blessed. We don´t always get it right but we´ve found that by trying our lives become even fuller!

This was part of our motivation behind our decision to come to Peru. We´ve mentioned before that our time here has had its highs and lows. Before we arrived in Peru our expectations were shaped by what we´d hoped to achieve and our previous experiences in similar contexts. The reality was a little different. We´d hoped to be somewhere where we could fulfill a specific role and help meet an identified need but found that our roles at times were fairly vague, lacked structure and could have been done by a local just as well if not better. Although this was frustrating and partly why we decided against extending our time in Huaraz, it also presented a big challenge to our mindsets and how we could make the most of our time. In the end it provided us with a great opportunity to be stretched, use our initiatives and rely on God. In the process we´ve learnt important lessons not least about trusting God and the value of investing in people´s lives.

Through frustrations, disappointments and challenges we´ve been pushed to our limits but we´re thankful for them as they´ve presented opportunities to grow in character, see God at work through his provision and faithfulness and to really appreciate the good times! We´re sure that as we look back on this year we´ll continue to learn from it and we hope and pray that we´ve been able to bless those we´ve spent time with in some way. One of Karen´s favourite poems says: ´Two roads diverged in a wood and I - I took the one less travelled by, And that has made all the difference´(Robert Frost). Usually when you take the ´road less travelled´ it is harder but the depth and variety of experience along the way and the things you gain as a result make it SO worthwhile.

One of the ways God´s faithfulness has been shown to us is through the encouragement and support we´ve received from many people at home. THANK-YOU so much to all those who´ve prayed for us, regularly sent us messages or emails and posted us cards and packages which have tended to arrive just when we needed them most. What an encouragement these have been. We look forward to thanking you in person when we return.

We also want to thank those who´ve donated towards this year in Peru. A combination of savings, selling our things and many of your generous donations have meant we´ve been able to support various projects throughout the year - Christmas presents for the children and young people that Margaret Saunderson works with in the Shanty-towns of Lima, Christmas presents for the children in the kids home, all the materials we´ve needed for crafts and activities in the kids home and in the street ministry, a new keyboard for the kids home, the St Patrick´s Day celebrations and the epic daytrips for all the kids home to the beach in Casma and the lake, ´Llanganuco´. The kids home has been in quite serious economic difficulties since we arrived in Huaraz and therefore we decided that because of this and the fact we had been most involved in that area, we would give them the majority of the remaining funds. Our Stride account is now officially empty with the final amount of money being split between Arco Iris´ feeding programme and Margaret´s work in Lima. Thank-you again, we pray that these donations will have been and will continue to be a blessing to those in each of these areas.

As we leave Peru we know we´ve a lot of adjustments to make as we return home, some things we´re looking forward to, some not so much, but we still have some time before we´re back into the N.I. way of things in August. Following our departure from Peru we´ll be flying to Central America where we travel by bus to Mexico City - a journey Mark´s affectionately named ´Long Way Up.´ As well as taking in some sights, we´ll be spending time at Latin Link ministries in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and reconnecting with both the family Mark lived with during his previous ´Stride´in 2006/7 and the street kid ministry we´d both previously volunteered with in Mexico City.

This will be our last entry so thank-you to those who´ve kept up to date with our Peruvian adventure through this blog and left us comments and messages. It´s been a great way to inform people of our work, to be accountable to our supporters and of providing a record of this time for ourselves.

Looking forward to seeing many of you again soon - Love from Los Robbos in Peru xoxo