Our peruvian dad

Nichhola's 40th birthday party spiderman style!

Always eating........anything he can find in our refrigerator

One morning he just called us and said he was coming over to make breakfast for us. Fruit salad and pineapple juice! yum!

Equipo Maps! Team maps! We always call ourselves equipo (team) insert whatever project needs to be done that day. This picture is when we hand laminated some maps of Lima to help us in our church planting endeavour.

Sitting on the floor in the bus station....a peruvian no no.

The joys of American soft drinks!

Nicchola taught me how to make Maracyua a famous fruit juice.

We both love mayonnaise!

Nichhola's first time to eat at Chilis!


Finally finished with the extreme makeover!

First time to eat at Subway!

Yep, Coke float for the first time!

Our peruvian handy man!

Nicchola, our Peruvian dad, is someone that has extremely blessed my life in these past few months. One of the translators, Karina, gave us the number of this safe taxi over a year ago. When we lived in the community we would use him sometime to take us places, and we got to know him over the months. Each time we rode with him we would get to know him better and he would become a better friend of ours. The thing that really bonded me with Nicchola is when I had a project for the community to buy complete outfits for over 200 kids in like a week’s time span, and also buy all kinds of the things for the group that came this past December such as a sound system, hoola hoops, cookies, etc. We went all over different districts of Lima to find all these things at the cheapest prices. He helped me so much. We spent practically 8 days together just shopping. He is the one that went with Nancy and I to buy the furniture for our house, and then he was the one that helped Amanda and I do the whole extreme makeover for Nancy. He was here working and buying things with us for about 2 weeks. Over the months, I had seen a difference, that no longer were Nancy and I just clients that paid Nicchola to drive us around or help us fix things, but we had become good friends. I told Nicchola that I was going to miss him not coming over everyday now that the house was finally done. What I didn’t realize, was that he would start to come over anyway at least every three days if not more than that.

It really has been incredible what God has done in this friendship. He really is like our dad in Peru. He always checks on us, brings us snacks, and comes over to watch a movie, play games, or just hang out. He always makes comments that when he wants to laugh he comes over here. I am hoping that he realizes the reason why we have joy is because of Jesus. God has also brought up several opportunities to talk about the good news of Jesus with him. When we first met him, we never talked about faith things with him. I remember months after knowing him, I shared the gospel with him, and he was very closed to it and defensive about it. In these past months, we have gotten to talk so much more about faith with him. Actually, we are always talking about things we are doing in ministry and always talking about Jesus with him even if it is not a direct conversation directed at him. I have shared with him the testimony of John as well. Nichhola has gotten to know John well over these past months, and I hope that he can see something different in him as well. He has gotten to come to a couple of our Bible studies, and the other day he told me that he didn’t have any meaning to his life. He just worked and worked and there was nothing else to his life. He is divorced and his kids live in Switzerland, so he has not been able to see them now for over a year. It was a divine opportunity that God brought up for us to sit down and really talk about the reason why he did not have meaning in his life because he did not have Jesus. We went through scripture and really dug into the good news of Jesus. I told him I was not trying to pressure him, and he responded Lauren if I did not want to have this conversation with you I would not be having it right now. He is hungry and searching for the truth, but he is scared to give his life to Jesus because he understands that it costs your entire life. He is a very loyal person and will not make a decision to follow Christ until he knows he is willing to give it all up for Jesus. I encouraged him that he only had to have the faith as small as a mustard seed in Jesus but that God could move mountains with that. I told him he did not have to have it all together before he could trust Jesus as his Savior. It was definitely a Holy Spirit inspired time. Nichhola was really thinking about where he stood with Jesus and how he did not have a relationship with him. He also knows that is what he needs to do.

Please pray for him that he will have the strength to not have fear about the costs of giving everything up for Jesus, but instead will see how much greater it is to give everything up to know the Savior of the world. He also said that he could start meeting one night a week for Bible study! Wow, what a huge answer to prayer. God has been teaching me a lot about discipleship lately, and how a lot of discipleship is just living life with the people and teaching them the Truth of Jesus along the way as well. He has really shown me that with Nicchola that it is important to share the Word of God with him and the story of Jesus, but also just to live life with him. We have gotten to do so many neat things with him, like go to Chilis, introduce Dr. Pepper to him, introduce coke floats to him, play Clue, Dominoes, watch 24 together, etc. Most of my cool things I just listed have to do with food because I am always introducing him to my favorite foods. He is a junk food junkie as well so that is another reason we get along so well. We also got to have a birthday party for him at our house. We had him and some of his family over for a homemade Peruvian lunch. John helped us cook Lomo Saltado and fish for him for his birthday. It was so much fun.

He always is correcting my Spanish and trying to make me say things the right way in Spanish. He teaches us about the culture, slang, and just is a great friend and second dad for us. We are so thankful that God has put Nicchola in our lives. Please pray for his salvation. He would be an amazing help to our team when he becomes a Christian. He already is a great help. He already reaches out to all the people that we minster to, but I can’t imagine how God will use him when he actually knows God. He also then would be able to minister to everyone that he drives in his taxi. Also, please pray for him that he would be able to save up enough money to go visit his kids in Switzerland. For a Peruvian of his social class, a plane ticket to Europe is almost impossible. We know though that with God all things are possible! Please pray that God will provide a way for him to see his 7 year old daughter and 12 year old son that live in Switzerland. Thanks for always uplifting these people in prayer, and I will keep you updated on the things that happen with Nicchola in the days to come.