Support Level – Praise God we are up to 95%! God has blessed us greatly through the support of His children. He also continues to open doors to share our hearts with others, and us this trip as a witnessing opportunity.
Travel Status – We have our tickets, and we are flying out the 5th of September. The Lord even provided cheaper tickets than what we were expecting.
Future Schedule – We have several more churches to visit in the weeks to come, moving out of our apartment, and all the packing! Please pray that our apartment will be rented out quickly so we don’t have to pay for an extra month.
We spoke with Pastor Evelio, the peruvian pastor with whom we will be working, this past Saturday, and he has multiple trips lined up for October. We are going to have great opportunities!
The Peru Side – In the light of the Minneapolis bridge tragedy, some facts about Peruvian bridges may be of interest. The mortar of one bridge in Lima was not mixed with water, but with the whites of 10,000 eggs. It is appropriately called “The Bridge of Eggs.” It is still standing. Also, the original inhabitants of Peru, the Incans, built lengthy rope bridges crossing valleys and chasms in the Andes mountains. They were so sacred that vandalizing one was punishable by death. The ropes were made from grass woven together into cables as thick as a man’s body. The bridges spanned up to 175 feet, and it took as many as 1000 people to build one bridge. For more on Incan bridges see http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/science/08bridg.html?_r=2&em&ex=1178769600&en=77dd0177c75e9c9d&ei=5087%20&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

We got our tickets! We are leaving Wednesday, September 5th.

Support Level – We are getting close to 90% of our goal! God is blessing in great ways. We still have six more churches to visit, and are looking forward to making more contacts.
Passport Status – It arrived! After three months of checking on it and trying to get it changed, we got it back on July 28th. Praise the Lord! The problem was, before it got better, it got worse. Earlier in the week we found out they not only messed up her name, but also had her birthday wrong and our address wrong! A lady we met at one of the churches we presented our ministry in, talked to us, got our information and was able to make the correct changes and get our passport to our doorstep in less than 20 hours. Pretty remarkable seeing that it was in New Hampshire! We also found out we can bypass the visa issue. If we leave the country after three months we can renew our three month visa. We are planning on visiting Ecuador and Bolivia, so that works out great!
Future Schedule – We are planning on buying our tickets for Peru in the next few days. September 5th is the tentative departure date. Lord willing we can get them at a lower rate.
The Peru Side – Did you know that the potato was first cultivated in Southern Peru, and now they have over 3000 different varieties (give or take a spud or two).

Support Level – We are currently at 73% of our support! God is blessing us through many different people.
Passport Status – We spoke to the passport agency last night and they are working on getting Crystal’s name changed and the passport back to us. Please continue to pray as we look for other ways to speed things up. We need to get her passport so we can begin the Visa process (this can take up to two months).
Future Schedule – We are planning on being in eight different churches in the weeks to come, and there are still several that are possibilities.
The Peru Side – Machu Picchu was just named as one of the 7 wonders of the world.

Known as the “lost city of the Incas,” Machu Picchu was rediscovered by American archeologist and historian Hiram Bingham in 1911, with the help of a local farmer who knew of its existence. The name Machu Picchu, loosely translated from Quechua, the Inca language, means “ancient mountain peak.” Set on a terraced, narrow ridge at approximately 8,000 feet in the Andes, Machu Picchu consists of a collection of well-made stone structures, including temples, a citadel and burial sites. It was built for the Inca ruler Pachacuti, perhaps as a vacation retreat, although, as the Incas had no written language, the construction timeline is unclear. The Inca established their capital in Cuzco in present-day Peru in the 12th century and later formed a powerful empire that encompassed a large chunk of western South America. At their peak, the Inca might have controlled a population of 12 million people or more from various ethnic groups. In the 1530s, the Inca Empire fell to the Spanish; however, because of Machu Picchu’s remote location, it escaped destruction by the Conquistadores. Today, Machu Picchu is Peru’s top tourist attraction and accessible by high-speed train, causing historians and conservations to worry about the physical strain of so many visitors to the ancient city.
www.history.com

I finally got through to the agency last night at 11 P.M!!! After about an hour of being on hold I was able to talk to someone, and we found out why it was taking so long. We have been waiting since late April or early May, and we were getting alittle nervous because of all the important information we sent in. We weren’t able to track her passport, and the reason was because instead of putting in “Crystal Ann Grotzke,” they put her name down as “Crystal Ann Grotzke Ann”!! So, they are now going to expadite it (hurry it up) and hopefully getting the Visa’s won’t take as long. It was really an answer to prayer to even talk to someone! We were just praying in our devotions (while on hold) that God would allow us to talk to someone, and He answered 5 minutes later! Praise the Lord.