20 weeks and it's a BOY!

We found out last Thursday that we are having a BOY! I was in shock but so excited because I was secretly hoping for a boy! Jeremiah and my grandparents went with us to the ultrasound. It was very special. We plan to name him Israel Jackson. I have been feeling the baby move for over a month now but it just gets stronger every week. Last week Jeremiah was able to feel the baby move too! He said, "Now that was cool!"

In other news, as some friends of ours and youth group leaders plan to move to Lexington, Kentucky......we will become the new youth group leaders! We are pretty excited about the opportunity to minister to the youth of Calvary Chapel.

The pics I posted are of the baby's last ultrasound and a pic of my growing belly from a few weeks ago!!

15 weeks pregnant

I am 15 weeks pregnant. My next appointment is December 22nd and my next ultrasound is January 8th. The ultrasound is to check for different diseases but we will get to find out the sex if he/she cooperates!! I am not showing yet, just a little pooch. No one could tell I am pregnant unless they already knew it. I have been feeling very very faint baby movements. I can only feel it when I lay down really still. I will try and post a pic of the baby from the 12 week ultrasound.

Baby Hurt....coming in June:)

Well, we are expecting our first little one!! I am a little over 12 weeks along and I got to hear the heartbeat today. It was the coolest thing and was helpful in reassuring me that all of this is real. Tomorrow I go in to have my first ultrasound done so I am super excited about that. I can't wait to see this little one. Today the doctor said she is setting my due date for June 2, 2008 but depending on the ultrasound the date could change. It is pretty exciting because my uncle Gary's birthday is June 3 so maybe he or she will be born on his birthday?!

I am so thankful to God for giving us this gift of life and pray He will give us wisdom in raising this little one for His glory!!

Home Sweet Home

Beautiful Indiana skies!
Home Again and so blessed:)

We have been home for a little over a month now. It is good to be home and we were so shocked by the beauty of Indiana. We just can't get over the big blue open skies and the green foilage everywhere. Folks, we are so blessed to live in the community we live in! At times our trip to Peru seems like a dream considering how easily we transitioned back into the American culture. But we know it was NOT a dream and not something we will forget!

Jeremiah has a job working for Biddle construction and I am staying on the homefront :) for the time being. Once school starts I plan to do substitute teaching for one of the school districts.

Nevertheless, we have been very busy. The Lord has opened many doors to serve in our community and it has been awesome to see others who have the same heart. We are heading up a 3-0n-3 tournament ministry at Lincoln Park every Thursday this summer. Before the tournament begins Jeremiah shares something brief with them, then they all pray together. Jeremiah has asked some other guys if they would like to share in the future so that will be cool if that happens. There have been others from our church and even other churches who have come down to help and try and build relationships with the kids that come down there.

For the strawberry festival, Jeremiah's brother, Caleb, designed and ordered 5,000 tracts to hand out at the festival. A group of us met at Chapel Books and went down to the Festival each night to hand out the tracts. It was a lot of fun! On the front it had strawberry facts and on the back was the gospel message. Also, a group from our church and Liberty Chapel came together and learned and performed the drama we did on our mission trips in Peru. It was really awesome because we were able to get a spot on the main stage with little notice. It was very impactful, people from our church were saying that there were a lot of people in the audience that were crying.

Just last night a group of us went to the Ladoga Academy and held an evening "church-type" service. Caleb and Jeremiah did worship and then myself, Emily, and Nina shared our testimonies and how the Lord brought us to Him. Praise the Lord because the doors have been completely opened to us there. A man from our church has a part-time job there and Emily has been doing a Tuesday study that I will be helping her with starting tomorrow. I am pretty excited about this opportunity. These girls have unimaginable family lives and only Jesus can heal their hearts, cleanse them, and transform their lives. I am just praying the Lord might use us to help lead them to Him.

We have been praying for a revival in Crawfordsville and it has been encouraging to see that God wants to work here with the way doors are just flying open. I want to encourage any believer that might read this to reach out to others, step out of your comfort zone and share your faith. There is a great joy that comes from the Lord when you are obedient to His leading. For that person that might read this that has not given their heart to Jesus and committed to serve Him, I encourage you to do so, it is something you will never regret. He has a plan for each of our lives but we first have to come to Him!

Thank you to everyone who prayed for us while we were in Peru, it was such a comfort to know we had people praying for us! If you receive this blog through your e-mail, it is the last time you will receive it. I am deleting the feed but I plan to blog every now and again, so if you want to read my blog you will have to go to the following address http://www.adventureswithjesus.blogspot.com/

God bless,
Serah

Heading home:)

These past 3 weeks have gone by so quickly and I can't believe we will be home in only 4 days!

A couple of weekends ago, the church we attend, the english church, had everyone over to their house. It was a nice time of fellowship. They had a stage set up for anyone who wanted to sing karaoke or share a song. The church is mostly young people so there were a lot of people dancing and acting silly, it was a good laugh! The church is in english because the pastor and his wife realized their were a lot of Peruvians that want to improve their english, so many start out coming for this reason and then later give their lives to the Lord. The church is young but we have seen growth in the short time we have been here. It has been a blessing to this church grow:)

Last week, Jeremiah was really sick, we think it may have been food related but he is better now. This week, we have been packing and cleaning our apartment to prepare to leave this place we have called home for the past four months. We feel so blessed and comforted to know that the Lord has already gone before us to provide us a place to live. It makes it so much easier knowing he already has everything mapped out for us and we don't have to worry about things like jobs or anything else we might need. God is so faithful even when we are not.

We want to thank all of you that have prayed for us while we have been in Peru. We feel so blessed by our families and our church family and cannot wait to see all of you. This has been an awesome time growing and learning from the Lord and also growing as a young married couple. We are so thankful that the Lord gave us the opportunity to see with our own eyes that He is working all the way in South America, and therefore, ALL over the world. His love truly has no bounds.....no culture, no language, no people is untouched by Him. It is an amazing thing to think about, God is everywhere, ALL of the time!

The pics are of us with some friends and the other is of all the bible college students saying good-bye to the church in Lima.

Love,

Serah & Jeremiah

P.S. If you think about it, please pray for safe travels and that our flights would be on schedule:)

Back from the mission trip

We just got back from our mission trip to Iquitos Saturday evening. It was soooo amazing that we did not want to leave. I pray that we can go back there someday.

The first day there we spent with the church. They were having their 4 year anniversary celebration in the park near the church. All the children came and we played and swam with them in the pool. They were so loving and would come up to you, hug, and love on you.

We spent a lot of our time ministering to the kids that live and or work on the streets. All of us fell in love with them. They were so sweet. You can tell they are starving for human love and affection because they come up and hug and love on you. A lot of these kids come from a poor community where the houses are made to float on water during the rainy season. These kids grow up with different sicknesses because they live in very unsanitary conditions. The families use the restroom, bathe, drink, swim, and cook in the water their houses float on.

On the boulevard we performed dramas, sang children's songs, told bible stories, played and colored with the kids. It was such a blessing because these kids have to work all the time and it was a time where they could just be kids. I can't believe the reality of these kids lives. It is one thing to hear that there are children all over the world who live on the streets but to actually see, touch, and play with them is another thing. My heart is broken for these precious children but there is such hope in knowing that God has a plan for them too and that all they need is Jesus in their hearts.

Jeremiah shared at the church in El Terminal on Sunday and again in the jungle on Thursday. He did a really nice job and was not even affected by the breaks in his message from using a translator. Praise the Lord!

On Thursday morning we left for Panguana. We traveled by boat for 3 hours on the Amazon River, then walked 20 minutes into the jungle in order to reach the village. It was amazing to see how these people still live. They live in huts with palm leaves for roofs and boards as their walls. They use the same water for restroom, bathing, drinking, and eating. So a lot of the children grow up sick here too. The church here is wanting to eventually put in a well so they can have clean drinking water. Jeremiah and the other guys helped with putting up a fence around their new church so they can keep out the animals. It was incredibly hot there so we had to make sure and stay hydrated.

That night we slept on the floor on thin mats with mosquito nets around us. As I was getting in my net a bat comes flying right toward my head. It was so scary, I thought it was going to bite me. Then all night we could hear rats and bats moving around. My friend Beth woke me up in the night to go to the bathroom with her and when we got back to our beds she had a cockroach in her bed. I felt so bad for her. She finally killed it with her shoe. It was an adventure that is for sure.

One night while we were doing children's ministry on the boulevard Jeremiah met a gentleman named Kiki who spoke English. They were talking for a long time. Jeremiah was telling him how empty his heart was before he accepted the Lord and this guy said, "So if I don't even have a heart does that mean I can still have Jesus." Kiki made a decision to accept Christ into his heart. Praise the Lord! That same night, Laura, one of our team members, was talking to a boy named John about Jesus and he also prayed to accept Jesus into his heart. Our second to last night there, Sandra ran into the sister-in-law of a guy that goes to the bible college with us....she accepted the Lord also. Praise the Lord.

The last day there we went to the zoo and that was a lot of fun. We have pics.

This trip was one that I pray I will never forget. There are many needs in Iquitos but God is able to provide and do a great work there.

Our last night in Iquitos, we took the street kids out for ice cream and said our good-byes. There were two boys that I totally fell in love with, Golbit and Brandon. I said bye to Golbit a couple of days before but Brandon was there on the last night. He gave me a wooden ring and said "for you" and told me he loved me. It was so heartbreaking to leave them. They knew we were there to help and love them so it was hard to just leave them. They are in the Lord's hands.

Then when we got to the airport all the street kids that we took to get ice cream were there to say good-bye to all of us. We were so surprised. They used their own money and time they could be working and earning money to take a bus to the airport and say good-bye. It was heartbreaking....we were all crying. Pray God would send more workers to Iquitos. There is so many needs but not many bodies to do the work.

Our pics are updated on our shutterfly account. Just go to adventureswithjesus.shutterfly.com We will be adding more in the next couple of days. There are lots of good ones.

We love you all......and are so thankful for the prayers:)

D-Day

Today we leave the bible college campus at 4 p.m. to catch a plane to Iquitos, Peru. Our plane leaves at 7:20 p.m. The plane ride will be about an hour and a half long. We have been preparing for the trip and the ministries we will be assisting with for the past couple of weeks. There are 8 of us that are going to Iquitos together and we will all be staying in the home of 2 missionaries that live there. Iquitos is a large city surrounded by the jungle and is located at the mouth of the Amazon River.

As I said before we will be doing various outreaches in the city of Iquitos through dramas and evangelism. We will also be doing an evening outreach to the children that live on the streets. I (Serah) will be sharing on the second Saturday (actually the day we leave to return to the bible college) at a women's study. I plan to share how I came to receive Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Also, I plan to talk about how much God loves us and wants to fellowship with us...I plan to share from 1 John and Psalms. If I come to your mind, please pray God would place His words in my mouth.

We will also be going to Belen....a floating city on the river and will probably do some children's ministry there. Then for one night and one day we will actually be going into the jungle to minister to the people in a small village there. This is where we may actually have to walk through some parts of the Amazon river due to the river being high (it is currently rainy season). Jeremiah will be sharing this Sunday morning at church and will also be sharing with the village in the jungle. Remember him in your prayers also.

I hope everyone back at home is doing well. We miss our families and our church family lots and are excited to see everyone. I know many of you that read this have been praying for us (we so appreciate it) so if you guys have any prayer requests we would love to pray for you as well. Feel free to e-mail us with any prayer concerns and we can pray for ya'll too.

Some things ya'll could pray for us are:

- Unity within our group going to Iquitos and that God would move and touch lives there

-God's protection and good health for us and our team during our time in Iquitos

- That God would continue to grow us and our willingness to obey Him in these last four weeks here

- For God to line everything up for our return to Indiana (only 4 more weeks)

We will be returning from Iquitos on April 26 so I will write another update shortly after we return. We will probably have lots of pictures too.

The pics taken above are taken at Larcomar, a huge mall that is built into the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean. I don't like to think about earthquakes when we are there.

Much love,

Ser & Jer

P.S. I just read that ya'll experienced an earthquake this morning.....it's a great way to wake up, huh!