hole in the wall

This gives a new meaning to the phrase "Hole in the wall" Scott and Gordon are going to watch Cusco play football tomorrow. Scott told us that he just needed to pay money at the hole in the wall in the stadium and here is a photo of that hole in the wall where you exchange money (15 soles approx £3) for a ticket to watch an international football game!

Nanny and Grandad visit Peru

Scott's parents have arrived, they are visiting us for 2 1/2 weeks there was a little space in their suitcase (but not much) for their own clothes and we are delighted to have them and all the goodies they brought with us. BMS World mission does not allow us to have family visit us in our first year as we are settling in, and now that time is up it is great to have grandparents visiting. They have been busy reading stories and being read to, playing with lego, making a book, watching Sam play football ( and apparently joining in as well as introducing the game of rugby!) as well as seeing the plaza de armas this morning. It doesn't sound like it but we really are trying to take their first few days slowly whilst they adjust to the altitude.

Kids Event on the local sports court today

making bracelets with coloured beads which explain the gospel story

teaching the lesson after each game

water games

balloon vollet ball
having fun with the microphone

afterwards over 100 people squashed into the cafe for drinks and popcorn!

busy busy busy!



Over 80 local kids came today!

Today the president of the local community and the secretary of local sporting events gave us the use of the sports courts and electricity from his house for free. We put on an event called
"Kids Games" where we divided up children into age groups then played different games, each game had a meaning or a lesson behind it so after each game the children sat and listened to the teaching, at the end the children heard a simple gospel presentation and made bracelets with coloured beads which tell the story of why Jesus died for us on the cross.
Afterwards over 100 children and adults walked 2 minutes back to the coffee shop, it was a very exciting time!
We hope to do a similar activity in the future hopefully on a monthly basis and some of the new church members also are keen to help us run the event which is really wonderful!

dinner party at Paul and Lucys

Our friends Paul and Lucy Seary are having a fundraising dinner party tonight to help us raise funds for El Puente Cafe Iglesia. Thanks so much hope you have a great time!!!

wonderful warm socks

Huge thanks to our church family at Stanton Rd Baptist church and Hadrian fellowship, Bedfordshire for collecting warm socks for us to give out to people who suffer from the cold here in the mountains in Peru.

When Beaula (long time supporter of BMS) read our prayer letter saying that last winter people died from the cold in the mountains she wanted to do something to help. So we decided that the church would collect warm socks which we will distribute. People in Peru don't have warm houses or central heating and the winter months (May-August) can be deadly!

Debbie also in the photo helped Beaula collect the socks, Debbie is a long time supporter of the Williamson family , 10 years ago she was on the support group that encouraged Scott to first enter ministry. Debbie and Ant's 2 daughters Jess and Tash are visiting us to help us with our work next March during their student Easter holiday, as the socks arrive over the next few months we will distribute some for Christmas and Anjanette will give some out to the patients she meets in the clinic, often they wear rubber tyre flip flop like sandals and walk for miles in the cold wearing only this! We will keep some more to distribute when the really cold weather comes next year too.

Thankyou Stanton Rd and Hadrian fellowship God bless you!!

Video clips from our Sunday Service

Late night opening

We have started opening the cafe in the evenings at the weekends, tonight we had tables outside and projected Christian music DVDs on to the wall. We are delighted that many different people are stopping by and we are having lots of opportunities to meet and share with people.

Ausungate school anniversary

the teachers dancing in the streets with the school's banner

firework display spelling the school's name Ausungate

the band playing

Mickey and Minnie lanterns

great atmosphere parading our torches in the plaza de armas


To celebrate the school anniversary the children and families enjoyed a torch parade from Plaza Nazarena through the plaza de armas and up to Plaza San Blas where there was an impressive fireworks display. It was fun to be there celebrating with teachers and other parents who in a short time have become our friends. All the children brought a torch made of a candle , a bamboo frame and tissue paper, a few went up in flames but most remained intact and the atmosphere with the torchlight and the live band playing was a real fiesta!

quotes from the Williamson household this week

Samuel said to Jessica Mi Casa su Casa

Scott to Anjanette Why is it that you are hanging up fresh smelling washing and I am
cleaning out smelly drains!

Jessica : I love examens they are so easy and afterwards you get to have a really long play

Jessica: He is so lucky having diarrhoea he gets to drink cocoa cola !

Samuel: Viva La tierra Viva el Sol !

Anjanette to Samuel: Please play quietly when you wake up at 0530!
Anjanette to Scott: let's try and black out the windows in Samuel's room!

Samuel: I can hear the pumping of my heart

Anjanette : there is so much chlorine in the tap water it's like washing my hair in swimming pool water

Scott: how amazing, we prayed before the service that the coffee shop landlandy would come to the service and she did!

2 new groups started today

our new adolescentes group

How exciting! This afternoon there was a great atmosphere in the cafe church, exactly how we'd hoped it would be. A couple of tables were occupied with people ordering drinks and snacks, 2 tables were joined together for our new activities , we had 2 new groups one after the other first at 4 pm we had about 6 men attend mens' bible study then at 5pm we had our new young teenagers cell group and 9 attended. On the other table Anjanette was chatting with friends (teachers and parents from Jess and Sam's school) while Jess and Sam played with their children in the kids corner.
Please pray for these new groups and that folk from the church will continue to take more and more responsibility for leading the groups since the radicales have 5 weeks left here with us!

First bath in a whole year!

Yesterday we celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary, in 12 years of married life we have lived worked and studied in London, Luton, Carshalton Beeches, New Malden , Birmingham , Arequipa and Cusco. It has certainly been full of changes and surprises and God has blessed us with each other and 2 great children .
Last night after church the radicals babysat (put the kids to bed and took them to school too) and we went out for dinner and stayed overnight in a hotel in the centre of Cusco. What a treat ! We didn't even pay for the hotel just walked in and said our name since the hotel belongs to a friend, one of the many treats was that the hotel has a bath with a lot of hot running water so we enjoyed a nice soak for the first time in over a year!!

Jessica Knows best

well today is one of the Saturdays (every other week) for a while when we are supposed to send Jess and Sam to school to make up for weeks they missed when the school was shut due to government concerns over swine flu. To the teachers' horror we have opted not to send them on Saturdays since they need to rest and we run a kids club on Saturday morning at church which they enjoy. This week was an exception and we gave Jess the choice to go since her year would be watching a production from a theatre company and she chose to go. When she asked Anjanette if she could wear her own clothes to school the answer was "No, wear your school uniform". When Scott took her to school and found the other children wearing their own clothes he popped home for a change of clothes for her, on his arrival she told him she had a secret. "Daddy I have got my own clothes on under my school uniform because I knew best!!"

yummy cakes jenga and facepaints

Our friends in the missionary community are helping us make homemade cakes muffins and cookies for the cafe, they are going down a treat!!Yesterday some facepaints and the game Jenga arrived to use in the cafe too all the way from Surrey in England thanks Lesley and Roger from Godalming. This really is team ministry and we appreciate all the help and support from everyone!

La Fragancia de la Mujer

Anjanette attended a conference last week called La Fragancia de la Mujer, a couple hundred delegates from different evangelical churches in Cusco were there. Everyone was given a badge with a blue ribbon saying delegate but if you were a minister's wife you had the privelege of a badge with a pink ribbon saying pastora ! 60 pentecostal ladies from Lima came to take part , all ages and shapes and sizes all wearing identical light pink suits, they sang a song (which the pianist didn't know )about women in the bible and then they did a dance using silk cushions with tiaras placed on top of the cushions! in peruvian style it started 1 hr late so unfortunately they cut out most of the songs then they had 3 women preach pretty much one after the other with no comfort breaks ! listening to 3 spanish sermons was a bit much for me but I managed to stay with them for most of it! In some ways quite a bizarre experience I'm not really used to pink suited cushion dancing 3 sermon in a row conferences BUT there was no mistaking the passion that these ladies have for God , the preaching of God's word was powerful and it was really a privilege to join with other christian ladies from Cusco in worshiping and learning together.

some clangers for Janet

Our dear faithful friend Janet Hale from Carshalton Beeches reads this blog and prays for us daily, she is also great at sending us news about church family which really helps us feel in touch. She told us the date of friends' golden wedding anniversary this weekend so Scott was able to surprise them with a phone call on the day!

Well she asked me if we had dropped any clangers as we try and communicate in spanish . The answer is yes many, and although people are polite sometimes they can't hide their amusement.Here are a few to amuse you

1 receta means recipe and prescription , recibo means receipt. The word receta sounds like it should mean receipt so Anjanette often confuses her patients saying they need to take a receipt when she means to say take this prescription!!

2 Sopa means soup, Jabon means soap , we confused Goya our home help saying we needed soup for the bathroom , not helped by Samuel now calling it sopa de bano!

3 Dientes means teeth, dentista means dentist, in his sermon yesterday Scott was talking about a daily routine and how reading our bible must be part of that routine. Every day we get up, get dressed have breakfast and clean our dentist !!

4 Debil means weak, delgado means thin. When talking about how our western stomachs are not used to eating all types on peruvian food Scott said he has a thin stomach!!!

and believe me there are many more but God is good and really helping us with spanish, our communication skills are rapidly improving, the kids are talking fluently and Jessica is reading and writing really well in spanish too, from time to time Samuel still like to speak his own language Jupiter (pronounced hoo-pi-tair) Please keep praying for us as we learn the language!

trip to Pisac with the radicales

Last weekend we took the radicales for a drive out to visit Pisac in the sacred valley. They are working hard in the cafe church and it was good for them to have a change of scenery. As you can see Jess and Sam are absolutely loving having them around!