Vikki and I have both been at our new jobs at the Diospi Suyana hospital for a couple of weeks now and we are really enjoying that! So far we are dividing the work week between the two of us (Steven 3 and Vikki 2) so that one of us is always there to bring Leah to school and to pick her up again and also to be with Olivia.

Leah and Olivia

We notice that both of our girls really need us to be there for them. After the first couple of days at school Leah has been finding it really difficult to say goodbye to us each morning. To motivate her not to cry when saying goodbye at school we have been giving here 10 centimos (about €0,025) that she gets to keep is she does not cry. If this is working or we do not know for sure but the last couple of days she has definately been doing better. Olivia wakes up crying almost every night and during the day she needs a lot of attention as well. We think that this is simply some unrest coming out due to moving around a lot and to the fact that after spending 6 months together as a family she now has to say goodbye to Leah each morning and has to miss me or Vikki as well as we head off to work.

For us it is really important that the girls are doing good and that they get the attention that they need. When we feel it is possible I will work 4 days instead of 3.

Vikki at work

Vikki has been enjoying her werk here since day 1. There is more time and attention for the patients than was the case in the Netherlands. She works together with 2 Peruvian colleagues. One has ben trained as a physical therapist assistent and the other is a nurse that has been taught the basics of physical therapy before the previous physical therapist left. So far the three are working together really well. Vikki has been observing her colleagues a lot and is giving them some tips here and there. She has much freedom in her work and she really likes that. It did (and does) take some getting used to being approached as a superior by her colleagues. For example she was quite surprised when her colleagues asked her on her first day at work at what they would be lunching starting then. Naturally Vikki could decide that given that she is the ‘boss’.

Steven at work

I am really enjoying my work as well. It is much broader than what I used to do in the Netherlands. Now I am officially the ‘Vice administrador’ of the hospital which fortunately does not mean that I mainly do administration. Together with my German colleague Matthias I am responsible for several parts of the organisation like human resources, accounting, finances and systems and information management. We are for example involved in job interviews, we give presentations to the directors and personnel on certain developments, we approve daily payments and we are involved in improving our systems.

Besides work

Our life besides work also begins to take shape with a weekly prayer group that Vikki is a part of and a weekly bible study that Steven participates in. We are currently visiting different churches and we hope to soon decide which church we are going to get involved in for the coming years. We are also getting to know the shops in town. For example there is this shop that sells many different sorts of flower, grains and seeds. Very useful because we bake our own bread almost every day. Furthermore we now know where at the market we can best buy our fruits and vegetables. We no longer have to leave the house to get milk as a women from our neighbourhood sells fresh milk (still a little warm even) and delivers it to our house every Monday and Friday.

In short we are thankful for how it has been going up to now. Adapting to this new life can be quite tiring at times but we are convinced now more than ever that we are where God wants us to be and that is what counts. We do feel like we can make ourselves useful at the hospital and we hope to show something of Jesus’ love at our jobs and elsewhere. Thanks for all your support and attention!