The Ruggles wish you a

...Happy
Thanksgiving

We are thankful to God because He loved us first and sent His Son.

...Merry
Christmas.

May the good news of Christ’s birth bring you great joy.

Happy New Year

Here’s wishing you all a wonderful new year.

Love Steve, Veva, Peter and Ruth

Glimpses into Peter and Ruth’s Lives

...at School
Peter completed 4th grade and moved on to 5th grade. In fourth grade, he enjoyed science where they used legos for learning. Peter loves legos and is collecting them. He enjoys creating his own models. Now in 5th, he enjoys Social Studies. For extra credit, he built an adobe house by mixing dirt, grass and water to make the bricks. Steve helped Peter made a mold to make several bricks at a time to speed up the process. His next favorite part is the Accelerated Reading Program. He reads books on the list and takes tests to accumulate points to reach his goal. Each nine weeks, he has to set a goal in his class. The first nine weeks, he reached his goal earning a book and an ice cream sundae. Ruth completed 3rd grade and moved on to 4th grade. Ruth’s third grade year was a sad year as her teacher got sick and was unable to finish out the school year. She really missed Miss Thudium but seemed to adjust well to the substitute, Mrs. Roark. Acting in the school’s 1st- 3rd grade musical was a highlight for the year. They put on a play about Crayons to say thanks to Binney and Smith for the many years they had been in our community. Ruth played the purple crayon and did a wonderful job. Ruth continues her acting career for she now has a lead part in our Christmas play at our church. Now in 4th grade, Ruth continues to do very well at school and especially enjoys reading books and math.

…at Church Camp

Peter and Ruth spent five days at Church Camp at Camp Quakerhaven right outside of Ark City. This year was the first year both children were able to attend. It was a wonderful time for them as they learned about how to be a Christian in a non-Christian world. Other highlights for them included: singing, sliding down on a three hump slide in the rain and treasure hunting.

…at Awana

Awana 96-97 was really a good year for the kids. Peter was able to finish his book to receive the Excellent Trophy and the pin for book review. Ruth too finished her book and received her first book ribbon and book review pin. Awana 97-98 started in September and both Steve and Veva are involved as leaders. Peter moved up to Pioneers and Ruth remains in the Chums for one more year.

 

Glimpses into Our Family Events

This summer was full of family events. We had two Family Reunions. In June, we got familiar with the Ruggles and in July it was the Rules. We got to meet a lot of new faces this summer and put some faces to people we had either been corresponding to through e-mail or on our genealogy list.

Last School Year, both kids decided to participate in the Math-a-thon sponsored by their school to help the St. Jude Hospital. They had to earn so much money by finding sponsors to pay them to work on a Math workbook. The kids earned enough money to receive a free

T-shirt plus a free pass to Six Flags. In May, we took the kids out of school and headed to Six Flags in St. Louis. We picked St. Louis since Steve’s sister, Sharon, also lives there. We had a wonderful time and the kids got their first real experience riding roller coaster. You will have to ask them how they liked it.

We also spent time camping and fishing out at the Winfield City Lake. See what Steve caught, a five and a half pound Carp.

Glimpses into Steve and Veva’s Lives

…at Conferences

Veva attended a Moms In Touch Conference in Tulsa the end of September. She is encouraged and it gave her new ideas as she prepares for starting up again.

Steve went to the Standing in the Gap at Washington, DC sponsored by Promise Keepers. It was a special experience of gathering together with men across the nation for purpose of prayer and repentance.

… at Work

Steve continues to work at Southwestern College. December, will be three years. This past year his job responsibilities has changed. He has been relieved of the major part of maintenance across the campus. He still does some but now mainly his job is to supervise the computer lab and the lab aids and purchases the computers and supplies.

…on a Mission Work Team

On July 16, we (Steve and Veva) and another couple from our church, Mike and Carma Rethmeier, began our mission trip to Lima, Peru. We left Wichita at 2pm and flew to Chicago to Miami to Lima arriving at 4:30am. In Miami we picked up Eric Peterson a much needed translator for us all since our vocabulary of Spanish was very limited. Once arriving in Lima we were picked up by Sanny Munnell, one of the missionaries. He took us first to the houses where we would all be staying. We were dropped off at his house while the others were taken to other church members houses. Upon arrival we got settled in and decided to rest. Boy were we tired. About 10am we headed over to the El Redentor Church where we would begin doing construction work. This was our main purpose to help in the construction of their church so the ministry of El Redentor could get closer to their goal of reaching the upper middle class in Lima. Every morning before we started work we met together and had a team devotion. We did construction work everyday except for Sunday which was a day of worship and rest. We did a variety of different work. We tied rebar together to reinforce concrete beams and columns plus mixed and poured the cement for them. Other work we did was move 1000 brick, build a brick wall, cut wire, sand chairs to paint and basic clean up. We were surprised on how much work the four of us were able to get done. One thing we were aware of was how almost everything was done with man power and not much modern day tools. We watched a crew of men carrying cement up to the third floor. The crew walked up a flight of stairs and up a wooden ramp carrying a five gallon bucket on their shoulder. They worked from 11am to 9pm until the floor was poured. Steve wanted to experience the work they were doing so he carried up three buckets. After the third, he said his legs were a little shaky.

Everyday at work the women of El Redentor served us the noon meal. The food was good. Almost every meal was served with rice and some type of potato. There was four different types of potatoes we ate through out the time. They had the white potato, golden potato, a freeze dried potato and a potato shaped liked a peanut which had a texture like a carrot. They were fixed either as part of the main dish or appetizers. We never went hungry but mostly rolled away from the table. We worked hard and ate good.

In the evening we spent time with Missionary families or Church Members. It gave us an insight into each of their lives. In the Evangelical Free Missionary Team in Lima there are 4 families serving. We got to see a little glimpse of their work on the mission field. The one thing that struck us was that the conveniences we believe we have to have here in USA are not as important as sharing God’s Word and doing His Will. These four families each worked in one of the four churches in Lima. Their ministry varied from actually working as Children Ministry Director to leading and training people in Bible Studies in a one on one or group setting.

Veva went down with ear problems so there was times she was unable to do some of the construction, so she helped in other ways. She helped dry dishes after much sign language, cleaned out supply cabinets for the Sunday School Department, and helped in their Awana club by doing paper work for them.

We met some lovely people from Lima. Our biggest barrier was communication. We were very thankful for Eric’s presence. Some things we were able to get across but to really carry on a conversation Eric was necessary. The native language for Lima was Spanish. Looking back now on our time, you still could feel the love of God radiating from these people. It amazed us that the sounds they made could be organized so that they could understand each other. What amazing God we have. At time I felt like I was a the Tower of Babel where only a few could understand each other. The church service was wonderful all in Spanish but you could feel God’s presence while they worshipped Him in song. We were able to recognized a few of their songs by the tune.

We were amazing healthy except for the Veva’s ear problem. We couldn’t drink the water but had to use bottle water. It was inconvenient at times, especially when you go to brush your teeth. Since we couldn’t drink the water, we drank fruit juices or pop. We were exposed to Blue Corn drink, Passion Fruit Juice and Inca Soda

The traffic in Lima was a mad house. Everyone was concern about getting ahead. We were amazed that their wasn’t more accidents. If you were at an intersection and wanted to go straight, you had to always check the traffic to the right because it was very common that they would decided to turn left right in front of you.

The last two days we were in Lima, it was their Independence Day so it meant no work. We were able to see some Inca Ruins - their Sun Temple and attend their Independence Day parade. The parade was a military parade. We saw a band riding horses, lots of marching military, and we were only a block away from the Peru’s President. There was lots of security all over with guns and dogs. It sure was different from our festive parades.

Overall we saw God’s protection for our health and safety. We also saw how He is everywhere and wants all to come to know Him. When we were flying home, Steve and I watched out our window. Looking down I thought of a song our kids love to sing. The verse goes: "When the Lord looks down from the heaven to the ground, I’m no bigger then a little grain of sand. But He lets me know that He loves me so and He holds me in His Hand." It amazes me how big the world is but God knows me.

While we were in Lima, the kids too had a wonderful time with my sister, Gloria and her family. There were involved in VBS where they did Indian crafts and Rodeo Day where they entered a bike and roller blade race. They both received a prize. Peter summed it all up saying, "Mom, I missed you but then I really didn’t". My response to it was, " Well Peter I missed you too, but I really didn’t either. We were very glad that they too had a fun time. We would like to again say thanks to all of you who helped make this trip a reality, especially for all your pray and financial support. May you all have a wonderful holidays.