Asi es la vida...

A big move!

Once again, it has been too long since our last update. Sorry!

We have news! Adriana and I have decided that in June, after this academic year ends, we will be moving back to Grand Rapids, MI. This decision was not easy. We spent several months wrestling with this decision, praying, and seeking counsel. Ultimately, we decided that it is the right thing to do for a few reasons.

First, since July 2023, my entire family lives in the Grand Rapids area. This will be the first time that everyone lives in the same city since 2004, when I was 16 years old. We would like to spend time with family before we move back to Peru (see our timeline below).

Second, we lived for eight years in Grand Rapids before moving to Illinois in 2021. We have an amazing network of friends as well as a great church family there. As we prepare to serve as missionaries, we feel that spending our last year and a half in the U.S. in that context will be good for our family and will be ideal for launching into our ministry in Peru. So, we are excited to be heading back to MI!

At the same time, moving is never easy. We will be leaving a lot of dear friend in Illinois. We have been blessed with a church community that has loved and cared for us. The academic community at Wheaton has been a major blessing for me in my studies… I’ve grown so much! So, this decision and the upcoming move are bittersweet. We are trusting that, even though it is difficult, it will be for the best in the long run.

Please Pray!

Our decision to move back to Grand Rapids does not mean that we have figured out (any of) the details. Please pray with us for the following things:

Provision of a place to live, school for the kids, part-time work.
That our kids would adjust well. They are excited, but also sad to leave life in IL.
We recently began the process of raising financial support for our mission work in Peru. We are slowly making progress, but we have a long way to go.

Mission Timeline

Our goal since 2013, when we moved to the U.S. from Lima, Peru has been to return to Peru as missionaries to provide theological education. Our decade-long sojourn in the U.S. is nearing its end. We are planning on the following timeline:

June 2024 – Move from Carol Stream, IL to Grand Rapids, MI
May 2025* – Complete and defend dissertation
January 2026 – Move to Lima, Peru

*May 2025 is a bit of an ambitious goal. However, that is what I am aiming for. If I’m not able to reach that goal, then I would likely defend in the Fall of 2025.

Ph.D. Progress Tracker

Dissertation

Ch. 1 (20k words) has been submitted and reviewed by my advisor.
Submitting ch. 2 (est. 12-15k words) in the next 2 weeks.

Comprehensive Exam

15 of 36 book reviews complete.

A ministry success!

Adriana and I have been working part-time at our church, All Peoples Fellowship (APF), since we moved to Carol Stream, IL in 2021. Our original task was to serve the younger families. So, we decided to try something new for the church: community group.

The idea of community group was to create a family-like atmosphere where people could get to know each other at a deeper level. Every week, we share a meal, pray for each other, and look at a passage of Scripture. The group has been a blessing in many ways for those that have participated, but we have struggled to bring new people in.

Until recently, that is. In the past few of weeks, a few new families have joined the church and one couple joined our community group. In addition, some of the longtime members have expressed interest in joining.

It has been a big encouragement for us to see the vision begin to catch on!

Family Update

Recently Adriana began a job as a behavioral technician working with children on the autism spectrum. She has enjoyed using her degree in psychology and helping these young kids learn and grow.

The week before Thanksgiving, I travelled to San Antonio for a series of professional conferences. Our mission organization rented a house for 17 missional scholars to stay together. We enjoyed a time of fellowship and iron-sharpens-iron interaction. It was a pleasure to meet for the first time several of my colleagues who serve across the globe.

I also had the opportunity to present a paper at the Evangelical Theological Society titled “Silly and Without Sense: Old Testament Anthropology and Knowledge in Hosea.” This paper jump started me on research for a chapter in my dissertation.

Ph.D. Progress Tracker

In order to complete my Ph.D. program, I need to write a dissertation (approx. 100k words in 7 ch.) and complete comprehensive exam (read and write 36 book reviews, then take exam).

My dissertation looks at the critique of religion in Hosea contextualized for Latin America.

Dissertation

Submitting ch. 1 (20k words) on December 8.

Comprehensive Exam

14 of 36 book reviews complete.

I think it’s time…

In August of 2021, our family of six uprooted from Grand Rapids, MI after eight lovely years and moved to Illinois so that I could pursue a PhD in Old Testament at Wheaton College. The move was difficult for us because Grand Rapids had become our home in a way that Adriana and I never expected. We bought a house, earned degrees, made meaningful friendships, and had our four children in GR. We came to Illinois with a goal: to earn a PhD so that we could return to Peru, where Adriana and I grew up, to serve the Peruvian church through theological education.

When we arrived, I had the lofty (and unrealistic) goal of posting regular updates so that our friends and family could keep track of us. And, I ended up writing one… the first week of the PhD program. It was sort of a “goodbye” to GR and a “hello” to a new life. And that was it! I guess I underestimated the busyness and difficulty of settling in, starting a PhD program, finding our groove as a family, and everything else. One post in 2 years. Wow!

Well, I think it’s time to try again. This time, we are in a much better place. I am now in the dissertation phase of the program, which means that I no longer am taking classes and just need to write a dissertation (essentially a 300-page research paper). The family is settled; we have a rhythm and know what to expect, for the most past, out of each week.

So, I will begin posting on this site on a regular basis. By regular, I mean at least every 2-months. Depending on how things go, I may post more than that. Unless something unexpected happens, it is unlikely that posts will go up less frequently. A big part of the reason that it is time to start again is that once the PhD is behind us (the goal is about 2 years from now), we will be moving back to Lima, Peru. Over these next two years, we will be preparing intentionally for this move. One part of that preparation is making sure that we stay connected to friends and family in the US. This site will play a role in that.

So… here it goes!

Stability at last?

The last few months have been, well, crazy.

In April, Imara Urpi Panaggio Vilca, our 4th child (3rd daughter) was born.
In May, we sold our house, and I started an 8-week intensive German reading course that was supposed to take 35-40 hours per week (while working full-time).
In June, I left my job, we had a great long visit from family that lives in Peru, and we closed on our house.
In July, we packed up everything we own and tried to say goodbye to as many people as possible in Grand Rapids, MI, our home for the past 8 years.
In August, we went to Florida for my cousin’s wedding and for a family vacation.
On August 12, we moved to Carol Stream, Illinois, to a house that we had only seen from the outside.

Since we arrived, we have spent a ton of time cleaning, fixing, unloading, unpacking, arranging, etc. We are probably 70% of the way unpacked. Yet, it still feels like we have quite a long way to go. Moving is hard work!

These months of transition have taken a toll on our young family. We have all been tired, stressed out, a little too irritable, and in serious need of stability. And, as I sit in our new “master bedroom” (Adriana and I actually have our own bathroom!) with a fan keeping us cool (we’ll have A/C soon, just need to do an air-duct cleaning) resting on a yet-to-be unpacked box (which is right in front of a five-foot stack of other yet-to-be unpacked boxes), I wonder how long it will take for us to feel settled. How long will it take for this place to feel like home?

I also wonder, is this just a temporary stop on our long-term journey back to Peru. Or, is it more?

What will it take for this place to win our hearts?

A mini family history might explain why I’m having these thoughts. Adriana and I moved from Lima, Peru to Grand Rapids, MI in 2013. Our plan was for me to earn a Master of Divinity, Adriana to earn a Bachelor’s degree, and then to return to Peru as fast as possible. At first, we thought we could to it in 3.5 years. The first 8-12 months, we thought constantly about Peru and schemed about how and when we could visit. This impacted our decision-making and our settledness (I know that’s probably not a word, but it should be!). For example, we didn’t buy bikes because we thought, “for the price of bikes we could pretty much buy a plane ticket home”. This was an unhealthy way to live. But it is a pretty accurate description of the beginning of our time in GR.

However, once we realized we couldn’t continue living like that, several things changed. We began investing in our life in GR, and, 3.5 years turned into 8. Over this time, in many ways, Grand Rapids became our home. We made amazing friends, we bought our first house, we had four (!) kids, we were part of an incredible church that gave us so much life (shoutout to Redemption City Church), and much more. Grand Rapids will always own a part of both Adriana’s and my heart.

Will the same thing happen in Illinois? It’s hard to say. For the time being, we are working hard at making this house, which God graciously provided through Fellowship Church of Carol Stream, our home for the next several years. And, although transition is hard, we have a long list of reasons to be thankful:

For a place to live. A 3-bedroom house that, in many ways, came out of nowhere
For a dual-language public school for Aila.
For a church that has welcomed us with gifts and kind words.
For my PhD program that starts tomorrow!
For great friends and family who helped us move (Susie, Emily, Josh, Katie, Mom, Dad, Joshua you all were soooo helpful).
For an incredible friend who drove down from GR to Il to help us settle in.
For the many memories in our first house.
For Redemption City Church.
For a Peruvian restaurant just 25 minutes away from our new home!!!!!
For friends from GR in Naples.
For a quick visit to one of my best friends growing up while we were in Florida.
And so much more.

Below are some pictures of our recent journeys…

Family Florida Vacation Extravaganza