Yendo a Casa

We had a Debriefing thingy at a camp outside of Lima for like 3 days. We did 3-a-day worship services/share times. It was cool to hear about what happened in the villages, especially in the ones that we had visited. Other than the meetings, we pretty much just hung out and relaxed at the camp. We came back to Lima on Sunday, and a lot of people went to the jungle. Because I'm flying out 3 days before most people, I wasn't able to go to the jungle. I've been chilling in Lima by my lonesome, and I really don't mind. Today, I spent the entire day at the market, buying all kinds of crap. I really don't have much to report on right now, cuz life has been fairly boring lately. It's been nice to reflect on all the things God did this summer and how lucky I am to have taken part in it all. It's been a ride. Thanks to all for reading my ramblings and for praying for me. Estoy listo para ir a casa.

I leave Bible verses at the end of most of my posts. I can tell that no one reads them, because they are absolutely rediculous and would merit a comment. I encourage y'all to go back and read a few of the verses I've posted, or all of them. You probably won't regret it.

El Fin, Por Fin

We be done. We arrived in Lima at about 3pm today. We have a 2.5-day Debriefing thingy at a camp near Lima, then I hang out in Lima for a few days, then I fly home the night of the 31st. My last blog post told of Lampa. The afternoon after my last post, I had a perfect opportunity to talk to a 9 yr old girl about Christ. The girl, Ayde, lives at the hostel we stayed at in Lampa. We were there for a few days, and I made an effort to get to know Ayde early on. She was kinda shy, but we became friends. I got to know all of the people living and working at the hostel: Ayde, Señora Julia, Zefarin, Anni, and Señor Mendez. The day before we left, I got a perfect opportunity to talk to Ayde in the afternoon. She and I were the only ones out in the little courtyard at the time. I got one of my children's Bibles, got her to quit cleaning for a minute, and we sat down and read some stories. She didn't accept Christ that day, but she listened very intently and we had a good talk. She is growing up in a Christian environment and I'm sure she will continue to read the kid's Bible I gave her. We left Lampa the next day, and I had a hard time saying goodbye to the whole family. I built good relationships with them and they didn't want me to leave either. We made it all the way to Nuñoa the same day we left Lampa, after a combi ride, bus ride, and truck ride. We found the Nuñoa team and spent our days doing whatever we could. We did our skits at a church, did puppets for children's church, and performed at a private school. We weren't able to go to other schools because the public schools are still striking. We played soccer with kids in the afternoons. Honestly, we were ready to leave Nuñoa ASAP. The people there all have staring problems. EVERYONE stares at the Gringos as we pass by, and the kids always say stuff and laugh at us. It got super-irritating really fast. We got to know some of the kids, but most of them just tried our patience. We left Nuñoa Monday at 12:45pm. We stopped in Ayaviri and Juliaca and changed vehicles before finally ending up in Puno. We stayed the night in Puno and visited Lake Titicaca on Tues morning. Titicaca is the highest elevation navegable lake in the world. On it are "floating islands," which amount to a big tourist trap. We boated out to some actual floating islands, all with nothing but little huts on them, and women selling souvenirs. We stayed out there for a couple of hours, bought some cool tapestries, and boated back. We had to get out of Puno and head back to Juliaca ASAP so that we wouldn't miss our 4:30pm bus ride. We at lunch in Juliaca and finally boarded the bus at about 5:10pm. The bus was supposedly gonna arrive in Lima at noon the next day, Wed. We stopped in Arequipa for about 45 mins at 10pm that night, but we otherwise didn't stop during the whole trip. We went all through the night and finally got into Lima at 2:40pm today, Wed. The total length of ride: 21.5 hours. Fun, fun. We crammed into a taxi and moved into a hostel as quickly as we could. We all took showers for the first time in days. For me, first time in 10 days. We ate at Friday's (yes, the same Friday's) and loved every bite of it. Tomorrow, we chill in Lima and then head to the camp for debriefing. It's nice to be back in true civilization and not be stared at for being a Gringo. A lot of my time left here will be spent shopping for myself and others. If anyone has a request/idea for a present, PLEASE write it to me in a comment or something.

Revelation 17:4-6

Lampa

We took a circuitous route from Nazca. We were trying to go straight to Juliaca, which would have taken about 16 hours. Instead, because roads were shut down (strikes), they took a southern road that goes far out of the way. We arrived in Desaguadero after a 22 hour bus trip. It was cool though, because we got to go to Bolivia. The hostel we stayed at was about 100 yards from the border. All we had to do was walk across the bridge, without showing passports, and we were in Bolivia. We walked around in Bolivia for about an hour, but it was honestly pretty boring. Everyone that lives around the area and sells cool stuff, like the stuff I would buy, sets up shop in Peru because they can make more money than in Bolivia. We left Desaguadero and spent the next night in Puno, a little closer to our true destination. Puno was cool because we were on Lake Titicaca, the highest-elevation navagable lake in the world. The next day, we finally made it to a village, Lampa. We had been trying to reach our next village for 8 days. The strikes shut down roads and crap, and we had to cut out two villages on our schedule and head to Lampa. Lampa is cool, and we're glad to be back in a village. It has been one of the easier stays. The town is larger than any we've been to, which means having all sorts of amenities: a bank, a tennis court, ping pong, internet, drug stores, and all kinds of shops and stands. The food here is the cheapest we've eaten. We eat lunch for 2.50 soles and supper for 2.00 soles. A meal includes soup, an entree with meat and rice, jello, and tea. All of this for less than $0.75! We haven't been able to perform our skits or puppets yet, because we usually do them in schools. The schools here are still shut down because of strikes. But, we're gonna try to perform in the plaza tonight. There's sure to be a crowd. People are everywhere at night. We've pretty much just been hanging out with the Peruvian believers in town for a few days. Tomorrow, we're heading to our next site, Nuñoa. I think I may have deleted a lot of my pictures by trying to load one, so I really need to get away from all things technology right now, before I turn green.

Judges 15:16

All in God's Plan

If you remember, I wrote about a guy named Carlos in my post dubbed "Nascar" (3 posts ago). If you don't remember, I encourage you to go back and read that post before you read any further..... Intermission...... He's a guy that lives here in Nazca and works 7 days a week on a bus that goes to Bella Union. I asked that y'all pray for him and I've been praying for him as well. Last week during our time in Nazca, I prayed that I would get to see Carlos again, so I could talk to him more. I thought that the prayers went unanswered. Well, as I said in my previous post, we were unexpectedly redirected to Nazca yesterday. We were supposed to have not returned here for the remainder of the summer. Well, about 30 mins after we got here, we were walking around and just HAPPENED to see Carlos at the bus station, getting ready to depart for Bella Union. It was so unexpected. He was on top of the bus loading luggage, so we couldn't really talk to him at the time. Plus, as soon as he got down, he was gonna have to leave anyway. So, we basically just said hey and went on about our business. Immediately, and throughout the remainder of the day, I felt horrible about it. I had begged God to give me an opportunity to see Carlos again, He had given me the opportunity, and what did I do with it? I was really disappointed/mad at myself.
Well, this morning, we had our Bible study on Ecclesiastes 2, and we talked about not regretting anything we do in life (like King Solomon did). That wasn't all we talked about, but it really made me think about Carlos. I decided that I was going to go to the bus station at 10am and wait for him to return from Bella Union this morning. So I did, and Solomon came with me. And sure enough, Carlos arrived. I was so happy to see him. We got on the bus (it never really stops), and rode through Nazca a little bit. Carlos was happy to see us as well, but he still had to work. He told us he would meet us in a park in an hour (at 11:30). We trusted that he would show, so we got off the bus. We farted around for an hour and then went to the park. 11:30 came and went, and Carlos didn't show. We waited and we waited, confident that he would come (Carlos is on Peruvian time, which converts to 30-45 mins late). It got to be 12:30, and we were just about to go and look for Carlos, when he showed up in a car and honked at us. Solomon and I got in and he drove to a truck stop (much like one in the states). We wound up eating lunch with him at the truck stop restaurant. We (Solomon) slowly brought up the topic of religion. Eventually, after we were done eating, Solomon was hardcore sharing Christ. Because Carlos already knew the basics, we just clarified everything over and over. Carlos listened intently and at the end, Solomon asked him if he would like to accept Jesus into his life. He said that he wanted to! We talked about a few more things in the restaurant, and then asked if we could drive somewhere quiet to pray. So, Carlos drove us a little ways and parked beside the road. And there Solomon prayed, and Carlos repeated. It was totally awesome. Carlos is now a brother in Christ and gets to share with us in heaven. All of this is possible because God orchestrated our reunion with Carlos. Even when I tried to mess it up, He still put us three together (I couldn't have done it without Solomon; Carlos' accent is hard for me to understand). It turned out better in the end that we didn't talk to him yesterday, because we wouldn't have had time. But today, we had all the time we needed to bring him into the Kingdom. We, at first, thought that our time here in Nazca was an inconvenient delay, but now I praise God that we are stuck here. Continue to pray for Carlos. He is but a spiritual child. Thanks for taking the time to read these long posts.

Revelation 21:8

Nomads

We had a wondrous time in Marcabamba. We did leave Incuyo at about 4am on a bus and we got to Marcabamba around 10:30am. We met up with Jacob and Derek, the village team. We set up times in the schools for the next day. We got there on Wed and Thurs started a nation-wide, indefinite teacher's strike. We did our skits for the high schoolers on Thurs morning, even though they weren't having school. The teachers had them come to school just to watch us preach the Gospel, pretty much. It was sweet. As soon as that was over, we went to the elementary school, which also had kids there even though there was no school happening. Some of the teachers tried to keep us from doing our puppets and songs, but we were still able to do it. And, those kids were the best-behaved and most responsive kids we've ever had. It was awesome. Fri morning at 7am, we hiked up a mountain to a waterfall. The two levels combined reached about 80-90 feet. It was so stinking sweet. We sat at the bottom only for a moment before climbing up a little rock face to the second level. It was probably my most favorite place I've been while in Peru. I love waterfalls and sweet scenery like that. From the second level, we could see all of the surrounding mountains and valleys, and the mountains around Marcabamba are the prettiest ones we've seen yet. After the hike, the girls had a Bible study with about 7 girls. We found them with all of the girls after the Bible study, and all but one of the girls had accepted Christ. That was pretty sweet. Later that night, we did skits, puppets, and songs in a big hall in the middle of town. We weren't sure if anyone was going to show up (we had announced it), but there were tons of kids waiting before it started. A lot of adults stopped in and watched it too. God gave us about 75 people. We, Jacob and Solomon, presented the Gospel hardcore at the end for all of the people present. It was an awesome time that we totally didn't expect. Because the schools are all closed, we are going to have to rely on God to give us opportunities to perform elsewhere. We are confident that this will happen.
On Sat morn at 5am, we went to some hot springs with a Peruvian guy named James. The springs were super-sweet. There were four pools: 32, 35, 45, and 60 degrees celsius. The 32 and 35 degree pools were about like regular pools. The 45 degree pool was like a normal hot tub, which felt really good in the cold Andes mountains. The 60 degree pool was scalding, though. It was sooo stinking hot! We only got in it for a couple of mins just to display our manliness, and that was torture. 60 degrees Celsius is 140 degrees Farenheit! The pools we were actually in were man-made swimming pools, constantly warmed by hot water flowing from pipes. So, naturally, I followed the pipes up the nearby river to see where the hot water is coming from. I skipped around on rocks, in a riverbed, for quite a while before finding a small stream of hot water flowing from the mountain. According to the writing on the rock, the temp of the water there is 69 C, or 156 F. Sat at the hot springs was just about as much fun as much fun at the waterfall on Fri. On the way back to Marcabamba, we stopped in Colcabamba to meet all of James' family. Jacob and Derek have really been working on James and trying to get him to accept Christ. He hasn't yet made the decision, but he got us to share the entire story of Jesus with his family. So, Solomon, Derek, Jacob, and I talked to 6 of his family members for about 1.5 hrs and shared Christ with them. It was sweet as sugar. At the end, 2 of them prayed to accept Christ (Guillermo and his daughter). We were pumped about that as we walked back to Marcabamba. Our time in and around Marcabamba was absolutely remarkable.
We left Sun morn at about 6am, hoping to make it to Puquio. The best we could do was get to Pausa, which is far from Puquio. We were trying to get to Puquio by Sun night, Cusco by Mon afternoon, and Pomacanchi by Mon night (our next site). We got stuck in Pausa for the rest of the day on Sun. Cindy, a long-term missionary, lives in Pausa and took us in. She fixed us pancakes and banana nut muffins and let us stay in her little apartment. Her pancakes are fantastic! We tried to find a bus to Puquio for Sun or Mon, and could find neither. So, we were basically stuck in Pausa with no way out. We slept on Cindy's floor Sun night and then chilled ALL DAY Mon. We were happy to be in the company of a fellow American and a wonderfully hospitable cook, but we really needed to get out of there. She even fixed us pot roast and mashed potatoes! Holy crap, it was good! We felt absolutely useless though, stranded somewhere while we needed to be somewhere else.
We finally got a bus to Puquio on Tues morning at 9am. So, we thanked Cindy to death and peaced out. The ride to Puquio took us back through Incuyo, where we stopped for a little while and said hey to Brandy, Ivan, and another team that was there visiting. We made it to Puquio at 8pm and met up with two other missionary teams that had been stuck in Puquio. That was last night. We ate supper with them and they helped us find a hostel. I slept on the floor in the hostel last night, making three nights in a row. We got up early this morning for no reason at all. Our original plan was to be in Pomacanchi from Mon-Thurs. Pomacanchi is on the other side of Cusco. Right now, the country of Peru is in a minor state of turmoil. The teacher strike has encouraged multiple other groups to strike, and there have been riots and crap in a few major cities. Cusco is one of those. So, it was impossible for us to get to Cusco due to tranportation strikes. So, our only option was to head west, back to Nazca. This morning at 10:30, we secured a taxi driver that would take us to Nazca, because there were no buses going. We fit all of our crap and 6 bodies into a taxi for a 3 hour ride. Well, we made it to Nazca safe and sound about 3 hours ago. We've decided to skip Pomacanchi and head down to our next site, which is in the southern region of Puno, close to Juliaca. We tried to get a bus to Juliaca from here, but there are none because of the chaos. So, now we're stuck in Nazca! We're kind of wondering if we're ever gonna make it to our next site... and alive. For now, we're staying with some of Solomon's family (probably gonna sleep on the floor) until we can get to Juliaca. We may try to get a bus to Arequipa, which will get us a lot closer to Juliaca from here. Who knows? This post is rediculously lengthy, so I'll quit now.

Amos 2:16

Incuyo

We got here at 4am on Sunday and we're leaving at the same time tomorrow morning, so I need to make this quick so I can catch some "Z"s. This town has been pretty awesome. I met some cool kids during my first few waking hours here, and every day I've met more and more nice kids. The team in this town has done a lot of very good work here. They've seen a lot of salvations and the whole town knows why they're here. They have Bible studies at night during the week, and a lot of kids show up. We've been a part of that ministry, as well as doing our skits, puppets, and songs in three different schools. This pueblo is the furthest south we've been to so far and it's way up in the mountains. In case you've forgotten, it's also winter here. All of these facts together equal "hace frio", or translated, "it's cold as crap here at night". We're a couple miles from the peak of a snow-covered volcano, which provides awesome views. Don't worry, it has erupted for a couple of years. The name of it is Sara Sara. We've wanted so badly to climb it, but it would take all day and we're only here for a couple/few days. Anyway, we've had some really sweet ministry opportunites here. I've also gotten to play soccer with kids and adults for the past couple of days, now that my ankle is usable. Yesterday we made guacamole with some avocados that a family gave me. I made it just like we do at home, Mom and Papa, and it turned out perfect. I wound up eating an outrageous amount; I didn't want any to go to waste. We also had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the same meal. It was seriously one of the most satisfying meals I've had while in Peru; I was on the verge of buitriendo (puking) after the meal (we also had Peruvian cheese and crackers). I feel like we've made good use of our time here and that we've been a positive part of multiple lives here. A ton of kids showed up for Bible study tonight, and it was awesome! The village team has even found a group of three young men that might be able to be the leaders of the church/ministry after the missionaries leave. Brandy and Ivan are the team here, and they only have 9 more days to accomplish all they want to do here, so they could use prayer for that. As I said earlier, we're gonna catch a bus at 4am tomorrow, and hopefully we'll make it to our next site, Marcabamba. There is supposedly a country-wide tranportation strike going on, so that's why I say "hopefully." I'm going to miss the hole-in-the-ground "toilets" here in Incuyo, but maybe they'll have the same in Marcabamba...

Nahum 2:12

Nascar

Right now, we be in Nazca. Every one of the college-age Peru summer missionaries are in Nazca for Mid-Summer Debriefing. It's kind of a time for relaxation/encouragement/progress monitoring. A lot of people are leaving Peru after mid-summer and a lot of people are just arriving. It's somewhat similar to what we did at the beginning of the summer. Nazca is really really touristy, which is good for us whities. There are a lot of restaurants that serve US-style food, which is a luxury. There are also some good ice cream and coffee shops. Nazca is famous for the nearby Nazca lines, which are huge figures drawn in the middle of the desert by Incans(or some people group) thousands of years ago. Just Google Image it, you'll see. We've been eating well and taking hot showers and everything. We have 3 worship services a day, which I help lead in song. They are mainly about group share-time, though. It's been good to hear what others have been doing and the work that God's been doing all over southern Peru. We had a good time in Bella Union last week. It's the irt place we've been that isn't mountains. It's desert. We did our usual school performances and even performed some dramas at a festival, in front of hundreds of people. We hiked up a mountain that's on the side of a huge sand dune. It took about 1.5 hrs to get up, but we went down the other side. The other side was nothing but soft sand, so we do-shoed our feet. The incline was intense, seriously like 55-60 degrees steep. It was outrageously fun. We wound up running down the dune, zig-zagging like we were skiing. It was sooo much fun. My favorite ministry experience on the Bella Union trip was actually during the bus ride to and from Bella Union. On the way there, we met a guy that works on the bus (taking money and putting luggage up top) and talked to him for a while. Solomon wound up sharing the entire story of Jesus with him. He was very interested and attentive. We gave him an entire book of John and two tracts when we got off. When we got on the bus to Nazca (five days later), it was the same bus. And he was on it. We were able to talk to him a little more. He said he read the tracts and I asked him if he had any questions. He asked me what it means to be born again. So, he really did read it... We talked to him for a few mins, then a lot of people got on the bus and he had to move up front. I wrote a lot of Bible verse references down on a little piece of paper and handed it to him when we got off. He was genuinely interested, so I would love it if y'all would pray for him. His name is Carlos, he's 23, and he lives in Nazca. Well, I'm gonna go buy a phone card and maybe call a few folks.

2 Chronicles 18:33-34

Between Santiago de Chocorvos and Bella Union

We've been out of touch with civilization for the past few days. The internet in Santiago de Chocorvos is currently broken. We even spent the last day and a half without electricity in the whole town. I loved Santiago every bit as much as I loved Cusicancha. We built some amazing relationships with a bunch of kids during the four days we were there. The ¨truck¨ ride to get there was as interesting as I had anticipated. Solomon and I rode on the far back, on top of the bed of the truck. The ¨truck¨ is a monster of a creation, with 4-5 rows of bench seating connected to the cab. The bed of the truck is ginormous, and it was packed with everything from gasoline to concrete bags to chickens. The walls on the bed are about 7 feet tall and there are 2 by 10 boards, spanning the width of the bed, fixed above the cargo area. There are about 8 rows of those boards, and they are for passengers. In Peru, in any sort of traveling vehicle, the driver won't leave until the vehicle has reached it's maximum capacity... which cannot be reached. Haha. Anyway, we finally left when the bed was full of beer (and the other things) and each board on top had six people on it. I have some sweet pics. That thing was packed. It took us 8 hours to drive about 80 KILOMETERS! That is a snail's pace, but only because the roads are about 5 inches wider than the truck and we had to climb a lot of altitude.

The team in Santiago actually travels around to many of the nearby small villages. They are an awesome team, very focused, and concerned with saving souls. All but two of them went out to another village while we were there, which was totally fine. They needed to get back to that village to check on some new believers. The two girls that stayed with us went with us to the schools and did whatever we did. We had an awesome time getting to know the kids. I even talked with an older man named Juan for a long time. We talked all-about nothing until we got to spiritual things. He said he believes in Jesus and reads his Bible when he has time. Right after I finished talking to him, I read some Bible stories to some of my favorite kids, Emerson and Nadia. Emerson is already saved, and was just rediculously knowledgeable of the Bible, even though he doesn't have one. The reading attracted other kids, ones that didn't know very much. I got to share with them some of the plan of salvation. It was so perfect. I was talking to Brian today about how I haven't been as focused as I should have been during the trip thus far. Monday, I prayed that God would provide specific opportunities for me to share the Gospel, because I really hadn't done that yet. Well, God definitely answered that prayer by providing those opportunities yesterday. It was so awesome. And today, while we were waiting for truck to get full so we could leave, a random man pulled me off the street and into his house so I could pray for his eyes. His name is Hector and his eyes have been getting worse and worse; glasses only help a little. Solomon translated the conversation, and we prayed for healing. It was so random and so cool. I'm really excited to see what else God will do through our team over the next month.

The trip back to civilization today was even more interesting today than it was the other day. Other than a tad bit of veggiebles, the whole bed of the truck was filled with livestock. And I mean FILLED. There were five cows, four goats, two sheep, and a box of Guinea pigs... and some of us humans. Our team all rode on the top of the truck this time, instead of in the cab. It only took us about 5.5 hours to get back, which was awesome. We ate pizza tonight, and it was good. And ice cream, oh-so-good! I tried to call some family, but no one answered. I DID get to talk to my soulmate, which soothed my soul. Tomorrow we pass through Nazca and will hopefully make it to our next site, Bella Union. I'm 'cited! I need to end this, so, bye-bye now.

P.S. My ankle is pretty much better. It turned a little purple, which was good, meaning that it was just a bruise. Thanks for all y'all's prayers!

Ica

I ate Fettuccine a lo Alfredo tonight. It was the most I've spent on food since being in Peru (a mere $7 equivalent), but totally worth it. Instead of chicken or even shrimp, there were peices of ham in it. Because we missed lunch due to the bus rides, I was starving. The pasta disappeared muy rapido. Anyway, like any of you cares about my eating habits... We left Cusicancha around 11:15am and got here to Ica around 5:30pm. We stay in civilization only for tonight, then we take a vegetable/livestock/passenger truck to Santiago de Chocorvos tomorrow morning. I'm talking about a big truck with a single cab and a huge bed. It should be a fun 7 hours. We had a really good time in Cusicancha with the team and the residents. I felt like our presence was effective. We did our dramas and a couple of songs in the plaza last night around 8pm, and there was a large turnout. I also hurt my ankle while showing out. I rolled it in an unlevel flowerbed after coming down from running on a rail. Very smoothe. I've been walking on it today, but it is still injured. That's no good for a boy that likes to hike and play soccer. I don't have much news since yesterday, but I may not get a chance to internet for a few days. Feliz Dia de Padre, Frank! Te amo!

Cusicancha

We be in the smallest village yet, Cusicancha (Ayacucho province). This place is really awesome, though. The people are generally very nice and welcoming. We got here on Tues night, and met the village team: Audra, Leslie, Joseph, and Josh. It was nice to see some other Gringos, ones that actually care that we've come to their village. This whole week, there's a big festival in Quisuarpampa, another small pueblo 5 kilometers away. EVERYONE was at the festival on Wed and most were yesterday, and Cusicancha has been a bit of a ghost town. We went on Wed morning, watched a few soccer games, saw a parade/marching of school kids, and wound up hiking up a nearby mountain peak. The festival was okay, but the hike was awesome. We walked back to Cusicancha (instead of riding back) and attended the church service at the town's "house of prayer". Only two folks showed because of the festival, and the preacher didn't even come. We sang all of our adult Spanish songs and did a small Bible study. Yesterday morning, we did puppets and kids' songs at a preschool. There were only 6 of the 16 kids there (festival), but we had a good time. The kids were all very young, but oh-so-cute. Yesterday afternoon, Joshua, Solomon, Brian, and I scaled a large mountain peak. We went down to the river from the village and up a pretty big montaña on the other side. The hiking conditions couldn't have been better. The mountain was solid, not crumbly like in Huarochiri, and the weather was perfect. Near the top, it turned into some sweet rock climbing. And if you know me, you know how much I enjoyed that. We chilled at the top for about an hour, then took a much less steep route down. The sun sets behind the mountains really early here, so we had to try and get back before it got cold. I bought a 1.5 liter Inca Kola when we got back. Life is good. Sweet hike... Inca Kola. The team here has been cooking us some fairly American food, and it's been a welcomed change. We've actually had eggs for breakfast, instead of just hard bread. I really really like this town. Today, we did puppets for some elementary school kids, and it was the best time we've had doing it so far. The kids were just perfect. A little later, we did all of our dramas and a few adult songs during the high school's Father's Day ceremony. It was a rediculous opportunity that just worked out perfectly. In an hour, we're playing soccer with some younger kids and at five we're playing with some older kids. Today has been awesome. As usual, I really don't want to leave so soon, but we're heading to our next site tomorrow. We go from here to Huaytara, to Ica, to Santiago de Chocorvos. We've had a good stay here. Y'all just just continue to pray for the teams at the sites we've been (Anibal and Blake in Huarochiri, the Christian fam in Huancapi, and all the people aforementioned here in Cusicancha), and for the people in Santiago de Chocorvos that we'll be ministering to next week. Gotta go. We're being kicked off. Chao.

Ayacucho... for a few hours

We left Huancapi today at 2:20pm. We are now in Ayacucho the city (as well as province). We had a quite different experience in Huancapi than Huarochiri. The village team that we were supposed to be working with left the morning after we arrived (for no good reason). Also, we got there Fri, so we couldn't do our thing at schools because it was weekend. So, Sat and Sun we pretty much just hung out with a Peruvian family that runs the Evangelical church there. The father, Antonio, is a trout farmer. We went down to his work area, which is only a few feet from a small river, and cooked ourselves some fresh trout. And by fresh, I mean the fish were hardly even dead when we fried them in oil over a small fire. I'd never had trout before, and we didn't season it at all, but I think trout is my new favorite fish. We also had some freshly-dug small potatoes and Inca Kola. It was really good. That night (Sat), we led most of their church service. We did our adult songs and 'unspoken dramas'. (And Beka, it's not as bad as I thought it would be. Some of them are even narrated, which lessens the importance of expression:) They invited us for a trout lunch on Sunday as well, but this time they were gonna cook. With no Sun morning church, we played soccer with some guys from the town on Sun morn. I almost died from the lack of oxygen. It was really fun, though. We were able to meet some older guys that weren't involved in the church. I think I almost puked after the second game, and I never puke in sports. Right after soccer, we went back down to the river to eat with the Christian family. They took 2.5 hours to cook it all, but we weren't on any time schedule, so it was okay. We went down to the river for a while and cooled off from soccer. I had been saying I wanted to take a bath in the river(no showers in our hostel), so I took a dip in the 45-50 degree mountain-water river. It literally took my breath away, but after a few mins it was okay. Much fun. We ate the amazing food and headed back to the hostel. We attended their church service that night as well. After church, we walked outside of the town to look at the stars. I have never seen so many stars, even out in the middle of nowhere in Mississippi. We could see the Milky Way rediculously well. It was a bright streak across the sky. Totally amazing. This morning we just showed up at three different schools and asked if we could do puppets and songs. All three were like "Sure, what time?". So, we did puppets and songs at: a girls school at 10am, a kindergarten school at 11am, and a boys school at 12:45pm. Full day! We got fairly tired by the end of it all, but it was fun. We had time to stick around and play with the kindergardeners after the puppets and stuff, and that was fun. Little kids are hilarious because they don't really understand the language barrier. I was able to talk to them fairly well, though. Comprehension of the Peruvians' speech has been my biggest problem, and I'm getting much better at it. This post is getting really long. We came back to Ayacucho this afternoon to stay here for the night(take hot showers, eat good food). Tomorrow, we're heading to Cusicancha, which is still in the province of Ayacucho. We'll be there for a few days, as usual. Well, I'm off to the hostel to get clean and rested. Holla, dawgs.

Judges 5:6

Lima again

For those that didn't notice, I posted a couple of times in the "comments" of my previous post (May 30). The internet in the village wasn't working right, and that's all it would let me do. So, we made like a newborn and headed out of Huarochiri at 9am today. We really loved that village and didn't want to leave. We got to perform our skits and puppets to a few different groups yesterday, and it went very well. The kids loved us because: A. we're white B. we own a soccer ball, and C. we have digital cameras. But really, we developed some relationships with some of the kids. They are just fun to be around because they're always happy. They play with old timey tops, and last night I bought one and got them to teach me. The mountains are so stinking cool. I think I could totally live there... if I had hot water. The bus ride back to Lima was maybe even a little more treacherous than the ride out. Since we were generally headed downhill, the ride took 1.5 hours less, which means that the bus was flying around tight curves on the edges of cliffs. Rock on. Well, now we're chillin in Lima until our red eye bus ride to Ayacucho tomorrow night. I took my first shower since Sat, and we're going to dine in style tonight. It was bittersweet leaving Blake and Anibal in Huarochiri, but we feel like we really helped their ministry by building relationships and making connections. Although, they still need mucho prayer as they continue to try and get things going.

Proverbs 12:9

Still in town

We've been practicing a lot over the past few days, and it's going pretty good. We're doing some "unspoken dramas," AKA mimes. They're actually fairly easy to understand and one or two of them uses a narrator. We've learned a lot of songs, in Spanish of course, and they're pretty cool. We've pretty well been having a blast with a few of the other teams here in Lima before we all go out. It's been a lot of fun. Our team is going to 4 diff places before our mid-summer debriefing in Nazca. The first place we'll go is Huarochiri, and we head that way on Sat. So, all of our material has to be learned by then.
I was no-kidding sick a couple few days ago. I woke up early Sun morning and I felt like I had the flu or something. I drank some waters and took some ibuprofens, and that kept me alive until about lunchtime. We went to a sweet church that's held in a movie theatre, and I'm talking the nicest movie theatre I've ever seen (3-4 stories). They played some sweet music. On the walk back to the hostel/REAP office, I felt like a sack of crap. I slept all afternoon, painedly woke up for an ESL class, and went back to bed ASAP. I felt achy all over with a killer headache. It could be food poisoning, who knows? I basically slept in total discomfort (I even experienced a little delerium) for about 20 hours, with a break in the middle. My killer fever finally broke Mon morn around 7, and after that I became a person again. Today I feel great, all better. No worries, Mom.
Going to eat now... By the way, the food here is A1 and awesome. Holla at y'all later!

Back in Lima

We be back in Lima now. Lima is actually the whole province, and we're in Miraflores, a very nice and safe part of town. I went to the beach today, the first time ever touching the Pacific (woohoo). The beach is really awesome because it's one of those places where the beach is about 100 to 150 feet below the mainland, with a very pretty vine-covered valley or cliff leading down. Almost all of the summer mission teams have left already. Most teams are going to certain villages to stay the whole summer in one spot. The team I'm on is staying in Lima for this next week to practice our drama and stuffs. We don't know where exactly we're going yet, but word is that we'll visit about 10 diff villages this summer. Sweet! We will be in the mountains a lot, which is dandy. I've added a link to Brian, the team photographer, 's blog. He'll be uploading pics. I don't really have an easy way to do that. So, we be staying in a hostel again tonight, which this one is really quite nice. The showers at the camp we're icy, but these are warm. We're going to church tomorrow, and then we get to just hang out in Lima the rest of the day. Lima is a pretty cool place, much more modern than one might think. Well, I'm about to go up and talk with Solomon. He's gonna help me with Spanish and I'm gonna help him with Engrish. Buenas nches. Amor a todos. Gracias por sus oras.

I´m here.

Don´t worry, Mom, I made it here. I´m at an internet cafeteria in Chosica, which is outside of Lima. I don´t have much time at all, because we´re supposed to be taking pictures right now. We, all the summer missionaries, are at a sweet camp, like a summer camp. It´s really cool. We´re here till tomorrow. My team is gonna be in Lima for like a week preparing. I now know all my teammates: Lindsay, Kathy, Brian, and Solomon (Peruvian). I am out of time. Thanks for the prayers, I´m really excited about the summer.