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Our good friends Brad and Cassie White left this morning for the mtn. We spent 7 weeks at MLC and the last week here in Peru with the Whites. They are career missionaries stationed past Huaras in the Andes mountains.

We spent some time in Peru’s National Museum yesterday. We learned a good bit about ancient civilazations in Peru. These were the cultures that produced Macchu Picchu, Nazca Lines, and other pretty amazing things. We saw pottery, carvings, models of ancient cities, and ancient tools. Here are some pictures.

If you’re going to live in South America, you’ve got to like soccer. Futbol is THE sport here. There are other sports, but they don’t compare in popularity. Happily, I really like soccer. Since the last olympics in Korea when the U.S. did pretty good, I’ve been a fan of the sport. Here it’s much more fun to be a fan, because EVERYONE is a fan.

Last night Peru played Ecuador. We went to a restaurant to watch it with a group. The restaurant was packed with people watching the game. They had about 15 tvs and a big projection screen set up. It was fun cheering for Peru with all those Peruvians. It ended up in a tie, 2 to 2.

-Milk comes in a plastic bag. You have to put it in a container.
-Ice is a delicacy.
-The water in the toilet bowl swirls the opposite direction than in the U.S. (No joke!)
-It rarely, almost NEVER rains in Lima.
-Fresh fruits and vegetables are wonderful and cheap.
-All fresh fruits and vegatables have to be disinfected. (Even those you peel!)
-Our favorite item thus far: Freshly squeezed orange juice.
-Contrary to popular opinion, you CAN flush toilet paper in most places in Lima. Peruvians,
however, DO NOT flush toilet paper.
-The faucets have a hot water spout and a cold spout. There is NO in between. I had to get
gloves to wash dishes becuase my hands were scorched!
-Soccer is THE sport here. It is called futbol here. (Football)
-Our football is called futobl Americana.
-The outlets are different here. You have to have a converter to use appliances from the U.S.
-In Lima it is HUMID YEAR ROUND. (Not good for curly hair!)
-Dr. Pepper, PopTarts, Peanut Butter, Yellow Squash, Chocolate Chips, and Velveeta are
among the things I’ve discovered that you can’t get here.
-The city of Lima is divided into about 35 districts which are big enough to be cities in
themselves! Each district in Lima has its own mayor.
-Like everyone else in the world, except the U.S., Peru uses the metric system. So, I buy fruits
and vegetables in kilgrams. One kilogram=2.2 pounds. We drive in kilometers per hour. Etc.

More facts to come soon!
Amanda

Brazil 1, Peru 0. Shucks!

Yesterday was Easter. Easter in Peru is not nearly as big a deal as Good Friday. We attended a small Baptist Church with a missionary couple Sunday morning. It was a very lively baptist service!! The 2.5 hour service went by really fast. The music was loud, the preacher was excited, and several people gave testimonies and were baptized. It was pretty awesome.

After that we went over to Jaime and Angie’s apartment to have an Easter lunch. Chicken breast, mashed potatos, cheddar biscuits, and whole kernel corn…..mmmmmm. It was good. There were a few Peruvians sharing the meal with us as well. After we ate we taught them how to color eggs.

Once a month all the missionaries in Lima get together for “English Worship.” This is a really neat time of fellowship and worship and Bible study . . . all in English, which was refreshing for me and I’ve only been here a week and a half. I’m sure it must be an anticipated time for most of the missionaries here.

On our trip to Peru in October, Robin Miller and I made a second run to the market, and we were to meet the rest of our group for dinner. (This was after we came back from the mountains. We were flying out at 1:00 a.m.) Our taxi driver to the restaraunt was a young guy who spoke English well. He was really nice, so we asked him to come in the restaraunt and meet Mike. We thought he might could become part of the English ministry and that he might could work as a translator.

Mike told me that he had kept in touch with Manuel, but Manuel hadn’t been able to serve as a translator on any trips because of his taxi driving. Well, Manuel went as a translator for the first time last week with a team from Alabama. Thursday night when Ryan and I went to eat dinner with the Geyer Springs team, the team from Alabama was there with Manuel. They said that Manuel had an announcement to make. His announcement was that he received Jesus Christ on the trip! I was so excited!

The translator ministry is really neat. Many translators are believers but some are not. Many have become believers through their work with teams in the mountains, and they are now devoted followers of Jesus!

Amanda

In a country that claims to be over 90% Catholic, Good Friday is a very big deal. As a part of our cultural immersion, Amanda and I went with a few other missionaries downtown the morning of Good Friday to see “El Cristo de Milagros.” This means the Christ of Miracles. It was basically a huge painting that had Jesus on one side and Mary on the other. It was marched from one church to the another. There were literally thousands of people out in the streets to see it. Many people were burning insence. It was sad to realize that so many people get caught up in things and laws and rules and requirements that they miss the relationship that God wants to have with them through the true Christ of Miracles.

The Geyer Springs group came off the mtn. Thursday night. This team was composed of Brad Johnson, Phil Hays, Brad Shumaker, Richard Smith, Robert Bennet, Amberly Baum, April Reeder, and Joe (can’t remember his last name). It was great to see some familiar folks. We ate dinner with them Thursday night. Then Friday spent some time looking for souveneirs with them at the Indian Market, and then we saw them off last night.

Our job will include a lot of volunteer team coordination. This is how the REAP strategy works. We enlist stateside churches to reach the hundreds of unreached segments of Peru, a job we could never accomplish on our own. So all throughout the year we will be helping teams like the one from GSFBC get up the mountain and back to the states.

We each carried out our servant assignment. I planted the seed, Apollos watered the plants, but God made you grow. It’s not the one who plants or the one who waters who is at the center of this process but God, who makes things grow. Planting and watering are menial servant jobs at minimum wages. What makes them worth doing is the God we are serving. You happen to be God’s field in which we are working.

It’s exhilirating to look out the window and realize that you are in the middle of the field to which God has called us. Time to start watering and planting and watching God make it grow!