There’s nothing like some good ole fashioned embaressment to regain perspective. And there’s nothing like witnessing a Peruvian singing the Rolling Stones “Angie”, to make you laugh until your sides hurt!
Archive for June, 2005
As we were debriefing our summer missionaries, Heather (Puno Research Team) was telling Amanda how being here has helped her to learn about ‘relating’ to God. She said she’s realized that it’s not about a strict daily routine of reading this many chapters or praying for so much time . . . but knowing, being with, and obeying God. That includes long combi rides, talking with locals, eating things that aren’t entirely clear to you what they are, etc.
How liberating to realize this! That God doesn’t want robots . . . he wants friends! worshippers! followers!! Following God doesn’t mean reading through the Bible once a year . . . it means being friends (patas) with him. Knowing his heart and responding!
We’re learning!
We’ve had lots of questions about the Frog Juice . . . so I’ll explain in more detail.
Frog juice is a mixture of herbs, honey, papaya, maca, and frog. Yes, frog, real frog. There’s a little street vendor and it’s got all the ingredients there. Once make your order. You pick out your frog and the lady starts up the blender. I can’t really remember the order that things are put in….but I’m sure it will comfort you to know that she kills the frog before she blends it. She cuts off the head. The concoction makes two glassfulls. Jen drank them both.
They don’t drink it because it is good. They say it helps the ‘cabeza’ (head). I’m not exactly sure what that means…but that’s what they say!
We caught a combi at 5:45am this morning with the summer missionaries to the city of Puno on the bank of lake Titicaca.
It’s amazing! The Uro people have learned how to make islands out of the reeds that grow in lake Titicaca. We took a boat out to visit them and the poeple that live there. It’s literally a man-made, completely floating, island.
Now we’re back in Puno. We’re heading out tomorrow towards Lima. We’ll go through Cuzco to do some research.
We had a good day of talking with the summer missionaries and seeing the sites of Juliaca.
Juliaca uses Trici Taxis. These are little pedal powered two person taxis that are everywhere! I took one for the first time today. Lots of fun!
Also, an interesting drink here is “extracto de rana” . . . frog juice. One of our more adventurous summer missionaries decided she was going to try it . . . so we went along to watch!! See for yourself.
I forgot to make an honorable mention of Misti. Misti is the Volcano that overlooks Arequipa. Arequipa is an incredibly beautiful city. Full of history and an unbelievable backdrop. Here’s a couple photos to give you an idea.
Good morning from Julicaca! We have a pretty tame today . . . just waiting on the summer missionaries to get in. We brought our laptop and convinced one of the little internet stores to let us plugin. Now we can post pics and such.
Last night was BBRRRRR cold. It gets pretty chilly at 12,000 feet after the sun goes down . . . and people here DO NOT have heaters. We were buried under six blankets last night. I’m glad I had my wife with me!! The writer of ecclesiastes knew what he was talking about!!!!!!
I´ve been meaning to write more about my time in Lima without Ryan, and here it is a week later! Jaime, the girl my age from South Carolina, stayed with me while Ryan was gone. She and I had a lot of fun together. We have become really good friends. She leaves the middle of July, and I really wish she were staying longer. I´m going to miss her a lot.
Jaime and I have a Peruvian friend our age, Diana. She invited us to go to her cousin´s wedding. It was last Saturday. Boy was it an experience! The wedding invitation said 6:30. When we got to the church, they were still having mass. We waited and waited. The wedding didn´t start until 7:45. I was thinking since it was a Catholic ceremony that it was going to be really long, but it wasn´t. One intersting thing about the ceremony is that the godparents of the bride and groom stood up at the front with them, like our bridesmaids and groomsmen do.
Diana was excited about me getting to meet her family. We got to the place where they were having the reception by about 8:30, and the wedding party did not get there until past 10:30!We sat talking with Diana´s immediate family during that time. Needless to say, my Spanish had about run out by then!I figured that when the bride and groom got there that we would eat the food that had been sitting out. Nope. They had other wedding festivities, such as people giving speeches until 12:30. At 12:30, they began serving the snack foods, and soon after, Jaime and I started saying our goodbyes. Well, Diana´s mother said that we couldn´t leave because they were going to serve a meal!!! We felt that we needed to stay. By then, there was music and dancing. Jaime got out on the dance floor, but I wasn´t so brave. At 2:30, they began serving the meal. They had rice, vegetables, and some meat. By that time, I could hardly swallow. The rice was just sticking to the roof of my mouth!
We were finally able to leave about 3:15, and they had not cut the cake!! Wow!!! It was quite a cultural experience!!! When we got home, Jaime and I were so hyped we couldn´t sleep!Diana and her immediate family are believers, and her extended family is Catholic. I look forward to developing a closer relationship with Diana.
Amanda
We left Lima yesterday morning around six and and arrived in Arequipa at about 10 last night. The trip was long, but really cool. We followed the PanAmerican straight here. We saw tons of coastline and little cities along the way.
The hightlights of the day for me were the Zonas de Arenamiento (zone of sand) and the Nazca Lines. In parts of the PanAmerican the sand dunes literally blow across the road. This makes for some interesting driving!
We also got to stop and see a few of the Nazca lines. These a huge heiroglyphics formed on the ground that can only be viewed from the air. We climbed a tower to see them. It´s really strange. No one knows who made them or for what . . . I´ll put a picture or two later.
Today we´re heading to Colca Canyon. This canyon is deeper than the good old Grand Canyon. We´ll also do some research on a segment of people that lives near there.
The trip to Huancavelica was great. We took a team from Kirby Woods Baptist in Memphis TN. Vision trips are really neat because in a lot of ways they are agendaless. We go into a village and ask God to guide us, to speak to us, to show us what to do.
In Santiago, the main hub of this segment, there was an evangelical church. We spent a lot of time with them. We met with them for three services that they had while we were there. It’s so amazing to realize that these isolated Peruvians are walking with the same Jesus I walk with back in Lima….with the same Jesus I walked with in Little Rock.
Also, we were able to hike a bit to some surrounding villages. There we found a few believers and lots of hospitality. We had queso fresco (fresh goat cheese), cancha (half popped corn), and charky (homemade pork jerky).
Also, a guy showed us how he keeps from getting sick. He grabbed a bee out of a tree, lifted his shirt, and let it sting. “You’ve got to let it sting you over the heart.” He said, as the bee tried to tear itself loose. It finally did, but left it’s stinger behind.
Then, came the uneasy feeling in my stomach. Best I can figure, I ate an orange with dirty hands. I spent that night in the bathroom and the next day in bed. A not so good end to a great trip!
Hey everybody! I made it back from Huancavelica today. Boy was I glad to see my beautiful wife!!
The trip was great. The last few days were pretty tough though. I guess I ate something I shouldn’t have . . . I think you know what I mean, without me having to give all the details!
I’ll write a bit more about the trip soon.
Since Ryan is gone, it is my job to keep up the blog, so I guess that it’s good that I have a lot to write about. So here goes story number one! The local grocery store that I always go to is
E-Wong. I met a young guy who works there back in March when we got here. The grocery store is very close to the guesthouse we stayed at the first few weeks, and he helped me take my groceries there. Ever since then, I see Leighton just about every time I go shopping and we talk. I was careful to talk a lot about Ryan!!! When Ryan goes with me, we talk to Leigton. Last week, we invited Leighton over to dinner after work. He began telling us about his family. His mom died in March, about the time we got here. He teared up talking about it. She was completely healthy. She fell and hit her head and died. Leighton’s dad works in the mines about six hours outside of Lima, and he only gets to come home every couple of months. Leighton is now living with an aunt and uncle. He has two younger sisters who are living with another aunt and uncle. Leighton is having to work full time to help support his sisters who are still in school. He is Catholic, and he said he reads the Bible a lot. He said he loves to read. Ryan talked about the Bible being his nourishment, and Leighton seemed to fully understand. Later in the week, we took him a Purpose Driven Life book in Spanish, and he seemed really excited. He said he was going to read it, and he wants to talk about it with us. I feel so excited because I believe God brought Leighton into our lives. I am excited that God wants to use us to help Leighton, and I excited about Leighton coming to know/growing in the Lord.
Tomorrow I’m (Ryan) leaving for Huancavelica for a few days with a team from the U.S. They are doing some investigation and deciding whether or not they should adopt this segment. It’s right next door to the GSFBC segment.
Amanda is staying back to hold down the fort. Send her some emails so she doesn’t get lonely!
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