Thursday, September 24, 2009

Saturday Night Live

9/23/09

It was Sabbath evening and I did not feel like I had experienced a day of rest. We girls had already held the kids’ Sabbath school, helped out with church, and put on another afternoon program that went until about six. Needless to say, when the Bible workers announced that they were planning a church social for the evening, I was not overly excited. With nothing but a huge amount of visits to look forward to early the next morning, all I wanted to do was crawl into bed after working on lesson plans. All of us girls felt the same, but knew it would be irresponsible if we did not help out. Our leader, Aletha, suggested that all of us make at least a ten minute appearance. The rest of the girls headed out, but I lingered in the room trying to come up with any excuse to put off joining in the festivities. The loud music and laughing was not enticing at all. Pasting a smile on my face and trying to exude large amounts of energy sounded absolutely draining. Finally, I sucked it up and went into our larger building, pajamas, glasses, and all, with every intention of sticking around for no more than my required ten minutes.

When I got into the main room, I was quickly shoved into the current game, which I understood nothing of. I found out very quickly though that it was merely a simple game where when different songs were played, one would find a partner and do a specific thing, like skipping around for a minute, and then switch partners. Being white, I very rarely got to sit on the side to catch my breath, and without choice was forced to continue on with the games. I found that the games were all very pointless, but the people were having a blast, and after getting involved, I found myself having fun too on top of getting a good work out! By the end of the evening I really felt like it had actually been a fun Saturday night, almost the equivalent of hanging out with my friends in the States! And that is when it hit me, I was really beginning to feel like the people that I have been working with down here were truly becoming my friends.

It was a wonderful thought, because often I get frustrated with how distant and different I feel from the people here. The cultural differences can seem insurmountable. I definitely have many days when I get tired of people laughing at all of my actions or my Cassajana (Spanish). At times, I feel like I am nothing more to these people than mere entertainment or a person to manipulate in order to get things that they don’t normally have access too. But, it is at these times that I try look back to this last Saturday night, or the volleyball game I was invited to play in, or a good conversation I had during a house visit, or the kisses (on the cheek of course :)) that I receive after every program that we hold. It is these experiences that keep me going and remind me that, yep, maybe I am no longer with my family and friends from the States, but that my efforts are not in vain, and that I am creating new and unique friendships here as well.





(The gringas seen above are Aletha, our newest addition to our group and Mindy)

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Highlights of This Past Week

9-16-09
1. Had a small group come from Gordon Hospital to hold an eye clinic….helped out...spent a lot of time trying to get people to believe that large glasses are in style in the States…




2. Also got to help with the dental part of the clinic...wish I could say that I pulled a tooth…but I really just held tools and little kids hands…
3. Had lots of rain one day…set out our buckets and got lots of free water…
4. Because of the rain it was cold…or at least in the 60s…loved wearing a hoodies…hated taking a shower…




5. Someone fixed our shower…now people can only see our heads when they walk by…
6. Got a package from my wonderful friend, Brittany Graves…have been eating home-made granola every day instead of gooey oatmeal…
7. Got consistent electricity, well at least at night…paying for it, but it is being brought to illegally…the doctor had the boys bury the line so the cops would not cut it…
8. Found a worm…in my toe…took it out…now I just have a small crater in my toe…





9. Also found a spider…a large one…in fact a poisonous tarantula of sorts…don’t worry…it was just underneath someone’s bed…
10. Had our first church service at our new building…was amazing…lots of people showed…us nurse girls lead a program for the kids…really good at being cute…not so good at listening at times…






11. After church chilled with the Bible workers…and shared our yummy new Sabbath lunch tradition…our own version of haystacks…
12. Three new SMs just got in…sadly only one is a girl…still pretty outnumbered down here…
13. Today spent my day off at the home base, Kilometer 38, with the rest of the gang…seemed happy to see us…probably just because we cook for them…





Hope all of you had an amazing week as well!

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Kittens & Witches

9/9/09
This past week I had a kitten for about three days. It was a brief experience but a memorable one for several reasons. It all started at two o’clock last Friday morning. At Kilometer 8, there are always a variety of noises all night long from dogs barking to music blaring to one of the Bible workers talking in his sleep. It is for this reason that I usually choose to wear earplugs, if not, I tend to hear every little thing and wake up paranoid that someone is trying to break into our little homestead. Well, that early Friday morning the desperate cries of a cat penetrated my earplugs. I heard it outside of our door, but was hoping that if I ignored it long enough that it would leave. A half an hour later though, everyone was awake due to the annoying howling, but no one was making a move to check it out. Finally, Melanie and I crawled out of our beds and stumbled to the door. As soon as we opened the door, a tiny black kitten tumbled into our room and immediately became silent. Unsure of what to do and not wanting to make any extra noise, we picked up the small creature and carried him to our kitchen. Upon further inspection with our flashlights, we discovered that the cat was very sick and looked absolutely exhausted. We set out some milk and made a bed for the kitten which it promptly crawled into and fell asleep. Melanie and I headed back to bed with no idea of what we were going to do with our new little pet. When we got up at six we found the kitten still sleeping, which is pretty much what it did the entire time we had it. We bathed the little guy and tried feeding him every few hours, but as time went on it become more evident that it was becoming even weaker and would without a doubt die. Each night as I went to sleep I wondered if it would be alive in the morning, and finally when I awoke Monday morning the inevitable awaited me. We buried the little body, and at breakfast I shared the news with the Bible workers.

It was at this point in time that one of the Bible workers announced to me what he had apparently been thinking of the entire time. He informed us that supposedly there was a local witch that lived not to far from our house. His take on the whole situation was that she was not happy that we were here talking about Christ and had tried to put a spell on us through the cat. I had to admit this could be a possibility because the cat was all black, which is considered very bad down here. Before I could ponder this thought more, the Bible worker then went on to tell more stories about “real” witches, spirits, etc. that he claimed to have encountered over the years as a Bible worker. He claimed to even have heard whistling spirits around our house at night. By the end of our conversation, I definitely had some goose bumps going on. It is one thing to hear stories like that during a mission spotlight or something, but it is another to hear about these types of things that are going on right where you are living!

After the Bible worker left, I began talking to a couple of the other girls. At first, all of us admitted that we were a little spooked at the powerful work of the devil down here. Although perhaps not everything that our friend had said was true, it was enough to get us thinking. I was even calculating when I would need to stop consuming water during the day in order to avoid any bathroom runs during the middle of the night! It was at this point in time that the conversation took a positive turn. We acknowledged that we definitely had logical reasons for fearing the devil’s work down here, but that in the long run, the power of Christ triumphed all. After our conversation, our happy conclusion was that devil is not one to mess with, but that God has the ability to protect us especially as we are serving Him abroad.

That night I woke up and heard what could have been whistling in the distance. I remembered all of the promises that God has for us about being our refuge and having the power to do all things. I had to choice to freak out and let my mind go wild or embrace God’s words of comfort. I sent up a brief prayer and drifted back to sleep for entirety of the remaining night.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

You Can Tell You´re Beginning to Think Like a Peruvian When:

-Locals offer you food and you don´t ask what it is is, you just accept it

-You go into cities and join the rest of the people in staring when a white person walks by

-You prefer to use a hole in the ground over a toilet because it is less hassel

-Having parasites is considered normal

-You sleeping pattern reflects that of when the sun is present

-You don´t think twice about having oatmeal, beans, rice, and pasta everyday

-You think paying more than one Peruvian soule (=0.33 cents in the US) for something is way too much

-It is no big deal to attach you trailer to your truck with a rope because you don´t have a hitch

-You start fogetting English words!


·Sorry didn´t get to a computer this week in advance to type something up, with have something more meanful to read next week!

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Peruvian Hospitality
9/1/09
My friend, Brittany Graves, whom many of you know, has always given me a hard time because she says I am really hard core about everything until it comes down to drinking or eating something new. Well this is very true; usually I am not one to try new exotic things. Since starting house visits down here though, I have been involuntarily forced to work on this problem that I have. Over this past week I have tried all sorts of random fruits and drinks, from fried platanos (a banana of sorts) to a corn drink that tastes like bubblegum. The one that was the icing on the cake thus far for me though was the drink that I tried this past Sunday.
As I started talking with yet another family in my broken Castellano (Spanish), I thought it would be like any other visit. The father of the house almost immediately asked if I would like some yucca (a kind of root like a potato) juice. In the back of my mind I remembered the other SMs talking about how this type of juice was normally fermented, and sure enough, I picked up the same jist as I talked with the man. I politely declined, and he said perhaps another day, and in order to drop the topic I said maybe. We talked for a few minutes before his wife came out, but as quickly as she appeared, she disappeared back behind her house. Before I knew what was happening, she shoved a large glass of milky looking juice into my hand. Caught off guard, I didn’t know what to do….I knew that the people here didn’t have much and knew how offended these people might be if I rejected their gift of hospitality.
So I took a deep breath and I did what I thought was best…after taking a few sips of the substance, I knew for sure that the juice was something that could possible be sold at any of the local bars. As I continued to talk to the couple, I made little progress on my glass of Peruvian goodness. Then, all of a sudden a miracle happened! One of the pesky flies here, that at times are the bane of my existence, did a wonderful thing and did a nose dive into my drink! The couple, who had perhaps noticed my hesitancy with the drink, or perhaps felt like it wasn’t correct to let their guest continue on with a creature in their drink, took the glass and emptied it out on the ground and didn’t offer a refill. Problem solved! I was ecstatic that I would not have to worry about the parasites most likely living in the drink, or having a hangover for the rest of the day! Hoping that this will possibly be first and last time that I will have to drink alcoholic beverages as a missionary!

Count It All Joy
9/1/09
This past week has definitely been an exciting one filled with bucket showers, water shortages, toilets which only consist of a hole, cooking over a camping stove, armies of ants, and sporadic electricity. This is life at our new home located in Kilometer 8.
Needless to say, this recent downgrade in living has defiantly been a challenge for me. Last Friday night after spending just one day in our new house, I was feeling slightly overwhelmed by our primitive lifestyle. The whole day I had made house visits in the blazing sun and was feeling pretty exhausted. I was having feelings of discouragement with my work and was missing my friends and family a lot. As I finished writing a letter, I heard my companions start singing hymns in the room next to me. At first I didn’t want to get up, but then I decided I really needed to spend some time in worship. Another one of the girls was taking a shower outside so I flipped off the light and shut the door, leaving both of our room windows open. After singing a few songs, Melanie, who had been taking a shower, joined us. I didn’t even think about checking with her to see if she had locked everything up. After all, we were just in the next room.
A few minutes later though, someone came up to our fence and started talking to the one of our Bible workers. Quickly we found out that he was letting us know that someone was taking things out of our room. All four of us girls ran into our room to see what had been taken. At first it appeared that only a small toiletry bag had been stolen from one of the other girls, Mindy. I was relieved to see that the bag that contained my money, camera, and zip drive had not been taken, but all too soon I realized that my backpack was no where to be found. Panic set in as I thought about all of the random things I had crammed into my backpack, from all of my medical supplies to my precious duck tape and Set cards. I prayed desperately that the robbers would perhaps take my medicines (which are very expensive here) and then would drop off my backpack and the rest of its contents somewhere close by. Frantically we searched our entirety of our compound, even along the outside of our fence. Nothing was found though besides a pair of hastily forgotten flip-flops outside a hole in our fence.
At first I was very angry and couldn’t understand why God would let something like this happen to me while I was serving him. I already felt like I had given up so much for Him. And I felt a pretty good amount of hatred toward the people here. How could they steal from me when I had devoted a year of my life to work with them? Did I mean nothing more to them than another source of income? Was my work not even appreciated here? It was at this point in time that I really just felt like breaking down into tears. What little stuff I had down here that connected me to my previous life seemed to be quickly dwindling.
For a good hour, I could not see beyond the negative of the situation. Then, as I mediated more on the night’s events, I began to see the positive. For one, I had learned that we needed to be a lot more precautious here. Secondly, I realized that it could have been a lot worse. Things of significantly more importance could have been stolen instead. Thirdly, although someone had stooped as low as to rob us, there was someone who was nice enough to inform us of it happening. There were good people here too and I couldn’t stereotype and put everyone in the same bracket. I also needed to remember that for the people here, taking from others to survive was solely a way of life. Finally, I realized perhaps the most important lesson. Since being here, I decided that my things had subconsciously been more important to me than the people that I was here to witness too. The thought hit me that perhaps my things were coming in-between me and my work, and that maybe God was trying to show me that I could survive without my American treasures and that he could provide any basic needs for me.
As all of these thoughts came together, a verse came to mind. It was James 1:2. It reads “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.” Instead of being a disastrous experience, perhaps it was exactly what I needed to get me beyond my own selfish feelings. So whenever I begin to wish that I had certain things which are forever gone in my backpack, I try to remember that for every challenge that occurs in life, God has a purpose.




Plus more pictures!







The pictures above include a normal meal here....and don´t worry it usually tastes better than it looks..
Besides that there is a picture of our new shower and bathroom of sorts.
Next is a picture of two of our hard working guys trying to start up the truck, often it decides to stop for no apparent reason.
Finally is a picture of us girls and and Josh-he got us some flowers as a house warming gift.







Above also a picture of the area I work in, Jordon. Next is some pictures of our new house-our room, the kitchen extra. Also somewhere in there is a picture of Matt and his kids that he teachers. Cute but full of energy!





Finally is a picture of me and a local friend here named Ever. Last Sat night our whole group found a pizza parlor and ate out. It was amazing, or maybe it just tasted really good since it has been such a long time since I have eaten pizza! Other picts are of how bad people trash the place down here and a picture of our whole house. Well thats it for another week!