My weekend in Huacarpay

After praying about how I could get involved with my church in Huacarpay and talking with some others, I decided to get involved in the worship ministry. Because of the dance and other things that I was involved in, I haven't been able to begin my ministry with them until this weekend. And what a weekend it was. Because Huacarpay is a relatively good distance from my house and it's not necessarily safe for me to travel by myself back home at night, a trip to Huacarpay at any time after about 5 PM usually involves staying overnight there. This trip did.
Worship team practice starts at 6 PM on Saturday night. So around 5:15 I left my house with backpack and violin in tow, ready to spend the weekend out in Huacarpay. I got on a bus that completely freaked me out, because it was just me and the driver the entire way (20 minutes or so from my house) out to Huacarpay. Normally, the bus is quite full (to say the least) and there is, in addition to the driver, a cobrador who collects the bus fares from everyone. I was praying quite fervently and singing worship songs to calm my nerves. I also had the sense that someone was praying for me right then too. If someone was impressed to pray for me at around 6:30 PA time on June 14th, I'd love to know about it. Honestly, the driver could have done anything, if he'd have had a mind to. I definitely felt the presence of God on that trip.
After an uneventful, though unnerving trip out to Huacarpay, I arrived at church 10 minutes early, only to find that I was the only one there. So I walked down the street to Hermana Rene´s house (who is also on the worship team). Practice ended up happening around her table around 8:00, after a yummy supper and some good fellowship time.
Sunday morning I got to play with the worship team for the first time. It was a blessing to be up there with the rest of the team, praising God in Spanish, Quechua and violin. I was blessed also to have the privilege of seeing the miraculous and beautiful, if simple, wedding of Valentin and Manuela.
Valentin and Manuela are two older people - probably in their seventies. They are very poor and have quite an interesting story. They, as many people do here, have been living together without being married for years and years. Manuela was diagnosed several years ago with cancer and it has spread through her body. It´s just a matter of time, the doctors say. She has cancer in her eye as well and wears a patch over the eye. The church has a strong health program in Huacarpay and a health representative from the church has been working with her for about 2 years now, changing the eye patch. Through the witness of the church and the health representative, Manuela has come to know Jesus. At the beginning of this year Valentin, who used to be a witch, got some kind of infection in his foot, which spread to his leg and became infected to the bone. My friend Juana, who´s a nurse and the director of the Mennonite church health program, worked with him and gradually, miraculously, his leg was healed to the point where he can now walk on it and the wound is very small. Through the witness of Juana and another woman from the church, Valentin also came to know Jesus and dedicated his life to Jesus during a worship service this March. Last weekend he was baptized and he and Manuela expressed a desire to follow through with Jesus´commands and be married. The wedding was scheduled for this coming Sunday. However, last week, Manuela was very bad and in a lot of pain from the cancer. It was decided that it would be a good idea for them to get married now, before her mind succumbs to the influence of the cancer and she loses her rational powers. So on Sunday, as part of the worship service, Valentin and Manuela became husband and wife in a ceremony that lasted all of about 3 minutes and was entirely in Quechua (translated: I hardly understood any of it). Now Manuela and Valentin are ready to meet Jesus, thanks to the witness of the church in Huacarpay. It was the most simple and unpretentious wedding I have ever been to, but also one of the most beautiful. Which just goes to show that God truly does make all things beautiful in His time and through His servants.

I like to eat pizza

This has been quite a popular phrase in fourth grade English class the last few weeks. It all started when I asked the question "What do you like to do?" We made a whole list of things on the board - swim, dance, sing, go on trips, fly...
And then André said it: "I like to eat pizza".
Innocent enough. Simple enough. But I had no idea how those 5 words would define the next few weeks of English class. After that, things were never the same. Every day, someone would ask me "When can we make pizza in English class?" Sara said it. Ronaldo said it. Josua said it. No doubt about it - my fourth graders were going to mutiny if I denied them the opportunity to make pizza in English class. We were coming to the end of the current unit. "Maybe next month", I told them. "Maybe isn't good enough", Josua informed me. "What do you like to do", I asked on the English test. "I like is eat pizza", Sara wrote in response. I laughed out loud while grading the test, beginning to feel like the unjust judge, plagued by the widow who just would not let him alone until he did what she was asking him to do! :) (Luke 18)
And then I found it. My lifesaver! The next unit I had planned was on ancient history, focusing on Rome and Egypt. Beautifully, wonderfully, Rome happens to be in Italy, which happens to be the birthplace of pizza. As I was looking through the teacher's manual, I realized there was even a lesson on food likes, dislikes and preferences! I came to class armed with the good news. And we finally decided on a date. Tuesday, June 3 was going to be Pizza Day. Then they stopped asking and waited in eager anticipation. At last, the day came. I came to school with a market bag full of pizza supplies - bread, sauce, cheese, mushrooms, sausages, mayonnaise. Mayonnaise? On pizza? Oh yes, Peruvians are very fond of mayonnaise and I do believe that every single pizza (except for mine) had mayonnaise on it. That was Aarón's suggestion. Someone else suggested sausages (salchichas). I burst out laughing when Ada Sol, in a voice pregnant with deep longing, crooned "Ah...salchiiiichas...". They went in my bag too. Armed and ready, I entered fourth grade. The excitement level in that classroom that day was extraordinarily high. I was thankful that Dawn Weaver, one of my friends, who also happened to be a missionary in Peru for three years and the English teacher for this class last year, was visiting and offered to help out that day as well. There are three groups of four and one single desk in the classroom. So I invited them to come up three at a time, while the rest of the students looked at English and bilingual books I pulled from the school library. I was determined to make this an educational experience as well, so we focused on several phrases: "What would you like?" "Would you like __?", "I would like ___.", "Yes, please." and "No, thank you." The kids only speak English if they absolutely have to (I'm trying to change that one), but they did pretty well with it. At the end of the class there were 12 very happy students (one was absent, unfortunately) and lots of little pizzas (2 for everyone) ready to go into the church's oven downstairs.
The students still had to sit through two more 45-minute blocks of classes before recess, when they could finally eat their pizzas. When Dawn and I came up during recess with four trays of pizzas, we were met with many excited fourth graders who couldn't wait to eat their pizzas (after all, they'd been waiting for about three weeks for this). Lots of them even wanted to take one home to show and share with their families. The kids did amazingly well and the entire day was a great success. It was a wonderful bonding experience and I think I enjoyed it as much as they did! :) I grabbed some pictures. Enjoy! Provecho! (Spanish for "enjoy your food").
In order, the pictures are as follows:
Josua, André and Sara making pizzas
Miss Nancy (the fourth grade teacher), Nurieth and Ronaldo making pizzas.
One tray of pizzas ready to go into the oven (the white stringy stuff is the mayonnaise)
Crhisnna, Magna, Ada Sol and Alicia eating pizza
Josua, Sara and André eating pizza
If you'd like to see more pictures, I have some on facebook. Click here to see them.

Why Bears Hibernate

I now understand why bears feel the need to hibernate in the wintertime. It doesn't sound like such a bad idea in the mornings, when the temperature under the three blankets on my bed is considerably different than the temperature of the air that hits my nose as it peeks out from under said blankets. Winter is its own culture here. I don't know how many times over the past few weeks I've heard someone say "Qué frío está haciendo!" (It's so cold!) I learned this week that there is even a mandatory special school schedule here during winter. Beginning this coming Monday, classes at PROMESA will begin at 8:20 instead of 8:00. Judging by the fact that many fewer school children are riding the combis in the morning as I am heading to school, I am guessing that most of the schools in Cusco have already begun their winter schedule. The extra 20 minutes is designed to allow children to not get up quite so early, so the air has a bit more time to warm up before they need to expose their little bodies to it and get ready for school. Since every good Peruvian knows that if your body gets cold, you will get some sort of cold or flu or your stomach will hurt or something, keeping warm is an absolute must.
Much to the surprise of every Peruvian to whom I tell this, winter here actually doesn't get as cold as winter in Pennsylvania. It's usually in the 30s when I wake up in the mornings. However, due to the fact that indoor heating is nonexistent here, the temperature inside when the sun is not out is usually somewhere around 50-55 degrees. During the day, however, it is quite warm in the sun - at least 70s. A fellow missionary remarked the other week that she now knows, after having lived in Cusco in the winter, why the Incans worshipped the sun. It feels so good when it comes out!
I have discovered something else. Sheep have the right idea. Fleece is great stuff! Granted, the fleece I love is material, not sheepskin, but it's still the same concept... Last night as I slid beneath my fleece sheets (they are a wonderful blessing!), the thought suddenly flitted through my mind that, like the Bible says that we are going from glory to glory, I am going from fleece to fleece. I lay in bed between fleece sheets in the morning, escape from the sheets to the warmth of a fleece top, which I usually wear over my other layers for half the morning or so, till I warm up enough to take it off and just go about with the 2 layers I wear underneath it. At night, the fleece top goes back on (sometimes plus another) and the bottom half of me gets wrapped in a fleece blanket, like the Peruvians do. As soon as I take my fleece off and change into my pajamas, I slip back beneath the fleece sheets and drift off to sleep...
Thank you God for the blessings of winter in Cusco...a warm bed, warm clothing, hot drinks, warm hugs, friends and family here who are constantly making sure I bundle up and keep warm, and 20 extra minutes to sleep in the morning starting on Monday!

Culto Unido

It has now been a month since you've read an update on my life from this venue. It's been a busy month of teaching, dancing and planning for teaching. This past weekend (June 1) was the annual culto unido of the Mennonite church in Peru. Every year, as many people as can come from all the churches meet in one place, bringing with them their food, culture, and a desire to worship God. It is a beautiful day, a tiny foretaste of "there before me was a multitude of people from every nation, tribe, and tongue standing before the throne (of God)". Each church is requested to bring a special number (dance, worship, skit, etc) to share with everyone. It's a day I always enjoy and look forward to. This year, it was fun to see a number of my students at the service. In the picture are Lucero, Bethany, Alejandra, Diana and Diana's little brother Miguel, who is in Carrie's preschool class.
Being the resident missionaries at the church in Huacarpay, the Huacarpay youth were eager to include Shannon and I in the dance they wanted to prepare. After extensive discussion of what dance we wanted to do, we finally chose one called Pacasito, which, I think is native to the southern coastal region of Peru, where the earthquake hit last year. And we began practicing. Dance practice for me first required learning the steps of the dance - easier said than done! My brain is wired more for language than for dancing. Slowly but surely, with much patience, struggle and time, I began to be able to make my feet do what everyone else's seemed to do so naturally. The Huacarpay church has some serious dance talent! I found it interesting and somewhat humbling that one of my former English students now became my teacher and patiently helped my feet figure out what they were doing. Practice ended up being Friday and Saturday nights for about an hour and a half, with the exception of the last week before the dance, when we practiced every night. Finally, the night before the dance, we went through the entire thing without stopping, exactly like it was going to be the next morning. I have the dance on film. Unfortunately, however, it's too large to upload to Blogger. I was, however, able to upload it to Facebook, for those of you who are able to see it there. I thought I'd be able to send a link so you could all see it there, but unfortunately, I can't. Sorry about that!
The morning was a small piece of what heaven must be like as we all brought our offerings of praise in different tongues and styles before the throne of God and poured them out in worship to Him. Many-colored outfits filled the sanctuary as many voices raised praise to the one, all-powerful God who created such beautiful diversity and fellowship.
The morning also included a message from Merv Charles, making an administrative visit from the EMM offices for the weekend. Another event was the licensing of new pastors (Roberto, Raul and Octavio) and the official presentation of a new leadership team for the national church, a change which has been taking place gradually over the past few months and will become official in June. Since the Peruvian church became its own entity, separate from EMM, in 2001, Pastor Ruben Carrasco has been the president and Pastor Celestino Cutipa (my pastor at Huacarpay) the treasurer. During those 6 years the church has grown considerably and the gospel has been extended to many new places in Peru. However, Pastor Ruben was feeling the need to step down as the president in order to concentrate more on being the pastor of the church in San Jeronimo. So, earlier this year, a new leadership committee was selected for the national Mennonite church of Peru. Pastors Eloy, Roberto, David, and Paulino are joining Pastor Ruben (who is now the secretary) as the members of the leadership council. The official presentation of these leaders, as well as an official thank you to Pastors Ruben and Celestino rounded out the morning's worship service.
But the culto unido is not just a morning worship service. It's an all-day fellowship event. Everyone brings food, picnic blankets, and games. After the service, people break off into small groups, sitting around eating together. After lunch comes the annual huge soccer game with as many people as want to play. My friends and I, however, opted for a rousing game of Dutch Blitz with what ended up being, at its peak, 12 people playing in teams of 2 with 6 decks of cards. Dutch Blitz, you say? Oh yes, apparently, some missionary somewhere along the line decided that this "vonderful goot game" was so vonderful goot that it should be shared with people 3000 miles away from its birthplace. And so Dutch Blitz caught on like wildfire...
At long last, exhausted from playing soccer, warm, thanks to the bright winter sun, full of good food, having worshipped God and enjoyed our time fellowshipping together, we packed up our things and bade farewell to the culto unido until next year.