This past weekend I went to the campo, the countryside of Peru, away from the lights and sounds of the city. A group of 7 of us went from the three churches in the vicinity of Cusco, in order to deliver some Christmas cheer, in the form of hot chocolate, bread, toys, clothes, and balloon animals. We left on a sunny Saturday morning in a van laden with feed sacks and several garbage bags full of clothes donated by church members, matresses, tents, our own stuff, food, supplies for hot chocolate....everything except the kitchen sink, basically. Driving in the campo in Peru is quite an adventure. Let me see if I can give you a mental picture. All around are huge, green mountains, like immense folds of green cloth draped randomly on the earth, stretching as far as the eye can see. At this time of the year, they look somewhat like patchwork quilts, lots of tiny fields joined together with red-brown adobe walls. Cut into the sides of these mountains are thin, winding dirt roads with no guard rails, in most places just wide enough for one car (luckily we didn't see any other cars while we were going out). Around the blind curves (of which there seemed to be a lot), we blew the horn, just in case. One side of the road is cut into the mountain. The other side is a large drop-off, plunging down the side of the mountain. Occasionally, a cluster of adobe houses clings to the side of the mountain. Even more occasionally, you'll see a village. We traveled on these roads for several hours, stopping several times to make sure the road was passable. Since it's the rainy season, there are mud puddles and slippery spots where the van wanted to slide around and fishtail. I didn't get too worried most of the time, but there were a few times that I stressed out for a minute. We were headed to a village called Limacpampa, where the church has not been working yet, which was still about an hour down the road when we came to a serious problem. There had been a landslide on the road and it was now blocked. With the help of picks and muscles, we shoved enough rocks off the edge of the road so that we could get the van through. Happy with ourselves, we climbed back into the van and continued our journey...for about another 500 feet till we came to another landslide. Roberto decided that it was not safe for us to continue, because the mountain still looked unstable. And besides, there were at least two more landslides on the road that we could see. So after a quick conference, we decided to go to San Juan de Quihuares and Yarccacunca, two villages where the church is already established. So we turned around and headed back to San Juan de Quihuares. As we pulled into the village, it was raining. Hard. The rain turned all the dirt roads to mud. When it stopped, we decided to walk down the slippery mud path to the church. I followed Roberto's boot prints, walking past the pigs grazing and climbing over the fence that keeps someone's bulls in their pen. Yes, that's really how the people get to church there! We eventually carried everything into the church and surveyed our new surroundings. The church sanctuary is big, built in faith because the people are few. Next to the church is a kitchen, a small adobe room with a stack of adobe bricks in the middle. The stove in the church is really complex....ready for this? Take one adobe brick and place it against the wall/stack of adobes that are in the middle of the room. Take another adobe brick and place it about a foot away from the other one, against the wall as well. Build a fire between the two bricks. Place a pot on top and there's your stove! The bathroom is even more complex. Go into the cornfield beside the church.
We cooked our dinner and went to bed early, knowing we'd need to get up early the next morning. Tip for the wise that I learned that night: when cooking over an open fire, rub mud on the outside of the pot to keep it from getting all black. It really works; try it! I got up at about 5:30 and dressed, to the sound of one of the men from the church chopping firewood in the kitchen (people in the country get up early). We decided that the best time to give out hot chocolate and things would be 8 AM, since kids in the country have to help take care of the family's animals and things during the day. We melted the chocolate bar in some water, then began boiling a huge 50-liter pot of water to make the hot chocolate for about 130 people. It took a really long time to boil that much water. At one point, I had a moment of panic when I realized that I hadn't seen any cups whatsoever in which to serve the hot chocolate. The Peruvians reassured me that, nope, the kids bring their own cups. After the water boiled, we dumped in the chocolate, added powdered milk and sugar, stirred it all together and we had hot chocolate! Just in time too. The kids started coming, a few at a time, heads disheveled, clothes dirty, feet protruding from rubber-tire ojotas. They shyly held out their tin cups (or small pitchers or disposable small soda bottles) for their hot chocolate. "T'antayki kaypi kashan", I told them. Here's your bread. And, happily, they went outside to makeshift benches or the grass to savor their treat. While they were eating, Carrie, Hilda, Roberto and Ruth handed out toys, clothing and balloon animals, while Pamela and I served hot chocolate and bread in the kitchen. There was one little girl who was so cute. She just sat on the bench in the kitchen by the door for the longest time, not saying a word, eating her bread so daintily, dipping it in her hot chocolate and letting the drips run off before popping it into her mouth. She couldn't have been more than 3. Every time we tried to talk to her, in Spanish or Quechua, she just stared at us, not saying a word. We ended up serving about 130 people.
After the last people came through the line and the crowd drifted away, we had church out on the lawn in the sun, sitting on low wooden benches. There were about 25 people in church that morning, listening to Roberto preach about Jesus as Emmanuel. The service was simple and fairly short. At the end, one of the leaders of the church made an announcement about wanting help to construct the church bathroom. I was thinking he was talking about sometime in the next few weeks or months. But as we were cooking lunch after church, some of the hermanos came back with picks and shovels and began to hack at the long grass by the fence surrounding the church property. I asked Roberto what they were making and he replied "the bathroom". By the time we finished eating lunch and packed up to go to Yarccacunca, the foundation was dug and the adobe brick walls were beginning to take shape. We wound again around mountain roads, en route to Yarccacunca. Arriving, we had to carry everything again from the van to the church, about a 5 minute walk, but not as easy as it sounds, since it was all uphill - steep uphill. We were pleased to find, on arriving, that there was a bathroom and a kitchen with two adobe woodburning stoves (actual stoves, not adobe bricks). We hung out for a while, then the youth started coming for their weekly youth meeting. It was awkward at first, with no one talking, no one knowing quite what to say. People are more shy to talk in the country. Then we started the meeting and everyone warmed up to each other. After the youth left, we cooked supper and roasted marshmallows and Peruvian hot dogs over the fire. The next morning, we woke up early and began the process of making hot chocolate again. Again, there was the long wait for the water to boil, again the line of disheveled children shyly holding out their mugs for hot chocolate, then sitting around on the grass happily munching. The child who most tugged at our hearts in Yarccacunca was Nelson. No more than 4 years old, Nelson is the son of an absent father and an alcoholic mother. According to the church leaders and Roberto, he eats, sleeps and goes wherever he wants to, without any kind of supervision. His situation was so sad. We were expecting that there would be considerably fewer people in Yarccacunca, only to find out as we were preparing the chocolate that there were about the same number of people, prompting fear that there would not be enough bread for everyone. We prayed hard and as it turned out, there was just enough bread for everyone and for us as well. Thank you God! We finished up the second chocolatada, packed up all the clothing to leave at the church, ate lunch, and left Yarccacunca to return to Cusco, our load much smaller than when we came. The drive back was quite fun, always keeping our eyes out for children along the road to whom we could give the few extra toys that were left over and the balloon animals that Carrie was twisting in the back seat of the van. Driving back toward Cusco, the sunset was absolutely beautiful - the sky stained pink and orange, surrounded by huge mountains on every side, with some beautiful snow-capped peaks in the distsance. We slowed down to let a llama amble across the road and then to avoid hitting sheep from the flocks that were being driven home by Andean women in their hats, braids, ojotas and brightly-striped q'eperinas (blankets). Finally, we saw the lights of Cusco spread out below us. Then we were driving through Cusco, recognizing the sights. And then we were home. Back to the comforts of the city, to running water in the house, to a warm, soft bed, to a bathroom and a stove that doesn't require firewood. So different from life in the countryside. I had to ask myself "What did we really do?" We fed the tummies of country kids and clothed their bodies. Seems so simple. Yet as I think of that, I have to remember the words of Jesus - "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it for me." The difference between the city and the country is immense. It was good to get to know a bit of the countryside. I left and came back home, but those in the country...well, that's their life! My prayer is "Lord, don't let me forget and become so surrounded by creature comforts that I lose touch with the reality of what life is really like for so many people." So that was my weekend. Quite full, but quite rewarding. Definitely a good experience. Definitely worth it all.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
A Christmas Greeting from my Kids and I
We worked really hard in third and fourth grade the past month or so to learn Luke 2:11-12 in English, in the form of a song. The kids did wonderful in the program! I was so proud of them. So I wanted to put the video on here so you could all see it. Unfortunately, I had difficulty uploading it onto Blogger, so I put it on YouTube. To see the video, please click here and enjoy. Merry Christmas from my students and I!
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Doorknobs and gingerbread men: A tale of God's grace
It all started when I decided to do a unit on Christmas around the world. I thought it would be fun to make gingerbread men with both classes. The only problem. We don't have gingerbread man cookie cutters here....that I know of anyway. Problem solved: Moms are wonderful! She told me she'd send me some. So I waited for the package to arrive. For various reasons, it took a while to come. I kept pushing back and pushing back the project. Finally, with 2 weeks left of school, I decided to start the Christmas in the United States week without the cookie cutters, in faith that they would come. And they did - the day before I was going to start making the cookies. In that simple fact alone, I saw God's grace and his care for my kids and for me. It was a good reminder that He cares about the little things I do...even if they don't always seem to me to be that eternally important.
So we started making gingerbread men yesterday. Fourth grade was fine (again I got told that I am more attractive in an apron...weird). But third grade....well, they were third grade. At least Jonatan was his normal self. He decided he wanted to eat something during English class. Which is not allowed, at least in my class. So Sharith decided to take things into her own hands and took his snack away from him. Which got her shoved roughly onto the cement floor by Jonatan. Which made me decide that I needed to take away his privilege of participating in the making of the cookies. Which obviously didn't make him too happy, since he'd been looking forward to making cookies, along with the rest of the class, for several weeks now. So he decided to make life miserable for me and for the rest of the class for the rest of the day. At every possible opportunity, he was trying to snitch pieces of dough from the bowl we were working from. It was very annoying, both for me and for his classmates, who were warning me at every opportunity to watch out for Jonatan. End result: he lost the privilege of participating again today and I called his grandmother, who he lives with, to make her aware of the situation.
This morning I was asking God to give me love in my heart for Jonatan because I wasn't feeling particularly loving towards him today. Only He could have imagined how that prayer would be answered. First of all, Jonatan's dad came today, having heard from the grandmother that there were problems yesterday. So I got to talk to him and explain to him what happened and he heard me and was supportive and concerned about his son - a major blessing. And then for some crazy, unexplained reason, the outside part of the doorknob fell off the third grade door. It's a fairly new doorknob. I don't know what happened. It just fell off! It wasn't a problem, all morning since there was always someone in the room, until all the kids left for recess and the door closed (or did God close it, just to teach me a lesson? Hmmm.....). So there I was...the door closed, I needed to teach fourth grade music class for Ron, who had to go to a meeting today, and I had no idea how I was going to get in the room to work on making gingerbread men with third grade last period. Thankfully, third grade was in gym class, so we didn't have to worry about what was going to happen with them for 45 minutes, while I taught music class. The first thing, however, that came to mind as a possible solution was "Ask Jonatan". This kid loves fixing things. And he's really good at it too. So I called him. He came right away, which in itself amazed me. I told him I had a challenge for him. He took one look at the hole where the doorknob should have been, stuck his fingers in it, and announced that he needed a pliers after gym class. I was wondering if I should trust his judgment. Thankfully, Ron came back right in time to help switch the two classes to where they needed to be (we do gym class at a big covered playing field down the street cause we don't have enough space at the school itself). I explained the situation and said that Jonatan said he'd need a pliers. Ron agreed that would work, if we had one. A scissors was the next best option. So Jonatan stuck the scissors in the hole in the doorknob and wiggled it around for a while. Finally, click, the door popped open and third grade surged inside! Jonatan was an instant celebrity in third grade. It felt good to finally be able to say "Great job Jonatan! I'm so proud of you!" And you could tell he was proud of himself too. He was absolutely beaming.
I still didn't allow him to participate today in the making of the gingerbread men. Consequences are consequences and need to be felt. But I'm planning on him participating tomorrow. He went to work with the psychologist today during English class, at my request. But when he came back and we were still working on the cookies, he was a totally different child from yesterday. He was cooperative, didn't even try to snitch cookie dough, though he had ample opportunity. He was helpful and respectful. He was great!
I'd like to think that maybe God knocked the doorknob off the door to show me His grace. Yesterday I was so frustrated with Jonatan, after a whole year of fighting with him and feeling like he needs things I can't give him, that I was feeling like the next 6 days of school would be torture and I had no desire to teach him next year. But then, God came through today and showed me again that yes, He is there and yes, I can do it with His help. Now, this does not mean I might not ever get frustrated with Jonatan again. The chances of that being the case are slim, considering his track record. But today, in the midst of my own human weakness and lack of grace, God again reminded me of His grace, not only for Jonatan, but for me as well. If I've learned one thing this year as a teacher, it is that God's grace for me is so huge, so endless and so amazing. Seems like every time I need it, I see it pull through for me. Every time I need it, there it is. I stand amazed at it, at God, at His goodness and love for me and for my students.
So we started making gingerbread men yesterday. Fourth grade was fine (again I got told that I am more attractive in an apron...weird). But third grade....well, they were third grade. At least Jonatan was his normal self. He decided he wanted to eat something during English class. Which is not allowed, at least in my class. So Sharith decided to take things into her own hands and took his snack away from him. Which got her shoved roughly onto the cement floor by Jonatan. Which made me decide that I needed to take away his privilege of participating in the making of the cookies. Which obviously didn't make him too happy, since he'd been looking forward to making cookies, along with the rest of the class, for several weeks now. So he decided to make life miserable for me and for the rest of the class for the rest of the day. At every possible opportunity, he was trying to snitch pieces of dough from the bowl we were working from. It was very annoying, both for me and for his classmates, who were warning me at every opportunity to watch out for Jonatan. End result: he lost the privilege of participating again today and I called his grandmother, who he lives with, to make her aware of the situation.
This morning I was asking God to give me love in my heart for Jonatan because I wasn't feeling particularly loving towards him today. Only He could have imagined how that prayer would be answered. First of all, Jonatan's dad came today, having heard from the grandmother that there were problems yesterday. So I got to talk to him and explain to him what happened and he heard me and was supportive and concerned about his son - a major blessing. And then for some crazy, unexplained reason, the outside part of the doorknob fell off the third grade door. It's a fairly new doorknob. I don't know what happened. It just fell off! It wasn't a problem, all morning since there was always someone in the room, until all the kids left for recess and the door closed (or did God close it, just to teach me a lesson? Hmmm.....). So there I was...the door closed, I needed to teach fourth grade music class for Ron, who had to go to a meeting today, and I had no idea how I was going to get in the room to work on making gingerbread men with third grade last period. Thankfully, third grade was in gym class, so we didn't have to worry about what was going to happen with them for 45 minutes, while I taught music class. The first thing, however, that came to mind as a possible solution was "Ask Jonatan". This kid loves fixing things. And he's really good at it too. So I called him. He came right away, which in itself amazed me. I told him I had a challenge for him. He took one look at the hole where the doorknob should have been, stuck his fingers in it, and announced that he needed a pliers after gym class. I was wondering if I should trust his judgment. Thankfully, Ron came back right in time to help switch the two classes to where they needed to be (we do gym class at a big covered playing field down the street cause we don't have enough space at the school itself). I explained the situation and said that Jonatan said he'd need a pliers. Ron agreed that would work, if we had one. A scissors was the next best option. So Jonatan stuck the scissors in the hole in the doorknob and wiggled it around for a while. Finally, click, the door popped open and third grade surged inside! Jonatan was an instant celebrity in third grade. It felt good to finally be able to say "Great job Jonatan! I'm so proud of you!" And you could tell he was proud of himself too. He was absolutely beaming.
I still didn't allow him to participate today in the making of the gingerbread men. Consequences are consequences and need to be felt. But I'm planning on him participating tomorrow. He went to work with the psychologist today during English class, at my request. But when he came back and we were still working on the cookies, he was a totally different child from yesterday. He was cooperative, didn't even try to snitch cookie dough, though he had ample opportunity. He was helpful and respectful. He was great!
I'd like to think that maybe God knocked the doorknob off the door to show me His grace. Yesterday I was so frustrated with Jonatan, after a whole year of fighting with him and feeling like he needs things I can't give him, that I was feeling like the next 6 days of school would be torture and I had no desire to teach him next year. But then, God came through today and showed me again that yes, He is there and yes, I can do it with His help. Now, this does not mean I might not ever get frustrated with Jonatan again. The chances of that being the case are slim, considering his track record. But today, in the midst of my own human weakness and lack of grace, God again reminded me of His grace, not only for Jonatan, but for me as well. If I've learned one thing this year as a teacher, it is that God's grace for me is so huge, so endless and so amazing. Seems like every time I need it, I see it pull through for me. Every time I need it, there it is. I stand amazed at it, at God, at His goodness and love for me and for my students.
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