In which I arrive at church almost late and with no Bible

Sometimes God just surprises me.

I didn't go to Huacarpay last night, like normal, because I had a promotion party for the 6th graders.  To celebrate both the completion of elementary and then high school, Peruvian students have a promotion party.  Last night was the party for 6th grade and I didn't get home and in bed until at around 12:45 am.

This explains why it was hard for me to extricate myself from the warm cocoon of blankets this morning and convince my eyelids to stay open.  This was one of the days when it took a while.

And then God and I had a talk about how sometimes I feel like my faith is like this chloroformed laboratory frog that I'm trying to figure out and dissect.  I mean, I've got the Bible (in several versions and languages), I've got a ton of books telling me how to live it out.  But sometimes, I feel like I'm just reading and going through the motions, not really living it out.  Sometimes I feel like I read too much, know too much, and live it too little.  Maybe the rest of you haven't ever felt like that, but I have.  It's not like my relationship with God isn't real, but I want it to be more real and I want to figure out how to live it every day and in every situation.  I heard this testimony the other day of a guy who had an incredible divine appointment in a guitar shop and really showed God's love to the guy he met up with.  Made me wish I knew how to live out love like Jesus did.  Made me wish I would have showed more love yesterday and I knew how to show it every day.  

And then I got out of bed and there was no water in my house.  This isn't a terribly uncommon situation, but it is rather frustrating.  So I started heating up water to take a bucket bath.  As the water was heating, I was doing other things, when I suddenly looked at the clock and realized that I wanted to leave in about 15 minutes.  So I hurried through my bath, praying "God, please send me a bus to get to church on time!"  I got ready and ran out of the house only about 5 minutes after I'd wanted to leave originally.

I stood on the sidewalk praying "God, please send me a bus!", realizing that if any passed me by without stopping, I'd probably be late to church.  So I started trying to get anything to stop.  On a whim, I decided to try to stop a bus headed to Puno, a town on Lake Titicaca, about 7 hours away.  And, wonder of wonders, it actually stopped.  Both the fact that I tried to get it to stop and the fact that it did are strange in themselves.

I climbed aboard after the driver assured me he'd stop in Huacarpay.  It was a bus in which the passengers are in a compartment separated from the driver's compartment by a wall and a door.  The driver indicated that I should sit in the empty seat in the driver's compartment and I sat, amazed that I actually got to ride to church sitting down and thanking God that I actually got a bus to stop.

And then the driver started asking me about myself, where I was from and what I was doing here, if I enjoy Cusco, if I've learned Quechua, all the normal stuff.  Then he asks me if I like chicha, the local corn beer.  (What a random question, but whatever.)  I told him I didn't, but I do like chicha morada and chicha blanca, both non-alcoholic juices made from corn.  So then he asks me if I drink beer.  I told him I don't, so then he said "Oh, you must be from some religious group".  So I told him I'm a Christian and he sounded surprised to hear there are Christians in the US.  He said he's sympathetic to Christianity, but doesn't go to church because he's always busy driving his bus.  So I encouraged him to go to church before it's too late.  We continued talking.  He asked me if I was a pastor and I told him I'm not.  And then he asked me if I had a bookstore where he could get a Bible.  So I told him "Well, I have a Quechua Bible with me right now.  Here, you can have it."  He looked at me kinda weird, like "I just picked up this gringa off the side of the road and now she's giving me a Bible?!"  He asked me for my cell number and I gave it to him.  He said he wants a big Bible, a new one, and I told him all I could do for him at the moment was give him mine.  I marked the gospels for him and encouraged him to start there.  

We parted with him asking me to be praying for his safety and saying that he'll try to come to church sometime in December and me going "Whoa God, this is a crazy divine appointment!" and assuring him I'd be praying.  

I got off the bus in Huacarpay and felt like jumping for joy.  Whoa, God, you're awesome!   God loves a Quechua-speaking bus driver named Justo!  God loves me!  And, just, wow God!

Eventually, the doubts came.  Was he being serious about trying to make it to church?  Should I have said more or done more?  Should I have even given out my cell number to a complete stranger?  Will he actually read the Bible?  

In the midst of it all, I realized that, you know, God orchestrated it, so I'll leave the results in His hands and keep praying.

And that is how I got to church today almost late and without a Bible.  And how God showed me that He's in control and He knows and cares about how I'm feeling.  And how He reminded me again how it's totally not about me. 

God, You're amazing!

Grace and what happens when "It just popped out!"

So I haven't been blogging regularly for a while for two reasons...
1 - Believe it or not, my life isn't THAT much different than yours, though it's happening in another country.  I'm honestly not sure what to write about most of the time.
2 - I love reading other people's blogs about all their thoughts and things, but I don't think I'm quite up to that par and, quite honestly, I'm not sure what you would think if you knew what all goes on in my head...

That being said, here are a few of those thoughts...

Where do I begin?  Maybe with Jonatan in August of 2008, my first year of teaching, when I realized that, contrary to how I'd always unconsciously looked at myself, I had lots of areas to grow in and I realized for the first time that my sinful nature was much more active than I'd ever realized.  Jesus said that if you are even angry with someone it's the same as murder.  Well, I, this good girl raised in the church who'd always stuck to all the rules, I was a murderer, then.  Cause I was sure angry with  Jonatan and it scared me silly.
That was also the day when God told me that, though I'm surprised by my own sin nature, He wasn't and it was for that precise reason that He died.  It was a turning point in my walk with Jesus.
Ever since that day, there has been a battle inside of me between Romans 7 (I do what I do not want to do) and Romans 8 (there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus).  Ever since that day, I've been struggling to overcome my sin nature.  Ever since that day, I've been frustrated that it still rears its ugly head (and much more often than I think it should!).  And ever since that day, I've been SLOWLY learning about God's grace and love in the midst of it all.
It's now been 5 years and hundreds of students and many good days and bad days since Jonatan.  But the battle is still there.  There have been days when I think I'm maybe finally starting to get it and there have been days when I think I'm hopeless.
Thursday was one of the latter.
This time it was Flor.  She admitted to me that she didn't pay attention in math class because she wanted me to help her after school.  And that did not sit well with me....to say the least!  I'll spare you all the details, but suffice it to say I may have had a right to be angry, but I certainly didn't have a right to react the way I did.
I walked home after school feeling downtrodden, feeling that old familiar voice of condemnation rising up.
And the next morning, in my journey through Romans, I hit 8:1 - "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus".  And those old, familiar questions arose.  God, how?  I don't understand.
And God answered and for the first time I started to see.  There is no condemnation because Jesus took it all  on Himself when He was on the cross and then He took it away and rose again without it.
And then there came Christian Education class and the accusation: "Kusi said..."
I stopped taking down prayer requests and took up my Bible.
Proverbs 18:21 - "The tongue has the power of life and death."
What does it mean to speak life and what does it mean to speak death?  Yesterday, I spoke life and I spoke death.  I looked into Flor's eyes.  Jose Ricardo nodded.  He was there.  He heard it.  He knew.
The surprise was audible.  You spoke death?  They didn't need to know details.  Just the fact.
Yes, I did.  You know, I'm really trying, but sometimes it just comes out.  It's like El Chavo del 8, an old TV program where El Chavo says to his teacher "¡Se me chispoteó!", which roughly translates to "It just popped out!"
I flipped over to Romans 7, which happens to be one of my favorite Bible passages, simply because I can relate so well.  They looked at me as if I'd just grown an extra head as I read "What I do is not the good I want to do; rather, the evil I do not want to do, I do."
20 little faces said "THAT is in the BIBLE???!!"
Hands pierced the air when I asked who has ever felt like that.  You know, sometimes "It just pops out!"  You try and you try to do what you know is right, but it. just. happens.
I looked at the ceiling and raised my hand dramatically as I wailed "What a wretched man I am!" (Which, in Spanish says "Soy un pobre miserable!  I am a poor, miserable man!"  They liked that.)  "Who can rescue me from this body of death?"
They were still awed by the fact that this was coming from the BIBLE, of all places!
They raised their hands.  They identified.  We pray every morning for good behavior.  It was their idea.
But.
And here it was that I began to realize something.  I'm so far from perfect.  I grope for life's nonexistent undo button.  I wish I could be more patient.  But that very weakness, that very imperfection, the very fact that the undo button is nonexistent, also allows me to share the little I understand of the gospel with my kids.
And so I shared.
And we remembered our smashed bread from Easter (see my last blog post) and how Jesus took all our sins on Himself and they crushed Him and smashed Him and pierced Him.  "That bread was FLAT!" they all remembered.
And now, when I mess up, when "it just pops out", God doesn't look at me with His angry face and say "You deserve to DIE!!"  Because Jesus has already taken all God's anger away.  So now I don't get God's anger.  I don't get condemnation.  I don't get death.  I get God's love and His sorrow at my sin.  But the condemnation is gone because it's buried in death with Jesus.
I'm not giving up the battle, but maybe I'm starting to give up hating the fact that it exists and wishing that God would hurry up with that sanctification thing because I'm about to drive myself nuts.
Because without the battle there would be no grace, without grace there would be no good news of Jesus, without the good news, what hope would I have to share with a bunch of imperfect kids who live with me and have to grow up in this sin-stained world just as I do?
What if my battles can give me what I need to help my kids with theirs?

Math books, bread and Isaiah 53

I'm doing the Resurrection Eggs with my kids these few weeks leading up to Easter.  This is the first time I've ever gotten to teach Bible classes at PROMESA and, as much as it fills up my schedule and makes life a bit more hectic, I'm loving it at the same time.  So I decided to start off the year with the Resurrection Eggs.  For those who don't know, they're simple plastic Easter eggs with a Christian symbol of Easter inside.  I'm enjoying seeing how the kids are really "getting it", as well as getting into it.
Today's Easter egg was supposed to contain bread.  As I was contemplating this morning how to make this memorable (besides giving my kids some bread to eat), suddenly Isaiah 53 connected with the Last Supper in my mind.  "This is my body, broken for you."..."For surely he has borne our sorrows and our infirmities...He was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities.  The judgment that brought us peace was upon him."  And God gave me an idea, which actually spoke to my heart too.
I took some bread with me to school.  And we talked about how the bread represented Jesus' body.  And then I put it inside a plastic bag and laid it on a student's desk.
Math books are about the heaviest thing in my classroom, especially a stack of 20 of them.  So I passed the kids' math books out to them.  "Right now," I told them, "these are not math books.  These are your problems and the times you get sick and all the bad things you do.  How many of you have problems?"  The air filled with hands.  I know some of their problems.  Divorce.  Fighting at home.  Trying to learn languages.  Alcoholism.  "How many of you get sick?"  Again, hands filled the air.
And then I tossed my math book on top of the bread.
The kids' eyes got big.  "You're killing the bread!" the boys shouted.  (They seemed to think this was rather cool.)  "Who wants to put their book on top of the bread?" I asked.  Hands shot up and one by one they all gently placed  or smacked their book on top of the stack.  When the piece of bread had been smashed by the weight of 20 math books, I took it out, now more closely resembling a tortilla than a piece of bread.
And then I read, "He was pierced for our transgressions."  "What does it mean to be pierced?" I asked them.  And then I stuck my finger through the bread and stood there with it on my hand.  "No, don't!" said some of them.  Poke.  Another hole.  Poke.  Poke.  Poke.  And I stood there with my holey piece of bread in hand.  "This is what Jesus went through.
"He was crushed for our iniquities," and I tore the piece of bread in enough pieces for each of us to have one.
I held up the bag with the pieces of bread.  "This is what I deserved.  This is what you deserved.  But Jesus took that punishment for us.  And He carried all our problems, so that when we enter into a problem, we find that Jesus is already there and He is helping us in the midst of our problems."
I can't say they were all sitting there in reverent awe, deeply aware of their sin and how Jesus is already present in their problems.  I can't say there was deep repentance.  I can't say I saw fruit.
All I can say is that Jesus is touching me.  And hopefully He is touching them also.

Had I known...

Had I known the end result, I would never have suggested we play What Time is it Mr. Fox?
I remembered the shiny wood floor and the shrieks of happy kids in the gym in elementary school.  What could be wrong with happily shrieking kids, playing a game together, on a day designed exactly for that?
There were about 4 left, uncaught.  The "hungry foxes" stood in the middle, waiting for the run and the capture.  They never did get the concept of staying inside the boundaries.  "It's 12:00!" they shouted, and pandemonium broke loose until they all decided to form some kind of order again at approximately the right place.
I was there, directing the game.  I was watching them run, thinking "I gotta figure out how to get them to just run to a certain area and then stop."  I missed the running, the tripping, the falling on the ground.  But I felt the tugging on my shirt.  "His hand, his hand!"  And I snapped back into reality and I was the one running.
I saw him laying there on the ground, screaming, his wrist humped at a totally unnatural angle.  "My hand!  My hand!"  he screamed.  I had a brief flashback to my own broken wrist 16 years ago and in a split second, I knew the sickening feeling my mom must have felt as she saw my unnaturally curved wrist.  I picked him up in my arms, only realizing later that I didn't even feel his weight.  I ran with him to the parent with him that day, my only explanation: "He hurt his hand."  Somehow, it didn't seem right to say that I thought he broke his wrist.  Then he was in other arms and I was surrounded by kids, shocked into silence by the horror of the moment.
"Grab hands.  We're going to pray for Rodrigo," I tried to force calm into me.  Were we going to pray for Rodrigo or his family or us?  Maybe all of it.  Their voices repeated my words.  "Lord Jesus, please help Rodrigo.  Please do a miracle in his life.  Please bring peace to him and his family.  Touch him and heal him." 
And then we walked away, the spirit of the game gone.  Josué walked beside me.  "It's not my fault, miss," he assured me.  "He was running and he tripped and fell."  Oh, how I wished for the ability to be like a child, to recognize that it wasn't my fault, to not feel responsible.  Already, the deep guilt of responsibility weighed heavy on my shoulders.  "No, honey, I know it's not your fault.  It's an accident and accidents happen."  How can those words sound so sure when my heart is saying the exact opposite?
And then I tried to figure out what to do.  Everywhere I looked, I imagined accusation in eyes, whispering voices.  "There's the teacher who was playing with the kids when the one feel and broke his wrist."  "She should never have been playing that game with them."  "What was she thinking anyway?  She's so irresponsible."  "You're guilty."
And in my heart, I heard another voice.  "There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."  "You could not have possibly known what would happen."  "His dad was right there watching.  A bunch of parents were right there watching and no one was saying anything or giving any indication that the game was not appropriate."  "You are not responsible for accidents." 
And yet, the guilt-voices seemed so much more logical, so much more RIGHT than the other one.  I WAS right there.  It WAS my idea.  And now a kid was hurt on his way to the hospital and there would be medical expenses and it was ALL MY FAULT.
A mom from my class came up and gave me a bag of fried pork rinds to share with all the teachers.  I gave it to someone else to give to the teachers as I realized that we had doctors on the grounds and there was something I could do.  Running, I tried to connect all the involved parties, only to find that the child and his family were already on the way to the hospital. So I just went and stood, feeling like I deserved neither the pork rinds, nor the company of the other teachers.  I didn't even deserve the now-smashed piece of bread or the apple I'd packed in my backpack for my snack.  I deserved anger, deserved to feel every ounce of the weight of the guilt piling on my shoulders, deserved the shouting voices of condemnation in my heart.
And yet, they called me over, that circle of teachers sitting on the ground.  I swallowed deep inside the tears that wanted to slide out.  I could let no one see how much of a horrible teacher I was.  But I had to tell the director.  And her calm was amazing, compared to the torment in my soul.  My calm as I talked to her amazed me also.  Those tears stayed deep in their hiding place.
I deserved condemnation (at least in my mind), but it never came.  Instead, I received pork rinds, paneton (fruit cake) and bottled juice.  I received the support of the director.  I received understanding and sympathy.  I received the encouragement of my mom as I relayed the incident to her later.  I received, in short, grace.
Eventually, after a few hours and several retellings of the incident, after talking on the phone and hearing that the boy was fine and "Accidents like that happen", I realized that the condemnation was being overpowered by the love and grace of a God whose truth I could finally begin to believe.
And I heard His voice saying two things in my heart:
 - If anyone wants to enter into the kingdom of heaven, he must become like a little child.  Josué recognized that, logically, it was not his fault.  The kids, after a few minutes, were playing again as if nothing had happened.  As long as I get stuck tripping and falling over condemnation and accusation, I'll never be able to receive grace, love and mercy.  I'll never be able to trust God or just trust that what He says is truth.
 - And had I known what would happen, I would have been God.  If I make myself responsible for the entire world, I am putting myself in the place of God.  And He doesn't exactly need (or want) a replacement.
Not saying that I've learned these things yet.  Just saying God's spoken them and I've heard them.  They're THERE. 
Had I known...I wouldn't have suggested What Time is it Mr. Fox.  But then again, accidents don't require games or teachers to happen and bones break even under the hawk-eyed stare of parents.
Had I known...I would have been God.  So I guess I can maybe think about letting Him worry about His own job and just do mine.  I think that's what He wants me to do anyway.
Oh grace...will I ever understand you?

Inspired by GT

I read my Bible and I hear songs playing through my head.  Really.

Growing up in the 80's and 90's we had several children's tapes of Bible verses set to music.  The tapes belonged to a series called GT and the Halo Express.  To this day, I could probably sing some of the verses better than I could say them.  Seriously.
So when I decided I wanted to teach my kids Bible verses, I started putting them to music.  And, lo and behold, the same thing happened!  And then I ran into a problem.  We were memorizing verses for which I didn't know any songs.  So I started making up my own songs.  Or God started making them up for me.  Whatever the case may be, I sit down at the beginning of each new month, look at the verse, and most times a song pops into my head without too much effort.  And the fun thing is, I'm learning the verses too, with my kids! 
I'm kinda disappointed this year because I don't get to teach Bible class to my kids.  I don't have enough hours in my day (literally).  However, the teacher who does teach them has been enthusiastic about singing the Bible verse songs with them.  The other morning, during Bible class, as they were working on coloring a worksheet, they just started singing Luke 10:27 and didn't stop!  It was too good an opportunity to pass it up, so I ran to the office and grabbed the school camera.  When I came back, Miss Martha, the Bible teacher, had encouraged them to sing all 4 of the verses we've learned this year!  So I stood in the doorway and got them on video.  Perfect?  Nope!  But it was special to me.  Enjoy!

Click here to hear my kids singing. :)

Of Fleas and Flies

We were in English class, working on some vocabulary words.  I was concentrated on what we were doing and looked up just in time to see Andreas hit Joshua over the head with his pencil case.  Of course, being the teacher and looking out for the well-being of my students, I was like "Andreas, WHAT are you DOING?"  Innocent as can be, he looks at me and says "There was a fly on his head!"  At which point I completely cracked up laughing.  And you know that when the teacher cracks up, that means the ENTIRE CLASS follows suit!  And you can probably imagine how hard it is to try to get some seriousness back into your class when 21 kids are looking at you giggling. :)  Oh my...

And then, just as I was getting ready to head home, I was handing back some math books to Miss Rocio's class, homeworks that were not done or incomplete that need to be completed.  I was explaining to Yanpier what he needed to do in his book and noticed he had an odd expression on his face.  As I finished explaining to him, he looked at me (again completely innocently) and said, "I just swallowed a flea!".  At which point I cracked up again.  I think he thought I didn't believe him because I was laughing at him and he kept saying "No, I really did!  I'm not making it up!" (which made me laugh even harder)!  I finally had to explain to him that I did believe him, but it was just funny to me what he had said.

Toad's Garden

Source: Frog and Toad Together
(My apologies to Arnold Lobel. This is a paraphrase, not an exact quote)
Yes, this does have a point. Read to the end.

The Garden
One day, Toad walked to Frog's house. Frog was in his garden.
"What a beautiful garden you have, Frog!" said Toad.
"Thank you," said Frog. "It was a lot of hard work".
"I wish I had a garden," said Toad.
"Here are some flower seeds. Plant them, and soon you will have a beautiful garden," said Frog.
"How soon?" asked Toad.
"Very soon," said Frog.
Toad ran home. He planted the seeds in his garden. "Now seeds, start growing!" said Toad.
He walked up and down a few times. He looked at his garden. The seeds were not growing. Toad put his head close to the ground. Very loudly he said, "Now seeds, start growing!!" But the seeds did not grow.
Toad put his head very close to the ground. He shouted, "NOW SEEDS, START GROWING!!" But the seeds did not grow.
Frog came running. "What is all this noise?" he asked Toad.
"My seeds are not growing!" said Toad.
"You are shouting too much," said Frog. "Your seeds are scared to grow."
"My seeds are scared to grow?" asked Toad.
"Of course!" said Frog. "Let them go for a few days. Let the sun shine on them and the rain fall on them. They will grow."
That night, Toad looked out of his window. The seeds were not growing. "Maybe they are scared of the dark," said Toad. "I will read them a story." Toad took candles out to his garden. He read a long story to the seeds. The next day, he sang songs to the seeds. The next day, he read poems to the seeds. The next day, he played music for the seeds. Finally, exhausted by all his efforts, he fell asleep. He awoke to Frog, standing over him, saying "Wake up, Toad! Look at your garden!" There, where he had planted his seeds, were small sprouts.
"Now you will have a beautiful garden, too!" said Frog.
"Yes, but you were right, Frog," said Toad. "It was hard work!"

In the middle of the story this morning, as I was singing along with Toad, God suddenly spoke to me (He sometimes chooses interesting times to speak). Being a teacher (or a parent, I suppose) is often like Toad in his garden. You want those little seeds, those little hearts, to grow and RIGHT NOW, if possible! You talk till you're blue in the face. You yell sometimes. You do everything you can possibly think of to get those little seeds to grow! And then, exhausted by all your efforts, you fall asleep. And suddenly, one day, you wake up to the realization that, somehow, God has been working in their hearts and there are little green sprouts coming through the soil. You see some hope! Oh. Right. It was God.
It was a good word. Hopefully, it encourages you as much as it did me!

Breathe in...breathe out...

I've been told here in Peru that I shouldn't tell blond jokes. They consider me to be blond here. :) But, at my own risk and in order to make a point, I'm starting this post out with a blond joke.

So once there was a blond who was always wearing headphones. She wore them to sleep. She wore them to eat. She wore them to the gym. She wore them everywhere. One day, she went to the hairdresser's, still with the headphones in place, and asked for a haircut. As her hair was being cut, the hairdresser asked her to please take off her headphones, to which she responded, "I would, but I cant. If I do, I'll die." So the haircut was completed around the headphones. The same scene was repeated in 3 months and in another 3 months. Finally, the hairdresser got fed up and yanked the offending headphones off her client's head. As promised, the blond dropped over, dead as a doornail. The hairdresser got curious and wondered what in the world was playing over those crazy headphones. As she held them up to her ears, she heard this: Breathe in.....breathe out.....breathe in.....breathe out.....

I thought of this joke as I was reading Psalm 23 today. Really. I read a phrase that I've read over hundreds of times but never really processed. It goes like this:

He restores my soul (v.3)

And that means....? Good question! I asked the same thing. So I turned to my parallel versions and languages, which is where I go anytime I read a verse and go "Huh??" According to the NIV in Spanish and the Quechua Bible, it means that he gives me new strength. According to the Reina-Valera in Spanish, it means that he comforts my soul. According to the Message, it means that God gives me a place to breathe.

A place to breathe....hmmm.....

You know, I've often been thankful that breathing is an involuntary action. My life would have been extremely short had it not been for that fact. How many times do we sit down at the end of the day and say "Wow, I haven't gotten a chance to breathe all day!"? Thankfully, PHYSICAL breathing is involuntary.

It occurred to me this morning, though, that I think I could use a pair of those headphones to help me to concentrate on spiritual breathing. Unfortunately, it's not so reflexive.

Spiritual breathing......say what?! Let me explain.

First, let's think about the basics of breathing. Hang in there. I'm a teacher. I'll get past the science lesson in a second. Breathing consists of two opposite, interrelated and interdependent functions - inhalation and exhalation. Take away one and you die. Plain and simple. Okay, so what does this have to do with God, besides the fact that He created the concept? This is what He showed me this morning. Some things in life are "inhalation" things. They are the things that fill us up. They're different for everyone, but some things I thought of are devotional times, listening to worship music, quick prayers in the middle of the day, reading a good book, vacation, retreats, etc.... Other things in life are "exhalation" things. They are the things that we don't enjoy doing, the things that simply need to be done, or simply things we do where we are pouring out of ourselves into the lives of others (which, though rewarding, is many times still an exhale). Some examples I thought of are: waiting in line, taking care of a screaming baby, teaching 70 kids every day, serving all day at a restaurant, tense relationships with other people, fear, insecurity, lies, etc....

Now, here's the thing. The world thrives on exhalation. The world will take, take, take and never give. The enemy has come to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10). And that is exactly what he will do. Unfortunately, our human default setting is "exhale". Maybe a typical day looks like this:

Get up, get ready for the day: exhale
Spend time with Jesus: inhale
Make breakfast: exhale
Get kids off to school: exhale
Road rage on the way to work: exhale
Nonstop work all morning: exhale
Lunch break: could be either, really...
Nonstop work all afternoon: exhale
Concentrating on the road on the way home: exhale
Make supper: exhale
Listen to kids fighting at the supper table: exhale
Wash dishes: exhale
Family time: inhale (hopefully)
Get kids off to bed: exhale
Pray with kids: inhale
Adult time: inhale
Sleep: could be either, really, depending on the quality of your sleep...

So you could really make a million adaptations to this list. But the point remains. The world will find an infinite number of opportunities to make us exhale. Unfortunately, we are the ones who need to find opportunities to inhale. It's not necessarily a natural skill.

The second part of that verse in John 10:10 says this "I have come that they may have life and have it to the full" (Jesus speaking). Matt 11:28-30 says this: "Come to me all you who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your soul. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Jesus has come to allow us to inhale. Jesus has come to restore our souls, to give us room to breathe, to give us new strength. The thing is, the only way we can have all that is to make time to allow Jesus and His inhalation to pierce through the world's exhalation.

Uh huh. And that looks like...? To be honest, I'm not sure what it looks like for you. It looks different for everyone. Here are some of my "inhales":
- Devotions
- Walking to and from school while listening to music
- Writing
- My list of 1000 gifts (taken from the book One Thousand Gifts - Ann Voskamp)
- Journaling
- Quick moments to connect with God throughout the day
- Scrapbooking
- Good conversations
- Andes mints while working on schoolwork
- Comfortable chair to relax in
- Looking at the mountains outside my windows

The list could go on and on. Your list is probably completely different. God's challenge to me this morning was to concentrate on that breathing in and breathing out. It's not instinctive. That's why I'd like a pair of headphones like that blond had. It's a learning curve. And yet it's possible. It also struck me this morning that this is how Jesus lived. He did it naturally. So it also helps me to be more like Jesus and walk in "paths of righteousness for your name's sake" (Ps. 23:3)

You restore my soul.
Breathe in.
You lead me in paths of righteousness
Breathe out.

Thank you, Jesus, for...

I decided to let my kids write this blog post. :)
While talking yesterday in class about Thanksgiving, I asked them "What can you say thank you to Jesus for?" This sparked a nearly half-hour spontaneous pouring-out of thanks to Jesus for...well, pretty much everything! So I decided, since today was their reading group day, to have them write down a list of things they are thankful for. It turned out to be a very popular journal idea! Here is a compilation of most of the things they wrote (minus the duplicates - and yes, they wrote all in English!). Enjoy!

Thank you, Jesus, for apples.
Thank you, Jesus, for my eyes.
Thank you, Jesus, for my mouth.
Thank you, Jesus, for bananas.
Thank you, Jesus, for my books.
Thank you, Jesus, for bears.
Thank you, Jesus, for my school.
Thank you, Jesus, for oxygen.
Thank you, Jesus, for the earth.
Thank you, Jesus, for my pets.
Thank you, Jesus, for water.
Thank you, Jesus, for my friends.
Thank you, Jesus, for my family.
Thank you, Jesus, for plants.

"In my garden are flowers, butterflies, and insects. The insects are nice. And I said:
Thank you, Jesus, for insects.
Thank you, Jesus, for life.
Thank you, Jesus, for plants.
Thank you, Jesus, for my family.
and thank you, Jesus, for your creation."

Thank you, Jesus, for my house.
Thank you, Jesus, for Miss Bethany
Thank you, Jesus, for Daniel Monkey. (my little teaching assistant!)
Thank you, Jesus, for Miss Nancy. (the fourth grade teacher)
Thank you, Jesus, for Diego. (a classmate)
Thank you, Jesus, for everything.
Thank you, Jesus, for my teachers.
Thank you, Jesus, for my sister.
Thank you, Jesus, for me.
Thank you, Jesus, for food.
Thank you, Jesus, for Peru.
Thank you, Jesus, for people.
Thank you, Jesus, for cats.
Thank you, Jesus, for dogs.
Thank you, Jesus, for my brother.
Thank you, Jesus, for my mother.
Thank you, Jesus, for my father.
Thank you, Jesus, for love me. (unedited version)
Thank you, Jesus, for Mr. Jacob. (a guy who is helping with English classes)
Thank you, Jesus, for Fabricio. (a classmate)
Thank you, Jesus, for English.
Thank you, Jesus, for Shifu. (her dog)
Thank you, Jesus, for Miss Bethany, Nancy, Luz, María Esther, Dámaris, Marisol and Miss Ruth. (all teachers at the school)
Thank you, Jesus, for ice cream.
Thank you, Jesus, for my bed.
Thank you, Jesus, for animals.
Thank you, Jesus, for stars.
Thank you, Jesus, for the night.
Thank you, Jesus, for flowers.
Thank you, Jesus, for trees.
Thank you, Jesus, for my name Maricé.

Amen.

And that's the way life goes...

Think fall into winter, think spicy gingerbread in the oven, filling the whole house with its delicious aroma and hot apple cider in warm mugs clutched by cold hands...
Yeah, my mouth is watering too. So when my support team (MST) decided to have a skype virtual meeting tonight and mentioned bringing those snacks on their end, I thought it would be fun and delicious to have them on my end also! So why am I still sitting here with a watering mouth and not rolling and cutting out stacks of gingerbread cookies or nursing my second mug of hot apple cider? Glad you asked! Let me explain what it takes to make these two simple treats in Peru.
Gingerbread is not that complicated. There's only one problem, technically. The molasses. Molasses, as far as I know experientially, does not exist in Cusco. So getting molasses for cookies means going to the Wanchaq market (a 45-minute ride one way in public transportation) and paying about $4.00 for a 1/2 liter bottle of algarrobina syrup from one of the women who sells juice in the market. This syrup comes from a tree and has a taste that approximates molasses. Days slip by in a blur of school, schoolwork, church, school trip, emailing, creating dramas for school, etc. And before I know it, I no longer have time to take said 45-minute trip downtown to purchase my bottle of algarrobina syrup. Save the gingerbread for another day. It would have taken forever to cool the dough in my fridge anyway. My fridge is, I'm suspecting, on its last of over 20 years of legs and is not refrigerating the way it should be. And then, as I'm looking for a substitute recipe for chocolate chip cookies, I find it! The answer to my sticky molasses dilemma! Chancaca syrup! Cha-what?! Chancaca syrup. Chancaca is a sugar cane product. The best way I can describe it is to call it burnt sugar made into balls and sold in the market. According to my favorite Andean, high-altitude cookbook, a molasses-like product can be made with chancaca balls boiled and dissolved in water. Make a mental note: I have to try that! And as I begin to measure out flour and soften butter to make my chocolate chip substitutes for spicy gingerbread goodness, the guy comes with the gas can that will make my oven work. Great! Except not. Apparently, the valve that connects the hose to the gas can has somehow broken. The gas delivery guy doesn't have another one. Making my oven work again will require a trip downtown to a hardware store to buy another hose and valve combination, apparently. And who knows how to put one of those on a stove? Not me!
Mission postponed. The great chancaca syrup and gingerbread experiment will have to wait for another day. :( My mouth is still watering...
The other part of my idea was hot apple cider. Sounds WONDERFUL! I think it's been about 3 years since I've had any of that warm, sticky goodness. My stomach is happy with just the thought of it. But...there is no apple cider in Peru. I look online. The Wiki community, that source of free information on just about anything, comes to the rescue. WikiHow contains easy instructions to make apple cider with apples, a blender and cheesecloth (I think I can substitute a strainer). Then just boil it with the spices and voila! If I can't have my gingerbread, at least maybe the apple cider will come through for me.
Oh right. Except I have no gas. I can't boil the apple cider. That would be a problem.
I am not a missionary for nothing, however. It is not that easy to make me give up. I've got the idea. My mouth is watering. Now it's just a question of a new gas valve, chancaca, and time. One of these days, hopefully, I'll be able to write part 2 of this story, while savoring my tasty fall goodness.
I love Peru, but, yes, that IS the way life goes...

Broken Lives

Two weeks after my arrival back in Peru, we had parent teacher conferences. As I talked to one parent after another, I realized how many of my students live daily with great hurts. Many of them have only one parent. Of those who have two parents, a good number of them still feel like their parents have no time for them because of work. This includes those whose parents don't come home till late at night because they're working all day. This also includes those whose parents are always at church and never have time for the family. It also includes a number of students who live with one parent and the other parent works in another city or drives truck and only comes home once every two weeks or month or so. Others of my students live with parents who fight or drink a lot. I talked to another mother and her son, individually. The son sees the father as showing favoritism to his older brother. I encouraged the mother to talk to her husband and encourage him to set aside a time to do something special with the younger son as well. We have students at the school who have been involved in pornography, drugs, alcohol, smoking and with pedophiles. We have students at school who routinely come home to empty houses. We have students who would be in special ed. if they were in the States.
It is tremendously difficult to minister to the heart-needs of 71 students in the course of a day. I am not perfect, by any means. I always see ways I could be doing better. But I take faith in the little seeds of hope I see. Aldair, Dennis and Patricia got better grades on their English tests this month. For that matter, most of my students did really well on their English tests this month. Aldair actually participated voluntarily in class twice today! I think that's a first all year. Frana went crying to the principal the other day requesting prayer and forgiveness because she's been treating her classmates badly for a LONG time. Then she came into class and asked forgiveness of her classmates. Marcelo opened his heart today and told me that he has been mad because Jafet insulted him several weeks ago. Samuel worked well in class the last few days (a minor miracle!). Patricia, Maricé, Sebastián and Milagros all encouraged me while I was fighting an allergic reaction of unknown origin. I felt Jesus' love through them. I am constantly reminded of the fragility of my clay vessel. At any minute I can break and I need Jesus to remake me.
I talked to the mother of one of my seventh graders today. This girl has been involved in some really heavy stuff and she's only 12 years old! The last time I talked with the mother was at parent-teacher conferences, when she broke down crying because we had to drop a bombshell on her about her daughter and she had had no idea. Today she told me she's getting involved in one of the local churches. "Pray for me," she pleaded. It seems as though her daughter is at a better place spiritually than she was a month ago when I came and we talked during the parent-teacher conferences. That is encouraging!
I've been challenged over the past month that what God has called me to here is simply to be faithful every day in the little things and to speak of Him whenever I can. This has led to conversations about the end of the world, loving your enemies, and being faithful, among other things. Most days I feel so imperfect, so far from where I want to be. Things come out of my mouth that I wish I could retract. I have attitudes that are not God-honoring. And yet, in the midst of it all, I can still see God's hand of grace at work on my life as I look back over the days. The other month for Family Day, one of the 6th-grade boys lip-synced this song (in Spanish). Listening to him practice and looking out across my students in chapel the day before almost brought tears to my eyes. This is so my prayer!

I Want to Be Just Like You - Phillips, Craig and Dean

He climbs in my lap for a goodnight hug
He calls me Dad and I call him Bub
With his faded old pillow and a bear named Pooh
He snuggles up close and says, "I want to be like you"
I tuck him in bed and I kiss him goodnight
Trippin' over the toys as I turn out the light
And I whisper a prayer that someday he'll see
He's got a father in God 'cause he's seen Jesus in me

Lord, I want to be just like You
'Cause he wants to be just like me
I want to be a holy example
For his innocent eyes to see
Help me be a living Bible, Lord
That my little boy can read
I want to be just like You
'Cause he wants to be like me

Got to admit I've got so far to go
Make so many mistakes and I'm sure that you know
Sometimes it seems no matter how hard I try
With all the pressures in life I just can't get it all right
But I'm trying so hard to learn from the best
Being patient and kind, filled with Your tenderness
'Cause I know that he'll learn from the things that he sees
And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me

Right now from where he stands I may seem mighty tall
But it's only 'cause I'm learning from the best Father of them all

I'm home!

Thank you for your prayers for traveling mercies. I had a pretty uneventful trip. My first plane was delayed about 1 1/2 hours, so I only had about 20 minutes to catch my other plane in Orlando. By the grace of God I made it and there were about 7 of us in the same position, so they held the plane. My luggage also came through fine, much to my surprise! I must say, I am jealous of people who are able to sleep in airplanes and uncomfortable airport seats. I laid on top of my luggage and got maybe a half an hour of sleep that way, but that's pretty much it.

I got home to find that my entire house is torn apart. The owner of the house is a carpenter and installed wood flooring while I was gone. However, he didn't get to fimish varnishing it before I arrived. So I'm going to go stay with some friends for about 2 days, try to clean my house on Sunday afternoon and at some point in the weekend, plan for next week. It's going to be a CRAZY first week back. But I am back home and seeing a few people again. Welcome to Peru where nothing happens quite like you think it should. :) God's grace is great.

I think that's it for now. I'll write more later, after I sleep and get my feet underneath me again.

Leaving Home, Heading Home...

4 days.
Wow, the summer went fast! I just got here and now I'm going to leave again in 4 days.
When I came to the States, I wasn't sure what to expect. Would I feel like I was dropped off on an alien planet? Would it all feel familiar? Would I go into shock when stepping into Wal-Mart? Would you remember me or would I be a face from the past, covered up on your refrigerator door by grocery lists and school permission forms?
I got off the plane and found home. I found you with your arms wide open. I found God. He still provides. He's still the same. I found memories from my past. I found food that I didn't know I loved so much till I didn't have it for 3 years. :) I found people I've loved for years. I found new faces that I've loved building relationships with. I have received from you. I've tried to give back a little portion of that. Yes, I wanted to escape from Wal-Mart and the grocery store at times. But I found a whole lot more that made me want to stay than that made me want to turn tail and run.
I'm able to be a bit more honest than I used to be, I think. And I found that you are more honest as well. And you know what? Down under all the labels we wear - missionary, stay-at-home mom, working young adult, grandparent - we all look a lot the same. I've heard my story and my struggles echoing off your lips and out of your heart. The sin nature I've been struggling with is the same one you've struggled with as well. The things God's been trying to teach me are some of the same things you've been trying to learn as well.
My worlds feel like two totally different places. Yet, they intersect each other. I've been keeping up with what's going on in Peru while I've been here. I keep up more or less with what's going on here while I'm there.
4 days.
4 days and I will again be in my other world. I will again sleep in my bed under 3 blankets and wear 4 layers of clothing on a regular basis. I'll go back to shoes all the time. I'll be back to eating potatoes and speaking Quechua. I will once again hug familiar arms I haven't seen for 3 months. I'll hear stories and share stories. I'm excited.
I brought Peru in my heart with me. I still carry it. I took the US in my heart to Peru. I still carry that too. I carry Peru and I carry PA in my heart at the same time - the people, the food, the places. I call myself Peruvican sometimes. Too American to be Peruvian, but too Peruvian to be totally American.
I left home to head home in May. I found home here again. Now I'm leaving home to head home again. I'm refreshed. I've loved spending my summer with you. You have blessed my life tremendously in the last 3 months.
Thank you.

I don't think I'm in Peru anymore....

This world is a strange place sometimes, especially with the ease of travel these days. You get in a car in Lancaster County, drive half an hour and go from downtown, multicultural Lancaster city to dodging horse deposits on the roads of Amish country. You go 6 hours from mid-PA and end up on the beach, in a different climate and a culture built around the ocean. You fly to Orlando and suddenly you're surrounded by 6-foot-high talking mice and ducks. Oh, and princesses who live in castles on clouds and break into random songs about birds, brooms and beaus. Or you drive to the mid-west and suddenly find yourself the only one in a large crowd of people not wearing a cowboy hat and boots. It's just the way our world works.
If it's true in our country, it's doubly true coming from (or going to) another country. It's even true if you've been in another country for a while and then come back to the country of your birth, believe it or not. So just for fun, here are some stories of reverse culture shock and cultural discoveries, as experienced over the last few weeks.

Orlando airport, 2 AM, May 27
I am dying of thirst. I never drink much when I travel and I've been out of my house now for about 16 hours. I have two big, heavy suitcases, plus my backpack and my purse, and I can't leave them unattended. But I am so thirsty. And there's another problem. It's 2 AM and there is nothing open, as far as I can see. I go to look, sweating in the Orlando heat, wheeling my suitcases with me. I'm getting desperate, looking around for one place that's open, where I can buy one measly little bottle of water. Is that too much to ask? If I don't find water soon, they are going to find a dead body when the airport wakes up in the morning. And then I spy it. Hanging on the wall, refreshment, free for the taking, a small silver bowl with a button that says PUSH. In my head, I see the light shining on it, as though from a spotlight above it. I hear the music, the long "voila" sound that comes with some great discovery. I rush over to it like a dehydrated desert tourist would rush to a tiny oasis. I push the button and, like magic, water gushes out the top. I stand there and drink for what feels like forever, trying desperately to satiate the deep thirst inside. Finally, unable to intake any more water, I breathe a deep sigh of relief and marvel at the beauty of the simple water fountain.

Lancaster, PA, 9 AM, May 30
Pancakes are a pretty good option for a breakfast food, I thought. My roommate CJ was outside painting and I was determined to make a good breakfast for us both. I know how to make pancakes. So I measured and mixed and found everything I needed. 1 egg, it said. Open up the refrigerator. That's normal. Grab the egg carton (eggs don't come the same way in Peru, but that wasn't too bad.) Then I opened up the egg carton and started laughing hysterically as I saw, marching across each little white egg in pink ink "Use by...." and a date. I suppose US chickens must be smarter than Peruvian chickens, knowing how to eat all those letters in order so they'll come out in order on the egg. I've decided part of my ministry for my second term in Peru will be teaching chickens how to write the expiration date on their eggs, just to prove to myself forever that I am a good teacher! :)

Lancaster, PA, 3 PM, May 30
Apparently, the days of struggling to carry 4 big bags of groceries in from the car are a thing of the not-so-distant past. The modern American woman can carry 8 or even 10 bags of groceries in from the car without breaking a sweat or throwing her back out. Why? Because they only bag 1 TYPE of food in a bag! Why? Who knows! Maybe they need more bags to recycle to make that plastic wood they use for playgrounds nowadays. Maybe one type of food can infest another. Or maybe they are only making water-bottle caps half as big so that they can use all the extra plastic to make plastic bags. I've decided that as often as I can remember, I'm taking a Peruvian market bag to the grocery store from now on.

Lancaster, PA, 5 PM, May 30
It's been a day for culture shock. Might as well make it a full day and head to the grocery store with CJ and Liz to pick up some extras we forgot earlier. And so my brain is overloaded with 50 choices of everything from cookies (how many kinds of Oreos can people come up with?) to yogurt (organic, plain, whipped, natural, light, fruit-flavored, Greek style...). I have yet to venture into the cereal aisle. I realized why the American society has such a problem with eating too much junk food. We have too many options and can never get bored with them. And the advertising industry is built around one thing: make one good thing, get people hooked on it; improve it and get people to buy more. Unfortunately, as I've also realized in the grocery store over the past few weeks, the good-for-you food is the stuff you can get anywhere in the world. The stuff that I look at and go "Well, I haven't had that for a while!" is the junk food. Not a good thing. I think I'll take minimal trips to the grocery store this summer. It's okay...I can't find anything when I'm there anyway! Guess that's why they make those "Where to find it in the grocery store" signs that hang from the ceiling, for people like me.

Lancaster PA, 11:30 AM, mid-June
Liz and I left home an hour ago to run errands and we're coming back already! I laugh, making a comparison to doing errands in Peru, where getting downtown alone takes me 45 minutes on public transportation. And then I realize something. If I can pack 5 things in a day in Peru, I can pack about 10 in the same day in the US. Things move faster and take less time. And then I got to thinking about cooking. Cooking in Peru is easily a 1-2 hour process (longer, if you take forever to cook, like I do) till you get everything together, cut it all up and cook it. There are virtually no pre-cooked meals that you pop in the oven for 20 minutes and serve, no pre-chopped vegetables or ones that come from a can. Therefore, it would seem that if the American lifestyle moves so much faster than the Peruvian one, there would be more time to cook from scratch like they do in Peru, right? Wrong! And as we drive through the streets of Lancaster, heading home, I realize again "This is definitely not Peru!"

Things are different here in the United States. But different isn't always bad. I enjoy sleeping in air-conditioning when it's 95 degrees outside. I also enjoy the remote control that came with the air conditioner I'm using when I get awake in the middle of the night a bit chilly and want to turn it off without fully waking up. And, as much as I believe there are way too many junk food options in the grocery store (way too many options, period), they do look awfully good!

There is, however, one thing that does not change: God. God is the same whether I'm looking up at a star-studded sky in Peru or eating cherries in Lancaster. I'm so thankful for the assurance that God is always the same and will never change.

Living between Two Worlds

For those of you who are not aware of this, I am in the States!
I arrived back on May 27 and am living in Lancaster city for the summer with some friends, reconnecting, recharging and getting ready to go back for another three years in Peru. I'd really like to get together with as many people as possible during this time, so hopefully I'll be able to see all of you this summer.
Being a missionary is a unique position to be in. There is a part of me that is in two worlds and I'm trying to learn how to live between the two of them. There is a part of me that is American. I look it, I speak it, and I think it and I love my people here. There is also a part of me that is Peruvian. I speak it, I think it and I love my people there also. (I don't look it yet. They tell me I should dye my hair. I'm not convinced yet.)
So, for those of you who wonder "What does it look like or feel like to live between two worlds?", let me give you a glimpse.
It means....
... people threatening to tie you up and keep you in one place while people in the other place threaten punishment if you don't visit. And you want both.
... leaving home to go home and missing home while you're home.
... leaving family to go see family and missing family while you're with family.
... being surrounded by open arms. One set is open, releasing you while the other set is open, receiving you. And then they turn around and release you again to the other set of arms, which is open to receive you back.
... always wondering, no matter which world you are in, what is happening in the other world.
... two sets of favorite foods that you crave while you're away.
... doing things that seem a little off-kilter because "that's how you do it in the other world".
... constantly comparing things in your mind between the two worlds, no matter where you are.

In another vein, I feel a little bit like I am living Acts 2 right now, where everyone shared everything in common. I feel so blessed being back in Lancaster, among my family here again, enjoying seeing everyone after so long. Thank you all for the warm welcome back, for listening and loving, for understanding, for spending time, for doing and for just being. You are a blessing.

Life as I see it...

I'm so thankful for people who can see beyond life as I see it. I'm thankful for the people who see beyond the day-to-day stuff and can see a bigger picture than I see most days as I live out the normal, day-to-day routines. I'm thankful for the random surprise notes in the post office box that say "You are making a difference" or "We're praying for you" or "God is using you". It is such a blessing and an encouragement to me to hear that. Why? Because many times it's so easy to get stuck missing the forest for the trees.
It strikes me funny sometimes the way life is. I don't even feel most of the time like I'm living in another country because it becomes so normal after a while. Someone commented to me the other month, "You have such an interesting life!" It is interesting. I can't deny it. I love living in Peru. I love my life. I love the opportunities to walk on history, squeeze on public transportation, blunder my way through a sentence in Quechua and wash bananas in jungle rivers. But I feel like most of the time, life in Peru is just...well...life with a little more spice and interesting additions than normal. Not that life is boring by any means - not in the least! But there are a lot of things that are just a part of normal life and don't feel too spectacular or glamorous or interesting. Most days just fly by in a mad rush of grading homework, teaching classes, planning lessons, making up worksheets, washing dishes, doing laundry, paying bills, trying to figure out the best way to teach my kids, making up games for school, eating lunch, trying to remember to drink enough water, doing paperwork, discussing some issue with someone, or going downtown to buy some necessary item. It's easy to get caught up in those things and miss the big-picture things, how God is moving and what God is doing through and in spite of me. Which is why I'm thankful for other people who have an outside perspective and open my eyes to see it too.
So thank you to all those who help remind me of the bigger picture, of the grand adventure I really am a part of, of the beauty of God's work that surrounds me. Thank you for those who remind and help me to look at the beauty of the forest and stop concentrating on the individual trees. And mostly, thank you to God, who is the author of it all and, in the midst of homework, schoolwork and housework, is working greater and grander things - things, like the author of Hebrews says, "not yet seen".

The Case of the Stranded Documents

It was a bright and sunny afternoon in Lima, Peru in January, 2011. I was accompanying John Kreider, fellow missionary, to take my residence card and passport to the offices of the National Evangelical Council of Peru (CONEP) to get my residence card stickered to make it legal for the next year. We took it there, dropped it off, grabbed some ice cream to beat the heat and went back to the hotel where the entire missionary team was staying on retreat. And that is when the great mystery began.
Several days later, we received a call that my residence card could NOT be updated for the next year, because, according to Peruvian immigrations, I have been in Bolivia for the past two years. To clear up any confusion, I was in Bolivia two years ago for vacation, but I most definitely DID come back and I HAVE been here for the past two years, very much living in Cusco, Peru. Mystery number 1: Why does Peru think I am in Bolivia? Answer number 1: They don't have any record of me re-entering Peru, though I'm sure I gave it to them at the border... Mystery number 2: Why was this not a problem last year? Answer number 2: I have no idea...
My case: Upon entering Bolivia the first time, 2 1/2 years ago, I did not want to pay the $130 visa fee for Americans. Therefore, having Peruvian residency, I used my residency card to pass the border and escaped paying the $130 fee. No one said anything and I innocently rejoiced in the great savings. Entering Bolivia again 4 months later, I did the same thing. Apparently, I'm not supposed to go anywhere without using my passport because then the record of my travels on my passport and my travels on my residence card do not match up. I don't understand what the big deal is, but whatever.
I needed my documents in order to fly back to Cusco, so we returned to the CONEP offices for them before leaving Lima. Upon returning to Cusco, I promptly sent my documents back to Lima and waited. And waited...about a week. Finally, CONEP responded to my inquiries by telling me that they were going to do some kind of a "regularization of migratory movement", annulling the last time I went to Bolivia. Then after that, they should be able to update my residence card with no problem. I rejoiced in the good news and answer to prayer.
Then I learned that the Peruvian government now requires all power of attorney letters to be notarized (brand new law). I needed to get one legalized so that the CONEP people could do all my paperwork for me.
Problem: you can't get anything notarized in Cusco without either a passport or a valid Peruvian identity document. All of my stuff was in Lima. So I had to ask CONEP to send me back my passport so I could notarize the letter and send the whole works back to them. They did and I did. And then I waited again. And waited.
Finally, last week I got another email from them. Apparently, immigrations in Lima had to talk to immigrations in Puno (where I left the country to go to Bolivia), in order to do this regularization of migratory movement. And apparently, immigrations in Puno has not responded to immigrations in Lima yet. So CONEP has to file a formal complaint with immigrations in Lima because they are taking so long.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is all I know. I am praying for favor with the government and praying that my documents can get miraculously saved from the black hole of government offices in Lima so that I can buy plane tickets to go to the States this summer. I'm praying it can all get resolved quickly and that in the end, everything would work out. Please join with me in prayer for my stranded documents to be liberated and to return to Cusco safe, healthy and soon.

Jungle Adventures, chapter 2: Bananas 101

They say better late than never, so here's installment two...

Early Tuesday morning, we were awakened by Meche's sister Doris informing us that their brother Rony and his wife Noelia had gotten through the river okay in their truck, coming back from Cusco, and were waiting outside to take us to a native village called Shintuya because they had a load of passengers to take. They have an interesting job. Their job is to transport bananas to Cusco in their truck and then bring back food staples, passengers, and whatever else other people request from Cusco to the jungle, because you can't get a lot of things in the jungle. But when it rains a lot and the river gets really high, they sometimes have problems getting through. Everyone was relieved to hear they'd made it okay. So we quickly got dressed and hopped in the back of the truck, in the drizzly remnants of the previous night's torrential downpour. The truck was covered with a thick canvas so the rain didn't get in, but it was rather chilly for the jungle anyway. After the drizzle stopped and we passed all the police points, Rony stopped his truck, put a mattress in the little basket over the cab and Meche, Lisi and I hopped in. It was like going on a safari riding on a giraffe. We were about 10 feet off the ground and had a beautiful, unobstructed view of the jungle and the scenery around us. Except for the chilly wind and the bugs implanting themselves in our faces, it was perfect and I realized it was probably a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that not many people can say they've had! :) We rode this way about an hour until we got to the native community of Shintuya. "Native" actually means "civilized native". There are real native communities in the Peruvian jungle (a lot of them, actually), but these natives were clad and lived a bit more like the rest of Peruvian society. We didn't stay long there, but we did stay long enough to see a family of natives heading to the hills barefoot to go hunting for several days or weeks. And we got to see their canoes and things. It was an interesting little visit. Then we headed back to a village called Mansilla, along the banks of a river. In that village is where most of the bananas that Rony and Noelia transport are grown. They get a lot of their bananas from church members and then bring things back to Cusco for them and others. While they sold their merchandise from the back of their truck, we wandered down to the river to wait for them. It was shallow and crystalline. We found a rock filled with clay that we used to paint our faces like natives (or at least like we thought natives would paint their faces). And we found a clump of mud that we used to do our own mud facials. So we found plenty to do while waiting for Rony and Noelia. In the afternoon, we headed back to Noelia's family's house in Salvacion and hung out with them for the afternoon. We headed home and enjoyed a quiet evening at Meche's sister's house. Wednesday morning, we were supposed to meet Rony and Noelia at Noelia's family's house so that we could go back to Mansilla to have the adventure of picking up bananas with them. It ended up that plans changed and we were going to go to Noelia's family's banana field in the afternoon. So we cooked lunch to take with us and then headed out in the truck for the banana field. When we got there, we ate lunch, then headed down to the field. Rony and another guy from the church were cutting bananas to take to Cusco and we headed out with a machete to find what we could find. Before we went down into the field, they were telling me I was going to have a rough time of it. I'd washed my only pair of long pants the night before by hand and they were still considerably wet. Plus, I thought we were going to the river, so I wore capris. In the end, Noelia's mom had an extra pair of old socks that she cut the toes out of. So I stretched them between my ankles and knees and was able to enjoy the afternoon. Ah, the grace of God found in the most unexpected places! :) We ended up finding a bunch of papayas that needed harvesting. So I had my first jungle fruit harvesting course. Papaya harvesting 101:

1. Find a long stick with a fork in the end.

2. Make sure you have two people with something big like a blanket that they can hold between them.

3. Stick the forked stick on the stem of the papaya and push till the stem breaks.

4. Catch the papaya in the blanket and put it gently on the ground, being careful to not touch the sap, which apparently makes your skin burn.

Hacking our way through the undergrowth with a machete, we eventually found their cornfield also. I was quite excited to see small-kernel corn and was hoping it was American-style sweet corn. I carefully brought an ear home with me in my bag, cooked it and eagerly bit into it. No such luck. Field corn. :( Meanwhile, the guys were hacking down heavy bunches of bananas with machetes and carrying them on their backs up a fairly steep, muddy slope to the waiting truck. We finished mid-afternoon and went home for a MUCH-needed shower before the Wednesday evening church service. We wanted to teach them some of the songs we know from church, so in between showering, we copied 6 of them down on big chart papers and taught them to the church. After the service we celebrated the birthday of one of the church members with Coke and crackers. Apparently, he doesn't really have family to celebrate with him, so it was fun to help be a part of that.

The next morning, we woke up bright and early in more rain to head back to Mansilla to pick up a load of bananas for Rony and Noelia to take back to Cusco. Thus began the course I like to call Bananas 101. We ended up having to wait all morning because of the rain and because the special truck that can go up the river to collect the bananas was not available. Around 11 it came and we left to head up the river in the truck. Lisi stayed behind with the truck (and to nap a bit), but Meche and I had quite an adventure dodging branches that wanted to slap us in the face as the truck literally went straight up the river. It was not a deep river, but the truck was designed to go straight up it. After driving about half an hour or so, we got to where the church people and their bananas were waiting for us along the river. They found it quite entertaining to hear me conversing in my semi-butchered Quechua. These brothers and sisters grow the bananas in their fields, then cut them down and haul them carefully to the river. If they are not careful, the bananas will get bruised and mushed and they won't be good anymore. While we were there, about 15 bunches of bananas (okay, not little bunches like you get at the grocery store, but imagine about 20 of those bunches on a huge, thick stem). This is one way that they can provide for their famillies. The truck filled up with bananas quickly and Meche and I ended up walking back to Rony's truck down the river, following the banana truck. Once the banana truck got back to Rony's truck, the bananas were carefully unloaded into the river. The big, thick stems that support all the little bunches of bananas make it difficult to fill Rony's truck to max capacity, so we spent all afternoon cutting the bananas off the stems. We made a dam with the stems of bananas which kept the individual small bunches from floating away. The only problem with washing bananas is the bugs. Big spders and cockroaches love to live in bananas and I caused consternation on several occasions by letting out little screams when they found me. I had to remember the stories my high school history teacher told about his adventures unloading bananas in the States and finding spiders the size of his hand. Those stories were never far from my mind. And then I discovered something else - stinging ants.

All of a sudden, while I was rinsing the sticky sap off the bananas and getting them ready to head back to Cusco, burning pain shot through my finger. It quickly moved up into my biceps. Being out in the middle of nowhere in the jungle, not knowing what it was exactly, hearing stories of biting spiders and ants that cause instantaneous fever does not exactly make for warm fuzzy feelings. Meche, Lisi and I were all a bit concerned until Noelia was able to diagnose it. The sting hurt like crazy for an hour or two and I stopped washing bananas and turned instead to supper detail with Noelia. By this time, it was getting dark and we still needed to finish washing the bananas and then load them to the truck. I started helping again after supper and we finished by around midnight. We then drove back into Mansilla, about 2 minutes away, and collapsed on blanket-mattresses on the floor of the community room. Between the thought of what could be crawling over my face while I was sleeping and the hard cement floor beneath me, I didn't exactly sleep like I would have had I been in my bed. We awoke early on Friday morning, planning on heading back to Salvaciion pretty directly. However, there were more bananas to be collected, so we ended up leaving mid-morning. Back in Salvacion, we took our time getting showers and decided we'd go later to check about getting tickets to go back to Cusco that afternoon. I had to be back quickly in order to leave again on Sunday morning for team retreat, so we needed to make sure we got going that day. We found tickets for an 11:30 bus that would take us about an hour to where we could get another bus to Cusco. So that's what we did. We waited around all afternoon at a restaurant in Pillcopata, where the first bus dropped us off, then boarded the other bus in Pillcopata to go back to Cusco. I was warned before we left not to accept any bags or anything from strangers because they'd be coca leaves (the basis from which cocaine is made). And really, we stopped at a police checkpoint in the middle of the night sometime and they found a whole feed bag full of coca leaves that they confiscated. It was a pretty crazy scene - police yelling, people yelling, mass pandemonium on the bus. But we made it through, made it through the holes in the road, through the swaying bus, through even more rain, through a long night of traveling and arrived back in Cusco the next morning around 6:30, exhausted but having enjoyed our many, many adventures in the jungle. It was an unforgettable trip, educational, fun, exhausting, exhilarating, difficult at some points, but totally, totally worth it all.

Here's a link to my photos on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=273110&id=610351019&l=702ee172ce

Jungle Adventures Chapter 1: Who told the pastor I'm the visiting preacher??

Ever since the end of last year, I'd been talking with Lisi and Meche, two of my good friends from church, about taking a trip into the jungle. That's the one part of Peru that I hadn't explored yet and I had an itching to go (I still have an itching....but now it's from mosquito bites!) Meche has a brother and a sister who both live in the jungle, in a town called Salvación, so we had contacts and somewhere to stay. We had a bit of confusion as to when we would leave. We were hoping to be able to hitch a ride into the jungle with Meche's brother, but he ended up leaving almost a week later than we wanted to leave, so we decided to take a bus in. 5:30 PM they said the bus left. So I got there around 5. I began to worry a bit when people began to say that we shouldn't take a lot of weight, that the roads were bad and that it wasn't safe. I'm used to traveling adventures in Peru, so I wasn't too surprised, but it was a little disconcerting. I met up with Meche's sister Doris and we began our trip. Meche and Lisi said they'd meet up with us in Huacarpay, since the bus was going right past there anyhow. We stopped in San Jeronimo (where I live) to eat supper. They said we'd have half an hour. We decided to go for chicken and fries (very typical). We were just eating our chicken when one of the other occupants of the bus, an acquaintance of Meche's sister, came in and was like "The bus is about to leave!" So we asked for bags for our chicken, got another order of chicken for Meche, and ran back to the bus, only to sit there and finish our chicken before the bus left. Hurry up and wait. We finally left Huacarpay around 7:00 and began our journey. By this time it was dark, so we weren't able to see much and we were tired, so we tried to sleep. We were awakened by our arrival in Paucartambo, the last main town we passed through and a popular tourist destination, where we took a pit stop around 11 PM. The rest of the night after that we were not able to sleep because the bus was lurching back and forth, bouncing and jouncing over potholes and sounding very much as if the screws holding it together were going to come unscrewed. At one point, they turned on the lights, said "Everybody off the bus" and we had to walk around this one big hole in the road. The bus went through minus passengers and we all got back on on the other side. Actually, the road was not too bad for our trips in and out. It could have been worse. We could have gotten stuck or rolled over or something like that. Both have been known to happen. But we made it, safe and sound, after having crossed a shallow river in the bus, at 6:30 Saturday morning. After a basically sleepless night, we were all tired, so we took a short nap in the morning and a longer one in the afternoon. We made lunch for ourselves and Meche's sister and brother-in-law. When we gathered for lunch, they had coconuts for all of us. Coconut milk is okay, not my favorite, but definitely drinkable. They say it's very good for you. That evening, refreshed by our napping, we helped to make bread to sell to the local stores. That is one source of income for Doris and Wilbert, Meche's sister and brother-in-law. It was fun to see how the bread is made, though we could tell we weren't professionals. Our bread turned out large, small, flat, puffy, heart-shaped, you name it. Wasn't too bad for our first time though. Sunday morning we got up and got ready to go to church. The church in Salvación is a small, cement-block structure with no windows, doors, or sound system. Doris said there are about 50 people in all who attend the church, though we only ever saw about 30 at a time. The service was fine, but the really funny part came after the service, when the pastor walked home with us. He looked at me and said "So, you're going to bring the word tonight?" I stared at him, rather stupefied. We had plans to go to a lake that afternoon, so I checked with the girls whether they thought we'd have time to go and come back. They did, so I told him I would. It was kind of hard to say no when I could tell he was expecting me to say yes, though I didn't particularly want to preach and felt a little strange that he had asked me specifically and not all three of us. We spent the afternoon at Machuwasi Lake, where we saw lots of beautiful jungle scenery and some birds as well. It was a fun afternoon. We got back home just in time to shower, change clothes, and head to church. There is no public street lighting in Salvación, so we went to church by flashlight. I preached on 2 Cor. 5:17-21, what I'd been studying in my own devotions. It went fine, though nothing super spectacular or anything. I don't think I'll quit my day job and become a pastor. Monday morning we decided that at the Wednesday service we wanted to try to teach the church some new songs, since they'd sung basically the same songs in the morning and evening services the day before. So we spent the morning thinking of songs we'd like to teach them and writing down the words. It was a long process, but fun. Then it was time to make bread again. After all that heat and work, we were ready for a swim. So we went down to the river - cool, clear, beautiful water rushing over smooth, colorful stones. Yeah, it was pretty beautiful. The river wasn't deep, so Meche got a creative idea. Why not put rocks on each other's backs like they do in a spa? I was first. Then Lisi put rocks on Meche's back. Then I got up and put rocks on Lisi's back. It WAS relaxing laying there in the water, cooling off, with little colored rocks on our backs. We stayed there until it was getting dark and cool and then went back to the house. I was glad for the chance to relax. Little did we know all the adventures we'd have in the next few days...

For more pictures, follow this link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=267051&id=610351019&l=cb87e7538f

Merry Christmas and Happy 2011!

I guess you could say an unofficial (because I've never written it down or anything) New Year's resolution is to blog more. Hopefully it will help to have Internet all year this year... :)
So I guess that means I need to tell you what I've been up to! Well...
School ended with a bang. The last day of school was Wednesday, Dec. 15, followed the next day by an 18-hour workday making report cards (till 1:30 AM), followed the next day by the closing program of the school year, followed the next day by the first PROMESA sixth grade graduation. Needless to say, we were all QUITE ready for summer vacation, after all that! The next day was Sunday, and I got a new roommate. Her name is Mary and she's been a blessing and quite a lot of fun the last few weeks. The next week we were finishing up grades and final paperwork until Thursday. Thursday afternoon, we celebrated Christmas with Marga here at our house. Friday was Christmas Eve. Mary and I went to the annual Santurantikuy Christmas Eve market in the Plaza de Armas downtown that morning. Despite the drizzle and the huge crowds, it was quite enjoyable. That afternoon, we headed out to Huacarpay and "helped" (mainly just watched) cut up an entire lamb to make lamb soup for the service that evening. The service was fun. There was a short message and time of worship and then it was opened up for special numbers, which included a lot of dancing and singing and lasted till midnight. At midnight we ate the lamb soup (very yummy!) and gave everyone hugs, then went home to sleep. Christmas Day, we were in Huacarpay for the morning, waking up and eating breakfast. We got home around noon and got ready to go to the missionary Christmas dinner. That was delicious! Then, in the afternoon, I left to talk to my family and go to Marga's house for a bit. I felt very blessed and surrounded by many loved ones. The next week was filled with different social activities - birthdays, cookie making, game nights, etc. New Year's Eve, we headed back out to Huacarpay for the birthday of some friends' mom. Then we went to the church in San Jeronimo for a New Year's Eve service filled with all kinds of music and some really fast Quechua that I had a hard time keeping up with. And of course, food. Nothing in Peru is complete without food. That is literal. Rice, salad, chicken cordon bleu, some traditional desserts, and the oh-so-yummy and very traditional fruitcake and hot chocolate. We went to Marisol's house stuffed and spent New Year's Eve with Mari and her family and Norminda playing Uno. At midnight, we all went out to the street and watched the fireworks lighting up San Jeronimo like multi-colored fireflies in a field on a summer's night. After wishing everyone a happy new year and praying blessings over the year, we went back inside and watched the first part of Inception, till we got too tired. We finished in the morning, then went back home. The new year began on a delicious note (can you tell there is no shortage of food in my life here?) with a major grilling session with Rolando, Francisca and Christian (the owners of our house and their son), Mary, the Kreiders and I. Chicken, beef, kebabs, sausages, garlic bread and veggies, plus dessert, all on the grill....delicious!
Christmas Eve, as I looked around my church, I realized that these are my Christmas presents. These people, these relationships, these memories, my family worldwide - these are the blessings of Christmas, the blessings that I have been given in abundance.

On that note, I posted some pictures on facebook of my Christmas celebrations and a bit of the craziness. :) For those of you not on facebook, here is the link to the album. Enjoy and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from me to you. Blessings!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=255426&id=610351019&l=b63b1161eb